Finishing the deck and fairing

The cockpit layout is up to the individual builder.  The Malahini design has a open area from can be layed out in a number of ways.  I liked the two cockpit look.  There will be two bench seats, each in their individual cockpit area.  To accomplish that I needed to create some deck frames that went across the cockpit and divided the front and rear areas.   The curvature of the deck at the dashboard is sharper than at the transom.  So, the new deck frames had to have a curvature in between the two.  The goal of the decking is to create a smooth and pleasing surface from which the cockpits are cut out.   Here is a picture of the cross framing section that is temporarily mounted.

As I still have to work to do on the floor boards and finishing  the dash (e.g. cut holes, shape and sand smooth), the dash and mid cockpit framing are only screwed in place and not epoxied.   Final installation will require epoxy.

After everything was mounted in place, I proceeded to "fair" the deck.  The process of fairing is to shape the curved members into a smooth and continuous (aka fair) surface so that the plywood decking will lay flat against its mating surfaces.   Since this makes a lot of sawdust, I wheeled the hull out into my driveway and worked on it out there.  This took a bunch of hours and I actually sunburned my head in the process since I didn't wear a cap.  (It would also help to have more hair.)

The tools that work the best are an angle grinder with 50 grit disks and a planer, pictured here.  The scraps of plywood are used to measure your work and look for high or low spots that need attention.   

Here is the final result. I know, it doesn't look much different but the bumps and rough spots have been removed.  The belt sander is also a valuable tool to do final finishing on the framing.

 When I get to that point, the deck will be covered with 1/4" marine plywood and then the mahogany cover boards will be attached to that.  However, I have lot of interior work remaining and it is easier to do that without the deck in place.  Back into the garage it goes.