S/V Wildthing: Pan Oceanic Interior Bulkhead Tambour and Headliner Work

The winter has been pretty cold this years in South Dakota so it was time to head south to Florida to spend some time working on the boat. The Wildthing refit has been going slow because some of us still have full time day jobs. Hopefully that will change in the next year or two and we can devote our full time to getting the boat finished. Is a boat really every done?

Brad has been cutting and fitting all the new headliner pieces which turned out to be more of job than we expected. The main salon headliner is all painted and varnished and pretty much finished. The pilothouse pieces need to be painted and the trim needs to be varnished. The v-berth headliner stringers have been laid out and the headliner pieces have been rough fitted.

The last of the leaks were located around the windlass so that took an afternoon to pull up and re-bed with butyl rubber. If you have not found out about butyl rubber yet look into it for all your hardware betting needs. We have already gone back and re-bed items that previously put down with other products. Butyl rubber is the way to go.

This trip we focused on the bulkhead tambour installation. The Pan Oceanic interiors were built with a teak veneer plywood with solid teak trim.

Many leaks in the windows and cap rail over the years caused damage to much of the interior cabinetry. Much of this damaged woodwork in the salon and galley was removed and has been replaced with new custom cabinetry. It was decided to first peel off a layer of the veneer on the bulkheads and apply a maple tambour wood product over the top. Some of the aft cabin and pilothouse has already been done as seen in some previous posts. We spent most of the week fairing out the surfaces cutting and dry fitting the tambour and gluing them into place.

Salon Forward Bulkhead

A maple wood tambour was used to lighten up the interior. The dark teak trim remained and was stripped and refinished to provide a nice contrast. The tambour is very easy to work with. It comes in 8 foot long sheets that are one foot wide. The pieces are first cut to length, dry fit then varnished with a clear Epifanes finish.

We were not a big fan of the glossy look so we went with a matte finish. Brad set up a paint booth in his garage to do the spraying of the varnish on the tambour.

Pilothouse Tambour

The tambour was then glued to the bulheads. A vinly flooring glue product was applied with an one-eighth inch trowel to the back each piece. Long curtain rods were then use to hold the tambour in place while the glued dried overnight.

We also finished up applying tambour to the starboard side of the pilothouse. This area has a table which can be converted into a nice double bunk if needed.

Salon Forward Bulkhead

Pilothouse Starboard

Pilothouse Aft

Pilothouse Tambour

The PO 46 has two heads. One is in the aft cabin while other mid ship near the galley. The two heads originally both dumped waste into a 40 gallon tank under the pilothouse birth. This was less than ideal and created a bad smell within the boat.

The new design was to place smaller holding tanks in each of the heads to contain the waste. All new plumbing, Y valves and pumps were added. LaVac toilets were selected for use in both heads.

Rough fit of the head components

Running the white waste hose

All Plumbed in

The plan is to paint the bulkheads in the head with a two part epoxy paint. This will be very durable and make for easy clean up. The finished face frame of the cabinet and sink will then be installed to complete the head.

Work continued on the headliner in the main salon after the panels were all painted painted. The panels were fabricated out of 1/4 inch plastic sheets called Sintra. We installed the panels and the four lights in the headliner. All of the teak battens were then fastened to cover the seams of the headliner.
Conventional brass lights were used which have been converted with new low wattage LED bulbs.