J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Instrument Beautification

After 2 weekends of epoxying, drilling, filling, re-drilling, sanding, cutting, and sealing, the plates and boat have been united. They're ready for varnish (Cetol) and then mounting the instruments!

Once I had all the holes drilled, I test-fit them with all the screws in and had to step back and admire my handiwork for a few minutes. Then I took a deep breath, picked up the hole saw and carved them up!



They're sealed with butyl tape around the top 3 edges and around the edges of each cutout in the bulkhead. All bulkhead cutouts have the balsa core dug out at least 1/4" and sealed with MarineTex epoxy. Each panel mounts to the bulkhead with a grid of 9 screws, and each screw hole was overdrilled, filled with epoxy, and the epoxy drilled to protect the bulkhead core.



Here's how it looked in the end, with small teak caps inserted for each screw hole and sanded to a flush finish with 220 grit. Next step - Cetol varnish to match the rest of the wood trim on the boat!



Bonus shot: test-fitting the speakers and a new Axiom chartplotter. The only thing I'm not happy with is the bottom of the panel doesn't parallel the deck - when I mounted them I decided paralleling the companionway edges was visually more important. It definitely passes the 10' test, though, and even at 3' unless you're looking directly on, it's not noticeable.



Expect more pics after Cetol and instrument mounting!