Galley Cabinetry

With the new sink, countertops and Force 10 range we recently installed, the rest of the galley cabinetry was looking really shabby. The sliding doors on the flatware locker, the louvered locker doors, the drawer facings and veneered surfaces on either side of the range were in bad shape and needing some varnish. Time to spruce things up a bit.

The new 3 burner Force 10 stove we installed back in January (no blog post) was approx 2 inches deeper, front to rear, than the old Hillerange unit it replaced. Although it fitted the original gimbal locations it intruded into the slide away feature for the countertop filler. We would have to come up with a solution to that problem during this project.  

Here is the old range. The stove top burners worked OK but the oven temperature control was a bit vague and there was no broiler. The Admiral decreed it had to go. 

Here we've started pulling things apart. Getting the sliding doors out from the flatware lockers was a challenge. Either by accident or design they wouldn't lift out the way sliders normally do. We had to remove the lower track and even then it was a fiddly job.

We knew from our experience refinishing the cabinetry in the head that prepping the louvered doors would be the biggest challenge. We had used Cetol in the head but the prep work was the same, sanding all those little louver slats is very time consuming and a real pain but......

......once again we were fortunate that one crew member had the necessary patience!

Doesn't she do good work.

Here are the sliders, before and after. Top one cleaned and sanded ready for varnish. 

Here is another before and after shot of a couple of drawer facings.

We decided to use Bristol Finish two part varnish for all the trim as we had good luck with it when we refinished the cockpit table several years back. It is a two part fast build product and is extremely hard, ideal for high wear areas like the galley.

Here are the louver doors starting to look a bit better after the first two coats of Bristol. We put four coats wet-on-wet and then waited a couple of days and sanded them lightly prior to the fifth and final coat. 

Same routine for the sliders and.........

.....also the drawers.

At this point we had to decide what to do with all the veneered surfaces. The lower edges of the area around the flatware locker had bad delamination damage due to water spillage on the countertop running down and laying against it. We stripped it off and began preparing for fresh veneer....then we had a brainwave! 

After we installed the Bomon windows in the main cabin and started trimming the bulkhead and walls we decided to paint over the shabby veneered bulkhead to brighten things up. That was three years ago and the painted surfaces have held up well. The exterior vinyl paint we used is very durable, any nicks and dings are easily touched up and any marks wipe away with a damp cloth. Why not do the same for the cabinet facings in the galley?

Purists will probably cringe at our decision but, for us, the resulting brighter and more modern looking cabin was well worth the small sacrifice in originality. Here we have sanded and applied a blocking primer to the areas above the counter.

Here we've got some colour on and started to re-install the sliders on the flatware locker.


















Here we've finished painting the facing panels on the fridge/freezer side and replaced the drawers.











Ditto the facing panels below the sinks, and the louver doors have been re-fitted.

The depth of the full size stove created an interference between the outboard louver door under the sinks and the handle on the oven door. To restore full opening of the door we  cut it down  by approx 4" and made the top section a fixed/removable piece.

 



This shot shows the shortened door opening below the oven door handle and the upper part still in place above.

This shot shows how the the upper section of the door is mounted with snap latches. It pops right off if necessary for full working access under the sinks. 

In this one we have started fitting new trim molding around the edges of all the counters. Notice the 'clean off notch' we cut into the molding over the drawers. Just visible on the sink side is the 'clean off corner' of the counter where there is no trim.

Here is a close up of the notch. It will make wiping the counter a bit easier on that side. 

On the home stretch here. Pretty much everything finished and starting to look a bit more like a galley again. Next we need to do something about the counter filler over the range.







Update 08-10-15


After throwing around some ideas on what a new counter filler might look like we quickly realised its size would be controlled by where it could be stored when not needed. With the bigger Force 10 range we had lost the 'slideaway' feature for the old filler so the new one would have to be easily removable, and designed so it could fit alongside or under the range, or elsewhere. Some quick measurements showed us that there was enough room under the range to fit a 22"x 18"x 1" filler. 

Here is a shot showing the available space under the range, a little over two inches.  

We went with half inch ply and edged it with teak channel molding. Here we are making a trial fit. The new filler will be slightly smaller than the original but it will have the advantage of moving with the range on its gimbals and providing a useable surface under way.

Here is the finished filler in place on the cooktop.

To hold the filler in place we cut four notches in the back side edge molding to engage with the two side rails of the cooktop. Here is one pair of notches. 

Here is a close up of one of the notches. They are only about 1/4" deep but seem to keep the filler securely in place......at least so far........we haven't had the cap rail in the water lately!   

This shot from the underside shows how the notches engage the cooktop. 

Here is the filler stowed under the range. It fits in the available space quite snugly but it does restrict the movement of the range at the extreme limit of swing on the gimbals.

So, if we need to use the range while under way then we slip the filler into one of the lockers under the settee.    

Microwave Relo.

When we first got Circe there was a microwave sitting on the shelf above the nav station. We enjoyed having the microwave on board but that location wasn't good. We wanted the nav station clear for.....nav stuff. What a concept! But, where to put the microwave? 

OK, OK, its a mess, but this was the only 'before' pic we could find, you get the idea though. Just disregard all the junk....we were re-organising a couple of tool boxes!

Following our usual strategy of not unnecessarily re-inventing the wheel, we borrowed heavily from other FOGgers who have already addressed the problem of finding a good microwave location. We had seen at least two Freeports with it set into the end of the galley counter and that seemed to be a good solution, so we decided to follow their lead. Once again we recruited Art Kleiner from The Boatsmith to help with the project.

Shown below is an example of a boat with the newer design galley, the same as Circe's, and a microwave set into the end of the counter.

One benefit of the newer style galley is the absence of the cutting board and drawer in the aft side of the counter, which makes this conversion much easier. We only needed a hole in the side of the counter and one new shelf to support the microwave.

It was an easy matter to measure and mark a suitable size aperture, use a hole saw to give a couple of starting points for the jig saw and cut our hole. 

Here the corners of the aperture are being cleaned up with a pull saw.

With the aperture cut we saw that the microwave would  interfere with the anti-siphon loop on the cooling hose to the engine heat exchanger, so we cut new holes and..... 

.....moved the loop over to the other side of the new microwave compartment.

The new shelf was aligned with the bottom of the aperture in the side of the counter.

Time for a trial fit. Just like a glove!

We ran a new AC feed to a new outlet and......

.......took a spare breaker on the AC panel to feed it. 

Art put some trim strips around the aperture to purty it up.

All done. We used a battery tie down strap to secure the microwave. An unexpected benefit was that we still had enough room for a couple of shallow pans in the reduced space between the old and new shelves.

Microwave Relo - Part Deux 

Because we had lost a big chunk of galley storage space by moving the microwave, we needed to replace it. Keeping with our plan to take Circe's specification 'back to the future', the logical solution was to have Art try and replicate the original Freeport galley design that had a storage area under the stove. That feature was eliminated in the later boats like Circe so we decided to reproduce it or something like it.

With the stove removed the area to be modified can be seen. Art is removing the kick panel to use as a template. 

Here is the front panel for the new storage area. 

In this one the top of the storage area is in place.

Here is the stove back in place and the drop down access door fitted. All ready for some teak oil and varnish. 

Using the new storage area is a bit challenging for Old Matelot knees, but it is more than equal to the space lost in the galley counter. On to the next project.