Category Archives: Boat Work Projects

Power Tool Fun Fest

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Early in our tenure as the caretakers of Galapagos I needed basic power tools that would be kept exclusively on the boat. A variable speed drill is probably the most heavily used power tool on our boat and so, after the requisite perseveration, I bought A Ryobi kit which included a drill, a small circular saw, a halogen flashlight, charger and one battery.

Ryobi, like many tool manufacturers, makes their tools so that you can use one battery style with any of a number of tools. They offer a few 18 volt, lithium ion batteries of varying sizes which all work with any of the Ryobi tools. While they are pretty common now, it is important to know that you do want lithium ion batteries for these kind of tools; not only are they lighter, they deliver a great deal more power right up until they quit and need to be recharged. While it is always frustrating to have a battery die right before finishing a critical task, it is far more frustrating to have the tool slowly peter out on you over a few minutes time.

All our Ryobi tools. So far. Also note the 12 volt charger mounted on the bulkhead.

All our Ryobi tools. So far. Also note the 12 volt charger mounted on the bulkhead.

After using the drill and flashlight during our engine repower and various other projects,  I felt that these tools would hold up reasonably well and could be trusted during our extended voyages.  The drill is powerful and well balanced;  The flashlight is bright, has a reticulating head and the bulb is easy to change.  Both of these tool have dedicated mounts  near the workbench and are used just about every time I venture into the shop. I should also mention that the Ryobi brand is not terribly expensive and they are carried by Home Depot.  I happen  to know that Home Depot has stores in Mexico, Canada, the Virgin Islands and Guam.  This means that if I need a new battery or lose a tool overboard in the Baja, I can probably replace it with little fuss.

One day as I was perusing the tool aisle at Home Depot, I noticed a DC charging station for sale.  With that purchase, I was able to eliminate the need for an inverter to charge my tools.  The old AC charger went into the garage at home and I hard wired the new 12 volt charger into the breaker panel.  You can see it in the photo above just to the right of the hardware bin.

With that purchase, I was well and truly committed.  I began to look for the perfect Ryobi tools to complete my collection.  I think the next purchase was the Spotlight.  It is a 35 watt spotlight and is adequate for most uses but I am sure there a better spotlights available.

After that, I think I bought the little handheld vacuum pictured in the foreground. Mine is the older, style but I think they are pretty much the same.  We really use this a lot even though it is loud as hell.  I had really hoped to find a cordless wet/dry vacuum by Ryobi, but no such luck.  Dewalt has one and I think Milwaukee makes a battery powered wet dry as well.

Remember the circular saw that came with the initial kit?  I never used it for two years. Never, until I needed to build a set of steps by the boat for the the dog.The saw worked well with two inch lumber and I have used it on plywood.  For most projects I just use a hand saw but it if I needed to make several cuts at a time or even make a series of  kerfs  in a piece of wood, this would be handy.

the Ryobi Multi-Tool has been incredibly useful.  I think I bought it initially because I needed to make some flush cuts in a difficult to reach spot.  this tool has a removable head so that you can pop a right angle drill, jig saw or a couple of other tools onto the body.  for us, the flush cut blades and the sanding head have been really useful.  Melissa has been sanding off the old cetol on our teak with this with great success.

Finally, as Melissa was cleaning up the exterior woodwork, we bought this little palm sander.  This takes the standard 5 inch hook and loop sanding disks and has worked very well.  I used it for about 90 minutes today and found it fairly comfortable to use.  With a tool that you will use and control for long periods of time, the weight of the battery becomes more important.  For these kinds of tools, I would recommend using the smaller batteries as a matter of comfort.

Speaking of batteries, we now have two of the compact lithium ion batteries and they have held up well.  With the palm sander, I got abut 25 minutes of run time.  I really couldn’t tell you how long they work with the more commonly used flashlight and drill since those tool are generally run for only a few seconds at a time.  My plan is to use the current batteries as long as they hold up but to buy fresh batteries just before our departure.

Has anyone used another manufacturer of cordless tools that they would recommend?  Is there a tool that you can’t live without?  Leave a comment below.

Aft Cabin Remake Update

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During the month of April I was so busy writing other kinds of posts, I didn’t have time to update people on the happenings on Galapagos. But that doesn’t mean nothing was getting done. Au contraire, my friendly readers. We’ve accomplished quite a bit.

