Quite a long stint in the workshop this evening, started at 16:00 and finished at just after 20:30 with a short break to get Tina from the station. An hour's work with the router saw the parts of the spreaders and brackets rounded. Holes were drilled in the brackets for the screws and then, one by one, they were glued and screwed in place. The slots were cutting the poop deck and finally the spreaders were drilled, bolted together and mounted.

All the edges of the spreader parts were rounded off.

One spreader leg split a little, but some glue sufficed to deal with that problem. I'll make sure that this end it at the top and not the bottom.

The router bit is getting a little blunt, I think, as it does not take much to get the wood to burn rather than cut.

So, the brackets, also rounded, glued and screwed into position. The lower one here went in a little skewed and I may need to adjust the gap a little later on. The glue drips you can see in the photo and elsewhere will be left to dry and then carefully scraped off with a chisel.

The brackets were fitted on both sides of the cockpit.

Here the spreaders have been drilled and bolted together. The use of self-locking nuts means that it is a simple job to bolt the pieces together but not tightly. You can also see one of the slots in the poop deck.

And here are the spreaders in place. The wood used to make the spreaders is Engineered Oak and a little thinner than would normally be used. I may need to make two cross bars that go between the spreaders at each end in order to prevent the cockpit tent from bending the spreaders inwards sufficiently to break them.

The spreaders from the side...

...and from the front.

A good evening's work.