A couple days ago I started gluing and screwing the galley frame together. This was a bit awkward to get started since everything is so curvy. Nevertheless I persevered! The cross members are pocket-hole screwed in place.
One of the cross members needed a notch cut since it hit the divider in the galley. Now it sits well without hitting anything. I shim it in place to test the fit.
At first the top plate was square on the top edge. this was a mistake as the hinge wouldn't have anything to go into, so I needed to cut another one with an angle to imitate the curve of the TD. Here it is properly angled. I had to take it off again tho, to trim it a bit more as originally it was butted up against the wall. Now i have a 1/4'' spacer to account for the thickness of the hurricane hinge.
The issue now is that when the hinge goes in, the cabin side will be fine, but the hatch side is not 90 degrees, because of the angle. this creates a gap where it needs to screw into the hatch. I thought of ways to fix it, and the best solution I could come up with was cut a wedge that would fill that gap. I just placed a piece of scrap behind it and traced the angle. Then I cut a piece of maple to the right angle and glued it on. now the hinge fits good enough so I can proceed. Here is the gap I was talking about:
Next I cut and glue the skin on the frame. this was a bit awkward as well, but I got er done. I then trimmed the edges with a flush trim bit.
PMF going on:
I got it glued down and sized in one day.
I had made a hole on the outside wall to feed wire to the "porch light" over each door, so I found them and cut the canvas around them. I fished the wires out of the first one, but on the second hole, when I pulled the wire, it came off the switch it was soldered to. Shoot.
This switch was *inside* the wall, so the only way to access it was to cut a hole in the inside wall. I did this with a utility knife. I decided to give up on the mini toggle switches I got. They are cute but the terminals are just tiny little posts that you solder to. But the heat from my soldering iron kept damaging and melting the switches, the wires wouldn't stick... just a nightmare. I went to Menard's and got some proper switches with screw terminals. they had to be low profile as I only have 3/4'' of room in the wall. Well 7/8'' now that i cut a hole in the wall. I wired everything up and went to make some plates to install the switch on, and cover the hole I had made. I had some thin cherry in my scrap drawer that I used as it will match the cabinets later on. I was going to make a simple square plate with rounded corners and screw it to the mounting points for the porch light. But while laying out the corner radius, I thought I could make it a bit more interesting... So a bit of time later I ended up with these TD "easter egg" switch plates!
Finally, I made sure the doors fit. They had some screw tips poking out the side from the lock mechanism which I had to grind down. I also removed one screw from each side on the bottom plate since the head protruded and wouldn't let the door go in the wall. For the other screw down there I just notched the outside of the wall, as this would be covered by the flange on the outside.
Now I think I will install the hatch with the hinge, to make sure it works. But then I am ready to paint!!!! After that I can trim the hatch, install doors, fan, and window, and hit the road! Very excited.