Da Loft

A lot more progress today, getting the loft up and in place.

I started by roughly laying the sheets in place and learning just how much warpage, lousy carpentry on my part, and accumulated error can screw with a design.

The inherent warpage going on with the wood.....do I complain about that too much?.....has been exacerbated by the boat sitting half made through a series of epic rainstorms.  Not a good thing.
Regardless, we started by putting in place the last floor panel on the aft end, the ladder not being talented at levitation.

Then I started glueing and stapling the top deck down, using the same stressed skin technique we used on the main deck.  It was at this point I realized that, without the ply on the fore and aft walls, the top deck was ....um.....more than a little shaky port to starboard-wise.  In fact, it was downright scary.  We took a pause from working the loft to insert some temporary cross bracing and some of the permanent ply walls on the kingposts, which stiffened things up appreciably.  Do yourselves a favor, if building like this, do the walls first.  Really makes the second level feel a lot less like a scene from "Titanic".
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Temporary bracing amidships

The interior ply skins on the kingposts really make things a lot more solid.

That being done, we completed the upper level.  Some of the panels were off enough that I had to sister the underlaying rafter to make sure there was enough wood there to staple into. The carpentry on the second deck is horrible.  Sorry folks, my bad, but it is.  Its gonna need some fill and trimming before it's acceptable.

But it's up.

The slot down the middle, btw, is so we can get the bed and futon couch up once the roof skin is on (I'm disinclined, given the weather lately, to put them up there until the boat is fully enclosed.), at which point we'll drop the 2' plywood panels into place and shift the furniture into their appropriate locations.

Here's a long shot of today's efforts......we're getting there.

M