In the saga of the aft cabin, we made a final decision on what to buy to replace our mismatched, worn out mattresses. As you may recall, we remodeled that cabin just a bit; enough to give us quite a lot of extra sleeping room, with the ability to sleep together, apart, or even athwartship. So many possibiities! That was the easy part. Deciding on a mattress was the difficulty. That decision-making process took me off on a number of tangents in data gathering, but the result is that we’ll have a great mattress, and that all of the cabins have new beds. Nice!

I didn’t want to be ‘cheap’ in buying a mattress, but I also didn’t want to pay about 5000$ for a mattress from the marine mattress place. Sure, it would have been comfortable, but something in me just cannot spend that kind of money when I know good and well I can get it done for less and have a quality product. We have other things to buy. This just goes against my basic values.  Also I really wanted latex because it breathes, is mildew resistant, and cooler to sleep on than memory foam. Also.. luxury. Natural latex is not cheap. So I went to work researching.

One thing led to another and before you know it we were also replacing the V-berth cushions because we both just wanted to see how a regular dense foam mattress would feel and those cushions were worn out, too. We went with a high quality 4″ dense foam with a softer layer on top because most of the time this cabin will be used for us to sit and watch TV or for extra privacy. We needed something that would be nice to sleep on, but better to sit on. And we needed to do this first so we could experiment a bit with other foam combinations for the aft cabin.

The ‘before’ photo.

This is going to be an excellent space. We decided that we would not split this mattress into pieces as there is only one storage space underneath, it’s a small one, and we rarely have to get to it. We’ve determined we can lift up the entire thing and prop it up to get to that storage. I will be making pillows to line the hull on the starboard side and Mike is shopping for a small TV screen to hook up to our computers. This is the ‘guest’ berth, and our rumpus room. We are already loving it.

After photo. Color is kind of a spring green with brown flecks.

After photo. Color is kind of a spring green with brown flecks. That’s Patrick, from Sponge Bob Square Pants. He makes a good pillow. Also he is a starfish. He lives here now.

Still experimenting, I pulled out the middle berth foam. I decided not to replace that as it was not really worn out. But it did smell a bit like diesel, since it’s right next to the engine room. I brought it home, gave it a good going over with vinegar water and the Little Green Machine, and laid it out in the sunshine for three days. The smell almost was gone.

If you have upholstery, you need one of these.

For the next test, I ordered a soft 3″ natural latex topper from SleepOnLatex  and put that on top of the washed foam. This is really nice stuff.  It was almost just right, but not quite. I glued those pieces together and covered the whole thing with a special PUL fabric, which is breathable yet waterproof. This is what they make those waterproof mattress pads out of. You’ll find it in the home made diaper department of the fabric store. Yes, apparently people make their own diapers now. Who knew?

I’m wrapping all of our new foam in that stuff before having it upholstered. If the things ever get wet, the foam will not get ruined. And it will not take on the diesel smell we all love, either. Foam is expensive. I’d rather protect it than replace it.

Mid berth cushion already covered with PUL fabric. Yes, I stitched it by hand. Because it’s just easier for me.

Now we were ready to make the decision about the foam for the aft cabin. We work with Best Foam and Fabric in Tacoma. They don’t have a website because they’re old school and don’t need one. These people are really great. They’ve been in business for a long time, are boaters, and know their foam. They are also reasonably priced, easy to work with, and do quality work. They did our v-berth on Moonrise, and I was able to convince them to take on the aft cabin project on Galapagos by bringing in a life-sized pattern of exactly the shape and size I needed. If you want them to do yours, bring a pattern.

Starting with what we knew about how the v-berth felt, we began with 3″ of the same firm base foam and put a piece of our  3″ latex topper on top. We crawled on top of their cutting table to lay on the foam. (It’s not every place that will let you do that.) It was still too firm. Mike is less persnickity about beds, but I want to be cradled yet supported. I want the mother of all mattresses. I want that mattress to offer me the unconditional love and support of a good parent.

We replaced the firm base foam with a medium base foam. Too soft. Not enough support. Back to the firm base foam, we added a 2″ Q21 foam that is softer than the base, but firmer than the latex we bought. Voila! Perfect! With these three layers of foam, we will have a custom mattress that should last for decades. It felt so nice I hardly wanted to get off the cutting table.

