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After hours of shoving, trimming and swearing, my galley flat “drops in” easily enough, but the fit leaves much to be desired. Below are the left and right corners adjacent to the lid.
A large gap (about a quarter inch) separates the right edge of the flat from the shell. Even if I could slide or rotate the flat to close this gap, I’d create a similar gap on the other side. The gap seems too large to fill with epoxy, but I’m running out of options. I can trim more from the edge of the flat adjacent to the bulkhead, hoping to rotate the flat a bit to close the gap further, but I hesitate to remove much more material from that edge.
The flat has stitch holes for some reason, so I could try stitching it to the shell with new holes in the shell, but the stitching is difficult at best, since I have limited access to the underside of the flat.
Did anyone else have similar problems fitting the flat?
First, I think your galley flat is upside down. Double check the manual but you want the side with the cut grove facing down, into the galley while the side with the stiffeners facing up.
As for the gap, I think mine was a little tighter but nothing perfect. My non-expert advice is to put masking tape on the side walls below the top edge of flat (on the galley side) to catch any thickened epoxy that squeezes through. Then put down a small bead of very thick epoxy to just fill the gap and level it with a scraper. Don’t force a bunch in there, just enough to bridge the gap on the top side to give you a solid surface. Let that mostly set (a couple of hours) and then put down the full bead with a fillet. Once you flip the shell and cut the galley hatch open you can fill the rest of the gap with thickened epoxy without a risk of it squeezing through. You’ll find some other posts in the forum where people kept trying to fill that gap on the first fillet but what happens is the epoxy squeezes out the other side and sticks to the walls in the galley never to be removed.
As for the stitch holes on the flat, they may be for the quarter panels but I can’t remember off the top of my head. Flip forward a few pages in the manual and read through how the quarter panels and transom are attached so you get an idea of how those will relate to the galley flat. The gap between the flat and the hatch stiffener doesn’t matter too much because they won’t be attached to each other once the hatch is removed (that’s why you covered it in tape) but you want to make sure the quarter panel can touch the edge of the flat and the edge of the shell when it is attached. You can hold that in place now to get an idea of how it is going to go together.
-mike
Careful. Looks like it might be the wrong way up. I don’t see the stringers. For your question I had to stitch to get mine to have no gaps and yes it was hard to get the stitches in.
I had 1/8-3/16 gap on both sides. I used 2×4’s to brace the sides of the shell against the walls of my workshop, then laid in the bead of wood flour/epoxy putty.
I posted this question and then didn’t wait for the replies, because I wanted to finish my bottom installation this weekend.
A stitch helped at lot, but yes, I glued the flat in upside down. Don’t know what I was thinking, but I obviously didn’t read the manual carefully enough at this point. The gutter is crucial for a water tight fit, so I must do something. I need to cut it out and turn it over somehow. I’m not a happy camper at the moment. What a disaster. I won’t be finishing the bottom this weekend anyway.
I would cut the recessed tabs off the gutter risers and mount flat on the galley flat. They will be plenty strong with fillets. Take mounting dimensions off the end of the flat for later reference.
If you have a router, esp a plunge router, you could cut new recesses for the riser. At that point you might be all the way through the wood since there would be recesses on both sides, and might as well use a jig saw and cut the recess all the way through and strengthen underside with glass and epoxy after risers are in and filled with thickened epoxy. I would rather do either of those than cut out the flat. That would be NO fun.
I thought about filling the riser recesses, but I don’t have a router and decided, perhaps impulsively, to chisel/saw/sand to remove the flat and flip it over. I acted hastily throughout. I don’t need to hurry. That’s the lesson I need to learn. I could have avoided this mess if I had only waited long enough for mpilone’s post. Instead, I tried a stitch, and it seemed O.K., so I plowed ahead.
The deed wasn’t pleasant or pretty, but it’s done now. The flat wasn’t difficult to clean up. Removing the thickened epoxy from the shell was, and I didn’t remove 100% of it, but if the new fillet adheres well enough the remains of the old one, I’m O.K.
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