Building Out The Back of the Ice Box

Installing the final interior panel of the ice box and building out the cockpit locker components seems to be progressing at a meteoric pace relative the fairing, priming, and painting of the last few weeks.

Tabbing and fairing the aft panel into the box is going to get messy.  In preparation I masked all the freshly painted areas of the box.

Not taking any chances with the masking on the the counter tops or freshly painted ice box.

I sanded the fresh primer &  paint off the areas that will receive tabbing.

Tabbing the aft panel will require me to hang my head, arms, and a good portion of my torso into the box while handling wet fiberglass cloth.  Adding an extra set of hands to pass me materials will limit the scope of the mess.  So that portion of the project is on hold until Anne can join me for a project day on the boat.

Working solo, I was able to insert the aft panel and bond it to the box with a bead of thickened epoxy around the perimeter.   I then used a syringe to inject thickened epoxy into any gaps I discovered between the panel and the box.

Marking off sections of the hull that will receive tabbing with grinder at the ready. 

While the epoxy cured I marked out the areas along the hull in the sail locker that will be receiving tabbing for the new bulkhead.  Achieving a proper bond for the tabbing will require exposing the solid fiberglass hull.  All the paint & gel coat must go! Time to suit up for a messy grinding session.

Areas to receive tabbing ground down to bare fiberglass

Whew.  Glad that is done.  The joys of grinding down a heavy layer of gel coat to expose bare fiberglass in an enclosed space can really only be appreciated through personal experience.  Disposable coveralls, leather gloves, and full face respirator required!

Since the conduit on this portion of the project does not run directly under the ice box, I chose more simple, but less insulated fabrication.   I created a section of conduit by molding fiberglass into an arc with tabs on either side.

Fiberglass conduit tabbed to hull and bonded with fillet across arc.

Once the conduit layup cured, I installed it with tabbing to the hull and a fillet along the arc.  Check out my post on Molding a Fiberglass Conduit for more details about fabricating this piece.

Now for some insulation.  First a layer of Reflectix.

Inner layer of Reflectix insulation mounted using 3M spray adhesive.

Next  - four layers of 1” foam board followed by two additional layers of Reflectix

Save for the amount of exposed conduit this image is not much different that the previous.

That brings the insulation on the back of the ice box to nearly 5”, 4–15/16” for the detail oriented readers. 

I started off the post expressing my excitement at how quickly this portion of the ice box project is progressing.  As a reality check the work covered in this post took me approximately 12 to 16 hours over 3 days.

Next up…. Well it will either be a post on fabricating the fiberglass conduit or the new bulkhead.  Stay tuned…

More images and notes from this on-going project are available in the Ice Box Rebuild Photo Album.