Measuring the curve for the pattern at intervals, 8″ up the hull.

The cost has not been finalized, but it will be in the area of $2,200-$2,500, including the 3″ natural latex that will be the top layer of the foam sandwich, the fabric and upholstering. That’s at least $1000 less than the cheapest bid I got from a mattress shop, and that  was a very basic mattress made in Virginia and shipped to me. Who knows how long it would have lasted or how well it would have fit?

To give you an idea of size, I had to order two full size and one twin size mattress topper in order to have enough for the whole thing. I got the fabric on a super special deal at Hancock Fabric (may they rest in peace because I will truly miss that store). Because I was flexible about what I would be happy with, I was able to get all of the fabric for all three cabins for less than $200. I am not including the PUL fabric in that final cost. But it adds less than 100$ to the final price. I am buying that at Hobby Lobby, which appears to have the best, softest product of our local stores, and I’m using their 40% off coupon to buy it.

Next up: the exterior teak. But wait!! Here’s your link to the next episode in the aft cabin remodel.

Progress on the Aft Cabin, and More

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I’ve been so focused on writing all the posts for the A-Z challenge I almost forgot to post the update on the aft cabin.

We’ve made considerable headway! Take a look at what we’ve done so far: 

We are pretty stoked about how it’s turning out. This has given us considerably more room in terms of the berth, and has not cut down on walking area at all. The sole actually curves up, if you can tell that, under the extension on the right, meaning that we couldn’t stand there anyhow. And there is obviously a shelf under the middle part. We aren’t going to miss that area at all because even though it had a cushion for seating, neither of us ever sat there. It was actually wasted space. Now it’s a good place to store shoes, which is kind of what we used it for anyway.

To save the access to that middle space, Mike wanted to avoid putting in a mid-span support piece. But the edge needed more support to be really structurally sound. So he added an aluminum angle iron to the edge and it worked out great! The whole thing is very sturdy. Here are a couple of details of the underneath part. aftcabindetail

aftcabindetail2

We still need to put the trim back on and make a decision about the mattress. That process has been stalled because I got completely overwhelmed with the number of options and had to take a step back. I got a bid for a custom mattress. The bid was $3700, and that’s with the cheapest options. Um. Hmmmm.  I want a new Strong Track for the mast, and we probably need to have the mainsail looked at, and, well, I just couldn’t pull the trigger on it. I think I can get comfort for less than that.

So I looked at the mattresses at Ikea and, of course, fell in love with their natural latex mattress. Because of the odd shapes involved, we would need a king size mattress, plus a double mattress. So that’s a lot of mattress. All told, that would be around $2000, plus I have to do the cutting and sewing. Okay, I might be able to do that and save about $2000.

There are also cheap memory foam mattresses at Amazon and even at Walmart. But frankly, I’ve learned that if a price is too good to be true, there is probably a reason for that and I don’t really want to buy something without trying it for the purpose we have here.

Then there’s the natural latex mattress topper Ikea has. It is very luxurious and what if we got our local foam and upholstery place to make us a good foam mattress, and then put this on top, then covered the whole thing? Would that bring the cost down even further? Would that be comfortable enough?

So because this is a big investment and critical to my happiness living aboard, we decided to ‘press pause’ on the aft cabin and do the V berth cabin first so we could try that idea in a less critical place. That foam needed replacing, too.  This photo shows how we set that cabin up during our cruise this summer. We could lounge in there and watch DVD’s when it was raining outside.

So I took the old foam down to Tacoma Foam and Fabric, and we will pick up the new foam on Saturday. I found upholstery fabric on sale for $2.99/yard. Yes, you read that correctly. I know how to find a good deal and I’m open to color and pattern. That’s how I found the Galapagos fabric. All I cared about was that it look good with that pattern we already have.

We’ll pick up the new foam mattress on Saturday and try it out in the v berth. I’ll buy a latex topper and we’ll give it a spin. Then if that works, we’ll do the same thing in the aft cabin. I think we may be on a roll here.

Here’s your link to the next episode of the Aft Cabin Remodel.

 

Update on the Sugru repair: holding strong!