Aft Head Cabin Headliner and Cabinets

January 2020

 
After making great progress on the galley and main Salon we moved onto the master cabin and aft head.

The master cabin has a nice queen size berth in the aft port side of the boat under the bridge deck just behind the pilothouse.  The master has a separate head on the starboard side.

Much of the tambour, cabinets and drawers had been completed several years earlier but the headliner for the master needed to be redone.

We first needed to remove the old support structure for the headliner to replace it.

We used 1 1/2" X 3/4" inch poplar to build the new support structure. These were screwed into the fiberglass using stainless steel screws. The supports had to be placed around the entire perimeter of the ceiling and across the area to allow us to attach the headliner panels.

The headliner material is a plastic product called Sintra which comes in 3 ft by 8 ft sheets. It is only 1/4 inch thick and was cut into smaller panels to allow easy access to deck fittings and hardware as needed.

The panels have a groove cut in them so the trick is to get the grooves to all line up as you look down the ceiling. We made some templates out of 1/8 luan plywood or door skin material.

The plywood was cut in 3 inch wide strips and a hot glue gun was used to glue the pattern pieces together.  The pattern was then marked to make sure the lines lined up.

The template was transferred to the sheet and cut out to create the panels for the headliner. We used 3/4 stainless steel screws to attach the headliner to the support structure.

Headliner in aft cabin

Headliner aft cabin hatch

Once all the headliner was cut and fitted we move onto the teak trim pieces.  The seams and perimeter of the ceiling were all be trimmed out in teak strips. These are 2 1/4' wide by 3/8' inch thick. The edges are routed to make a nice round over edge. These are attached using 1" stainless screws.

Starboard Side aft cabin

Aft cabin looking forward

Aft cabin bulkhead

Aft cabin port side

Once everything was rough fitted we took it all down to paint the panels and varnish the teak trim.  It is a lot of work but the finished product looks amazing.  I can't tell you how many man hours have went into just the headliner alone. There are probably quicker ways to do it but when done it has the old classic look that we wanted to achieve. Below is a shot of the completed headliner in the main salon.

Main Salon finished headliner

We move onto the aft head next. The headliner process was pretty much the same. We had to build one additional cabinet above the sink and add some maple tambour to the face of the cabinet. We cut some solid surface for the counter top and installed the sink and faucets.

Aft Head ceiling panels roughed in

Aft head Teak attached

Aft Head

Head door view

Aft Head Cabinet maple tambour fabrication

Cabinet trim above sink

New cabinet with face frame unpainted

Aft head cabinet roughed in

Now that it is all rough out we will take it all down to paint the headliner and varnish the teak trim. More pictures to follow of the completed headliner when we put it back together.

Stay tuned for more projects!

***Sail On*** /)

Mark