28-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Mollyhawk". Part IV.
Before laying the deck of 28-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Mollyhawk", while the hull is all open, is a good time to put in your engine bed, line up and connect your shaft and install the motor. Make a template for your gasoline tank and until that arrives fit in all the necessary floor beams both for cockpit and cabin floors. All can be fastened down with the exception of the forward cockpit floor beams. These will have to be left until the tank is in, so build a platform and sides to securely brace this tank in its proper place.
The floor beams for cockpit floor and cabin floor need not be dressed stock; that is, they can be left unplanned as they are entirely out of sight, the cabin floor, of course, being laid absolutely level; But the forward and after cock-pit floors which are exposed to the weather would be better off for a slight crown so the water will drain to either side where lead pipe scuppers are to be fitted down and out through the outer planking so the rainwater will run overboard. The main cabin floor can be made of wide stock, that is, boards 6 or 8 inches wide nailed down with the exception of a loose trap down the centre. These will permit get-ting into the bilge of the boat if occasion should require your cleaning out the limbers, or to clean out the bottom when you lay her up. The two cockpit floors should be only 2 to 4 inch strips, the narrower they are the more yachty is the appearance. These decks should be caulked payed and puttied and a rabbeted oak sill set in white lead and nailed down forming a sort of frame to receive the lower end of the cockpit staving. It takes a little extra work to get this rabbeted sill out and most amateurs, in-stead of doing so. will be tempted simply to nail a cleat on deck and then nail staving against this cleat; but the latter is very apt to leak, while the former insures an absolutely watertight job, and if you have ever lain in a bunk and felt the cold drip from a leaky deck you will know what this means. Take time and do it right now. You can-not change it later without a great deal of trouble and expense.
The laying of the side decks is slightly different. An oak edge-piece (sailors call it the "covering board") about 4 inches wide, the same thickness as the deck, which should be about one inch thick, is to be fitted so its outer edge is even with the outside of the planking. From there in the deck is laid in narrow strips. The forward and after ends of this decking are nailed to oak cleats fastened to the side of the after end of the house and the forward end of the after deck.
From the end of the raised deck the main cabin is made of two built-up sides consisting of a top and bottom rail with vertical stiles mortised and tenanted info them, forming the windows as shown in the plans. These sides are fastened to the deck by rods of five-sixteenths iron going through the lower rail through the deck and the end of the oak deck beams. By making these sides of 1-inch stock you will have wood enough to dovetail the ends of the short cabin beams into them. Here, also, it is customary to run one or two beams clear across from side to side to hold the sides accurately in position until all the others are in place, the deck laid and the sides of the skylight erected. Then, when the boat is secured by the skylight beams going across, these can be sawed out and -their ends, as well as all the other beams, covered by a 3-inch by 3/8-inch finishing strip or, if you do not object to the ends of the beams showing, you can round off the ends of the beams with a chisel and let them show.
The construction of the cabin skylight is just the same as the cabin sides, although, of course, it is longer. The beams are dovetailed into the sides just as the cabin-house beams were, the deck laid in strips of white pine about 4 inches wide by 5/8-inch thick and the whole covered with canvas, just-as the main deck was when it was laid, the canvas being held at the edges by a row of copper tacks and the ragged edge of the canvas covered by a half-round oak molding. You have probably seen boats whose cabin-houses were defaced by dirty black stains running down from under this molding. If you will shellac the inside of the half-round molding before you put it on you will not have this difficulty.
The after end of the cabin of 28-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Mollyhawk", the forward and after cockpits, are to be built of 3/4-ihch tongued and grooved cypress staving about 2 1/2 inches wide bradded to the sill-pieces and edge of the deck. Do not drive your brad straight in. Put them in on a slant and they will pull the staving and hold it much tighter. Punch the nail-heads in and finish the holes with a bit of putty.
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