Bulwark doors

Both the fore deck of my trawler and the aft deck are surrounded by a 36" tall bulwark, and to get on board the boat, and move from the pilot house to the fore deck, I had to create doors to pass through the bulwark.

If you look up the definition of bulwark you will find phrases such as a wall like structure raised for the purpose of defense. Basically, the bulwark is a solid steel fence surrounding the boat. Most boats use a handrail type system of stanchions and rails ( either pipe or wire for the rails). I like the solid bulwark, and although heavy, it adds a huge level of security to life on deck. On the fore deck, I added a 1 1/2" stainless steel pipe handrail to the top of the bulwark, giving me a finished height of about 44"... pretty comfortable height. Ive yet to add a hand rail to the aft deck as I am worried about interfering with the view as the aft deck will be the sun downer lounge.

The aft deck has two doors to use to gain access to the boat depending on how she is moored. The choice to get on board will either be by using the swim platform, and up the three steps to the deck, or using steps on the dock, the through the bulwark on the starboard side.

The wheel house is protected from the fore deck by another type of bulwark called a Portuguese Bridge. This is basically the same as the deck bulwarks, but much taller @ 46". The Portuguese Bridge will allow one to leave the wheel house while at sea with a greater sense of security. The Portuguese bridge also adds a huge level of protection to the wheel house in rougher times when green water might be getting to the fore deck. To get from the wheel house to the fore deck, you have to pass through the third door I had to fabricate.

The bulwarks and the Portuguese bridge are one of the architectural details to this boat that makes the boat more blue water capable.

The doors are hinged by a simple 1/2" stainless steel pins that have the door sliding over the pin. To make the hinges, I welded heavy walled tube to a tab, then fit the 1/2" pin to the tube. To avoid having to turn the pins, and bore the tubes, I used material with the same outside diameter and inside diameter. Since the pins and tubes are the same ID and OD, I knurled the pin at the pin/tube interface to create an interference fit between the pin and the tube. I removed a few thousandths of the pin on the door side while I had them in the lathe for a smooth action of the door on the hinge. The pins can be removed with a punch and hammer. While I was in the hinge making mode, I decide to make and extra set of pins for all the doors and add them to the spare parts inventory for the boat.

I wanted a simple, robust way to latch the doors closed, so I decided to fabricate a dogs for the doors. To make the door dog, I used 3/4" stainless rod, and rounded over the ends on the lathe using a round over bit. I then bored a 1/2" hole through the handle. On the door side of the dog, I used some 5/8" stainless round stock, and turned about an 1 1/4" of the stock down to 1/2". I then used the lathe to cut threads on the now 1/2" piece to fit 13 TPI nuts. Im using nyloc nuts so that the action of the handle will not loosen the nut as the handle is turned. All the doors will land against a wooden jamb that I will bolt the the bulwark frame, then the door dog will be turned against a stainless steel wear plate screwed to the wooden jamb to lock the doors down fast. I might add a gasket between the door and the jamb to help help with keeping paint on the door edge.

The doors are painted the green color of the hull on the outside and the off white color of the bulwark on the inside. The green paint went on the doors great, but I had some problems with the white paint. For some reason the white did not want to atomize, and I found myself with my first paint problem. I tried some reducer in the paint, but that make the paint to thin, and it would not stay vertical so I got some sags. My paint supplier is helping me work this problem out, and once I get a handle on the problem, Ill finish painting the doors and post some installed pictures.

Ive tried to repaint the white on the doors by tweaking a few things with not much luck. One thing I have discovered is that the acrylic urethane paint Im using is extremely tough. Because Im unhappy with the finish of the white, Ive had to sand the poor finish back down to provide a smooth substrate for the next coat of paint. This is the first time Ive ever had to sand this paint, and given what Ive experienced, I can promise all of you who are reading is that this paint will have excellent abrasion and toughness, and will give me years and years of service.

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Master cabin cabinet doors

If youre ever in the market to get your fingers bobbed, grab a six pack of tall boys and come on over to my shop where you can play around with the wood shaper. The wood shaper has a 3 hp motor and whirls some heavy bits around at 12,000 rpm. The sound made by the bits spinning is almost as impressive as the wood that pukes out the discharge shoot. The shaper is a nice tool I bought about 20 years ago while I was renovating houses, and its becoming quite the handy item on the big boat build.

The doors I built for the three cabinets in the master cabin are straight forward cabinet style doors. They are what Id call frame and panel doors consisting of styles and rail pieces with a raised panel. These doors are overlay doors meaning the sit on top of the cabinets face frame vs a flush door that would fit within the face frame. Overlay doors are much easier to build and require a tenth of the precision that flush doors require. The method of joinery Im using is called cope and stick. Basically one cuts a grooved profile in the panel side of all the styles and rails, then you cope the rail ( top and bottom horizontal pieces) to fit into that profile. The panel then floats in that frame you just created. Its a pretty nice looking door and adds a little more detail than one would get by using a flat plywood panel.

