Forward Berth Closet Locker Refit

So i had an interesting time a few years ago when i had to set a mousetrap to catch an uninvited guest on my 370 SeaRay Sundancer. I had completely forgotten about the incident until when I found some evidence of a small water leak on the interior of my forward stateroom closet or storage locker.

I started to disassemble the closet which was the typical double sided laminated Formica on plywood construction which had held up remarkably well only the spot near the leak had any darkness of mold or nastiness so that was a plus. Some of the interior bits were vinyl wrapped which kept everything sleek looking but also pretty sticky and gooey with age and possibly destructive cleaning.

I had always seen the nice cedar closets on the large fancy Sea-Ray boats and thought that they looked pretty nice. Im not sure of the reality of keeping my linen shore excursion suit freshly pressed and dry … but one can have a fantasy i suppose.

The original Sea-Ray Plywood was exactly 1/2” thick stock so i was having trouble duplicating that as I didn’t want to use the original 304 stainless steel staple construction method. As many staples as humanly possible in place of joinery. Glue and screw and forget about it, perfectly acceptable for 1990’s design and affordable production line work but i wanted something a little nicer.

What i settled on was that with fabric many of the plywood panels were actually a tad thicker so i went with the 3/8” Thick Douglas Fir Marine A/B Plywood and epoxied on 1/4” Thick Tounge and Groove Eastern Red (Aeromatic) Cedar. I then picked up some nice proper 4/4 stock and ripped it to make some Cabinet Facings.

I am not sure about the exterior hull wall as it was originally a foam backed carpet type material that is impossible to find these days and seems too thin to duplicate in a thicker cedar hull panel. I may actually try to laminate up pure cedar veneer with epoxy but then if the hull sweats i have other issues.

I will post some pictures soon but i am open to suggestions on how to keep the hull side wall paneling or decoration 1/2” thick or less in total while avoiding it sweating or ruining the cedar. There must be a clever solution. I guess i could make a 1/4” air gap with vertical epoxied sticks but that would be a really crazy design/installation. Good Challenge perhaps. However this hull wall is exactly what you see when you open the closet door so it would be a shame for it to look like carpet.

The only upgrade i am envisioning is much better lighting maybe 4 fixtures instead of one tiny dome lamp LED doesn’t use much power and i am going to install thin shelf supports on the sides so that when its not being used as a clothing closet you can used it as a storage locker with shelving, suitable for short afternoon trips to the sandbar where i need a place to put my stock of potato chips or something.

 

This is the bottom and the face frame of my cedar copy of the factory storage inside the closet.

the second photo shows how the “ceiling” panel meets with the closet face frame

 

You have a serious problem.

 

Progress definitely slowed down once I had to start doing all the detail work. The original locker/closet had a single 10watt? festoon bulb style incandescent fixture in the center front which I thought was providing good light, but I realized that the previous owner had put a bulb with 5x the wattage in there and that was why the fixture was melted and not clear. So I decided to go with two of the smaller 2" diameter Lumitec Halo lights.

I wanted to use cedar for all the interior surfaces so i could wipe them with cedar oil so the whole exercise is worth it. Just need to make the Mounting End Cap Assemblies and then waterproof the whole thing.

 

Little update, busy with other things but got some of the walnut laminate installed. For the bottom and back of the shelf that will get more use. The top and the face frame are the aromatic cedar. I still need to do some caulking and other detail work and install the lighting.

 

So hilariously even with my fancy angle gauges i couldn't quite workout what angles i was working with and I needed to subtract the thickness of the Formica laminate from the final dimensions. I decided to just 3d print the end pieces before doing the final joinery as these goofy end pieces hold the screws that hold the whole thing together to the boat so its structural and needs to be done correctly despite the difficulty.

Each end has completely different dimensions due to the angles involved so i am currently working on the other one. Enjoy my suffering but i guess this is 21st century joinery.