The main task for the day was to start the coating of the decks and superstructure with a penetrating epoxy to seal the wood, especially any end-grain. Before I started on that, however, I did some other small work including the plate rack and the flue mounting pad which I completely messed up.

The plate rack with the cramps removed and the sides trimmed to length.

The result is fairly even as you can see here.

The plates can go in the other way up also, it will depend on how the rack is mounted.

The mounting pad for the through-deck-fitting of the flue had to be started again as I ruined the one I had in progress by not being careful enough when cutting the round down to size. It went very elliptical. I've started another one only this one will be square. Much easier to deal with.

The tabernacle mounting pad turned out well. here you see it trimmed and sanded.

The underside is a little irregular but that will be taken care of when it is epoxied into place.

Before the sealing could begin the chain plates had to be removed. Notice the green copper on the thread of the bolts. This was caused by the tannic acid in the oak spacers and means that I will have to make new spacers from something else, a non-acidic wood and I'll not be able to use these bolts and will have to use new ones.

Here the entire deck has been sanded and one half has been coated with one layer of penetrating epoxy.

All the deck has there coats on at this point and will now be left to cure. In the current temperatures that will be about 4 days.

The manual was very explicit about getting the work wet. It should not, so the 6m x 4m tarpaulin has been hung up to prevent the rain getting through the leaks in the roof from falling on the boat. Yes, it's started raining and the forecast is for more.

Lunchtime!