Ive built some doors for some other projects lately, and on those projects I used 1/4" plywood for the panels. On the boat build, Ive decided to invest more of my time and build raised panels for all the cabinets ( well at least the cabinets in the master cabin and probably the galley). Because the raise panel is a solid wood panel, I had to build the doors to allow for seasonal movement of the panel. The air is pretty dry here now that we are in the late fall time, so if fit the panel on the loose side. I gave myself 1/4" gap all around the panel to allow the panel to "float" within the frame. I cut some pieces of 1/4" foam backer rod and stuffed the backer rod in to the groove of the style and rail before I assembled the door. The backer rod holds the panel centered in the frame while allowing it to expand and contract as humidity changes. After I get all the finish on the doors, I might go back and put a dab of glue in the center of the rail @ the center of the panel. Since wood expands across the grain, a little bit of glue at this location will allow the panel to expand while helping with any rattle I might get when the door closes. If one would glue the panel tight all the way around the style and rail frame, it wouldnt be long before the expanding panel would destroy the frame. Before I assembled the doors I put a coat of finish on all the panels. If I didnt finish the panel prior to assembly, a line of unfinished wood would show up once the panel started to expand or contract. I clamped some boards to the edge of the work bench to help keep the doors square while I assembled them. I then checked the diagonals to assure the door was perfectly square before I clamped them.

After I assembled the doors, I gave each door three coats of urethane sanding with 320 grit between coats. I used a self closing hinge that holds the door shut. I dont think Ill put much faith in these hinges holding the door shut once the boat experiences some weather, so Ill install some catches of some style to make sure the doors stay shut. While the drawers have no pull hardware, Im thinking of installing some pulls on the doors.

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Water tight doors

While waiting for parts for the steering system I decided to install the water tight doors in the engine room. As my son would say, " everything tight doors" is really a better description.

The doors have been laying around the shop ever since I bought them at the start of the build. I welded the frames in to the bulkheads, then forgot about the doors. The door leading into the engine room from our cabin is a six dog quick acting door with a port light. Since I dont need the aluminum dead light that came with the door, I took it off. The port light glass in this door is 1/2" thick tempered, and the door itself is 1/4" thick. This door is what I would call severe duty, and is both water tight and fire tight. When this door shuts, things are pretty much final, and no air or water is getting past it.

The door leading from the engine room to the lazarette is a four dog door that is not quick acting. It too, has a port light and is also 1/4" thick. Since this door has no adjustments, the new gasket and dogs are still tight, and I have to use a rubber dead blow mallet to close the dogs. I dont have to hit the dogs to hard, but the mallet works better than my hand. Ill end up buying a dedicated mallet, and hang it on a hook next to the door.

Both doors have a bronze port light in them, and we decide to polish the port light. I had some stainless steel pickling paste in the shop, and brushing some of that on the bronze took the tarnish right off. It was almost too easy and looked like one of those Billy Mays commercials except for the fact that pickling paste is nasty stuff and will give one a good burning if youre not careful. After the acid treatment, I gave them a good scrubbing in cold water, the put a paste wax finish on them to try to keep the tarnish at bay. Well see how this works out.

Both the AC and DC light switch for the engine room is in our cabin so I can see in to the engine room through the port light without opening the door. I felt like this was important in case something was going on in that room I wanted to see and still maintain the integrity of water and fire tight. It also makes it easy to do a quick check without letting the noise and heat in to the cabin. The light switch for the lazarette is outside the lazarette, in the engine room, for the same purpose of being able to look in without opening the door.

I think Im going to fit some mineral wool insulation in the quick acting door from our cabin. The engine room is heavily insulated, and the door is really the weak link in the insulating chain. Id guess an inch of insulation will knock the noise that will be hitting the door down by 80%.

An update on the fuel system is also needed. I had to re think the priming pump as the chevy pump I had on my shelf was not up to the lift out of the day tank. I found a new Walbro pump on Ebay for not much money, and got it installed. Walbro is a top of the line pump and with just three moving parts, this pump should last the life of the boat. Ill only use this pump to prime either the generator or main engine after I service the filters or for an emergency such as an engine loosing prime, or one of the engines loosing its factory mounted lift pump. This pump is rated at continuous duty, so if one of the factory mounted lift pumps fail, I can always rely upon he Walbro as a good back up. Once I got the pump installed and fired up, it quickly picked up the fuel and filled my filter. I opened the valve leading to the generator, and got fuel flowing to the fuel pump. Just for kicks, I cracked one of the injectors, and had fuel spitting out of the injector. That engine is primed and ready to fire. I might use some street 90s for connecting the pump to the valves, and do away with the loops you see and make things more streamlined.

Im still putting pieces together for the steering system, and should be working on that within a week or so.

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Passage doors

There are five wooden passage doors in the lower cabin area between the various rooms. The master cabin has an entrance door, the kids dressing room has an entrance door, the kids dressing room has a door leading to the bunk room, and both the master cabin and kids bunk room has a door leading to the common bathroom. Im narrowing down the names for the boat and at the top of the list is: " I"m glad I did not bid this job since this turned out to be a ton more work that Id figured". It might be hard to get that name to fit on the transom, but hopefully you get the jest of my lame joke and how much work went in to the passage door project. In all seriousness about a boat name, every time I think of naming her, I keep hearing Neil Youngs opening guitar salvo of the song "Homegrown" so Im keeping that name on the boat name list as she is totally homegrown/ built.

