The Cabin Has a Floor

Let's put in a floor!  This is the floor that will be inside the cabin.

Remember the beautiful old redwood I got from the chicken shed that Jen, Kai, Alex and I salvaged last year? I wanted to use these thick 1x12s for flooring in the boat. The also have the advantage of putting some weight down into the hull of the boat.

I had a worry that using straight boards for floorboards, there would be little cracks between them that would constantly filter dust into the bilge and possible squeak when you walked on them. So I had the idea to route the edges to make them lap each other.

Ten boards, eight foot long, two edges each. That's a lot of routing.

Actually, none of the boards were eight foot long, so they had to go in piece by piece.

I used construction adhesive and exterior nails to secure the flooring down. The adhesive will keep the flooring from squeaking and slowly coming up. Modern construction adhesive is so strong, that when you take up plywood that has been adhered down, it comes up in pieces.

It ended up having a neat look.

I wanted to put hatches wherever I could under spaces that were not occupied by fixed objects such as the head, the galley, and the woodstove. After the first three boards aft, I had to start getting strategic with my flooring installation.

It slowly came together. I tried to make the hatch covers match the surrounding boards best I could.

Here's a really bad idea: Using wood that has been nibbled by termites. Some of the wood when I routed it, not only revealed whole termite empires, but actual live buggies.

I went to the lumber yard and drenched everything in Copper Green. This is a special (and more expensive) clear preservative. By clear they actually mean, kind of a deep amber -- but that's preferable to the bright green of the regular stuff.

After all the flooring and the hatches were in, I attacked it with the belt stander, knocking down edges and leaving the different shades a bit more uniform.

I quite like how it came out. I made mismatched hatch handles for each of the four hatches. Can you spot all four?

Here's one of the adorable little hatches open.

Protecting the Bilge

Water is the enemy of wood longevity. Protecting the wood inside the boat, especially in the bilge is critical. Here's the plan, slightly ridiculous in it's conservatism.

1. Two coats of Copper Napthenate (Copper Green) to prevent bacterial and fungal decay.
2. Two coats of water-based exterior latex primer.
3. A coat of water-based exterior latex paint.

First though, I wanted to make sure that water in the bilge could flow through the framing members and would not accumulate against one side of the frame. Traditionally, this is called a limber hole.

Now on to the wood preservation: First Copper Green.

Now primer.

And finally paint.

I'm not sure why, but a simple coat of paint makes me so happy.