Galley bulkhead wall meeting the interior headliner

[ratrod71]

I need some help with how the galley bulkhead wall meets the interior headliner. I imagine the headliner attaches to the bottom of a spar, then the galley bulkhead butts up to the headliner at the same spar. Am I on the right track? Anybody have photos? Thanks, Bryan

[noseoil]

Basically correct in what you plan. It's just a question of sequence in what you plan to do to finish the two panels & the joint. In my case, I'm going to "rabbet" the galley bulkhead (1/4" Baltic birch ply) up into the bottom edge of the spar with a dado type of joint. I'm using the 1/4" ply as a shear panel to prevent racking of the back of the box, so it's sitting in a dado joint, top, bottom & sides. It's glued in place & helps keep the deck, sides & top attached & in the same place during any lateral or twisting movement while bumping along on dirt roads.

The ceiling skin butts into the galley bulkhead & gets glued & nailed into the same spar with small pins. This whole joint will be covered by the footboard "upper" cabinet in my build, which has the flatscreen TV in the middle and two doors on either side of the TV. The backing for the galley cabinets is also the back of the footboard cabinets, a common wall of 1/4" ply. You might need to use a piece of molding or trim made to cover the joint and add a bit more gluing surface (1/4 rount, chamfer strip, 1x1 or even 1x2) & strength to the headliner & bulkhead, but that may not be necessary. It just depends on your build & how the joint firms up once the panels are all assembled and in place. Sorry, no pictures yet as I've had to put the build aside for now due to holiday plans....

Hope this helps, tim

[KCStudly]

I did mine a little differently. I shaped the top of the bulkhead with a plane to match the profile of the walls (or I could have ripped it with a saw set at an angle). Then I ran the ceiling skin over the top of the bulkhead almost to the rear, held back (or is it forward?) 1/4 inch. Then I ran a dado along the underside of the oak hinge spar so that the spar caps the end of the ceiling ply and over hangs the bulkhead into the galley by a little bit. The hinge spar is glued and screwed down thru the rear edge of the ceiling into the top of the bulkhead with deck screws and PL. This way the end grain of the ceiling skin is captured and I have no gaps to trim anywhere.

My ceiling skin sits on top of my walls similar to the Steve Fredrick's method, and, in addition to several spars on top of the skin, my cabinet face frames act in place of spars at the front and rear (i.e the face frames were installed before the ceiling and the ceiling was glued and screwed down into the face frames and bulkhead, in addition to the tops of the walls).

The only caveat to the way I did the hinge spar is that it needed to be taller than the other spars by the thickness of the ceiling. I suppose I could have laminated a strip on the rear edge, or cheated the thickness of the roof at that point to avoid having to rip a bigger piece, but that's the way I did it.

[tony.latham]

Bryan:

I just looked through my photos and really don't have any, but here's as close as it comes:


I build with a ledge on the sandwiched walls so it's a bit different if you are building with a solid plywood sheet. But here's how I do it:
-Set the bulkheads in place.
-lay the ceiling on the wall ledges and butt the back of it to the bulkhead (or cut a kerf at the proper angle in the bulkhead and slip it in. You may have to wedge some toothpicks into the top off the kerf while the glue sets up since a tablesaw blade is a bit wider than 1/8" plywood.)
-place a spar on top of the ceiling

I staple (and glue with PL Premium) my ceiling to the spars with 1/4" crown staples. If you set a super bright flashlight on the ceiling you can see where your spar is. Some builders just glue the ceiling to the spars by wedging 1 x 2s between the floor and the spars but my old eyes are okay with the tiny staples.

Are the days short enough up there yet?

T

[KCStudly]

... or you could glue the spars to the ceiling before you install the whole thing; no staples to fill or see, and the ceiling skin won't sag while being installed. I can post a link to the clamping method I used in my build thread if anyone is interested.

[ratrod71]

Are the days short enough up there yet?

T[/quote]


The days are very short now. December 21st is the shortest. On that day the sun will barely be above the horizon for just under 4 hours. But we have very long sunrises and sunsets. Bryan

[ratrod71]

I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to post the very valuable information. Keep the variations coming as well as photos. There sure seems to be multiple ways to skin a cat. Bryan

[KCStudly]

Around about this portion of my build is where I was building the ceiling assembly. A few entries previous to this I was splicing the ceiling panels together, then the link shows how I glued the spars on with no fasteners showing on the inside. There are a couple of shots in there where you can see how the ceiling panel laps the top of the bulkhead, and here is the hatch hinge spar capping it off.


Since I am building a foamie, it's a little different from Tony's (Steve Fredrick's) method. I held the ceiling skin back from the edge of the wall and will fill the gap and seal the edge of the ply after I fill between the spars with foam board (I have no hard edge or trim planned for the wall to ceiling joint because it will be rounded over and wrapped with canvas); but it should give you an idea of how it could be done at the bulkhead.

[ratrod71]

Here is the solution I came up with to affix the headliner to the bulkhead wall. I glued a spar onto the upper bulkhead wall on the galley side and then cut the proper angle to match the roofline. The headliner will then terminate over the bulkhead wall and be glued down.

[ratrod71]

Pictures of the headliner installed onto the bulkhead.

[ajliquidation]

... or you could glue the spars to the ceiling before you install the whole thing; no staples to fill or see, and the ceiling skin won't sag while being installed. I can post a link to the clamping method I used in my build thread if anyone is interested.

Yes please post a link, that would be great. Thanks Adam in KC

[ratrod71]

In retrospect, I believe pre-gluing the spars to the headliner before installation would be a better method. It solves several problems such as getting a nice tight fit between the headliner and the walls, and you can put a spar on the seam where you butt two pieces of headliner material together for added strength.

[KCStudly]

Exactly. Here's how I spliced my ceiling panels together using a backer strip and a strong back "bridge" clamped to the bench (to wedge shims under and thus clamp the glue up to the work bench). A little further down I start gluing spars to the ceiling skin using the same clamp technique.
http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?p=1085357#p1085357

After test fitting came prep for masking glue areas and finishing.
http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?p=1087833#p1087833
http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?p=1091845#p1091845

And finally the ceiling installation.
http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?p=1092124#p1092124

Lots of details on prep work and methods leading up to and in between.

[DMcCam]

Howdy Ratrod, We also used Steve's method to install the headliner. Our's is glued to the top of the bulkhead flush with the face.



We then added all of the spars over it.



In hindsight, a little rabbit or dado to hide the end grain of the headliner would have been a nice touch. I don't really even see it though.

All the Best,

Dave