The first order of business on the passage doors was deciding on the method of construction. I could have made things easy on myself and gone with plywood slabs for doors. I really did not want the look of the plywood slab, so I quickly ruled that method out. I know I wanted a frame and panel door so I just needed to work out some construction issues. My cabinet frame and panel shaper cutter set seemed like the obvious choice to build these doors, but the more I got to thinking about it, the more I started to think that method would not be robust enough for passage doors. Ththe set of cutters I have is made for 3/4" thick stock. I was having doubts I could get 3/4" stock to stay flat on a door that was going to be over 6 tall. I was also concerned that the cope and stick pattern of the cutter would not give enough glue area on the joints to be able to handle a the violent slamming these large doors might see once we are at sea. Also, the shaper cutter set is tooled to form a 1/4" groove, so 1/4" plywood or raised panels would have to be used for the door panel. I did not want to use raised panels due to the environment of below deck relating to wood movement and also the amount of wood Id have to use, so I had to consider 1/4" plywood. The problem with 1/4" plywood is that it is only good on one side so Id end up with a door with one good veneer side, and a not so good side. If I were going to use the cabinet door shaper cutter set, I would also have to consider reinforcing the joint with dowels to give the door a fighting chance of surviving life at sea.

I have been bouncing ideas of door construction off of a builder/cabinet maker I work for, Ted Lenord of LTS builders, and he kind of went along with my fantasy of getting these doors built fast and cheap, but I think he tired of me dragging this out and one day told me "listen up MO FO, youre either going to do this job half assed or your going to do it the right way and build a mortise and tenon door." Ted was right so I decided upon the mortise and tenon method.

I started picking through my stack of air dried Cherry, and soon realized I did not have enough stock to make all the styles and rails I needed since I wanted the style and rail thickness to be 1 1/4". I for sure did not want to pay retail for this amount of lumber so I decided to laminate material together to get my 1 1/4" thick stock. I had a four inch H beam in the shop so I used that as my surface to clamp the plys to for my laminating process. I decided to use two plys for the lamination. The laminating process was pretty straight forward as I would pick my stock, straight edge it and rip, plane to thickness, then rip a thinner piece to make the final laminate. I would then pick the best sides, make sure the grain went opposing directions, spread glue with a paint roller then clamp both plys to the H beam. I only had enough clamps to do one piece at a time, so getting all e stock laminated took me almost 10 days. W hen I removed the stock from the form, I jointed one edged straight, then ripped to the final width and jointed the ripped edge. I waited to plane to final thickness once I was getting closer to assembling. Laminating in this method made for a board that was straight as string across all faces and also incredibly stiff. Im hoping that this will also make for a more stable door that will handle the moister levels an ocean going, tropical traveling boat will experience.

Once all the stock was jointed and planed to final thickness I could then plow the groove for the panel. I decided to use 1/2" Cherry plywood for the panel. I plowed the groove in the center of the styles and rails, stopping short on the the end of the style so the groove would be hidden. I used a stacked Dado cutter on my table saw to plow the panel groove.

The next step was to decide how I was going to cut the mortises . On projects past, Ive cut mortises with a drill press, then used a chisel to clean out the mortise. Ive also used my router mounted in a home made router table using an up cut spiral bit. For this job I decided to use my mill and a 1/2" up cut spiral bit. The mill was a nice tool to use for this for a couple of reasons. Reason number one is its quiet compared to a router. The best reason I like about using the mill is the precision I get with it. I have way too much time and resource involved in laminating my stock, and I really dont want to be making a mistake due to lack of precision or careless measuring. The depth of all the mortises was 1 1/4", and I was able to do that in two passes by maintaining a slow, constant feed using the mills hand crank table. It also helped that the tool was new and razor sharp, and that I was able to keep the mortise cleaned out while cutting it by using my shop air compressor.

To cut the tenons I again used the stacked dado cutter in the table saw. With the amount of time I had in laminating my stock, I was super cautious about cutting the tenons. I measured the thickness of the stock using a caliper, subtracted the tenon thickness, then divided by two to get the height of the shoulder cut. I then dialed in the height of the dado cutter and ran a test piece so I could accurately measure the cut with the caliper. Once I was sure of the depth of cut, I used a dial indicator to lower the cut a few thousandths to make sure my tenons finished out at least ten thousandths over 1/2" or .510. My goal with the tenon was to make sure I had a snug fit that would require a little work with a rasp and block plane to get a perfect fit in the mortise.

Having each mortise fit to its particular tenon, I dry fitted all of the doors. This last picture only shows four doors. The door not show is my prototype door, and is already installed on the boat. I"ll post again shortly after I have the doors glued and when Im ready to start hanging the doors on the jambs. I"m going to pre-hang the doors on their jambs to make installation easier. Ive yet to decide upon hardware but Ill discuss that more in my next post.

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