Replacing the bow deck of a mirror dinghy

The plywood for the old fore deck was in poor condition so I decided to replace the two decks with new 4mm marine ply decks. I used the old decks as templates and used a jigsaw to cut the new decks, finishing them with a sure form.

New forward decks

I re used the deck braces that were still in good condition and I painted the underside of the decks with primer and International undercoat.

under side of decks primed and ready for undercoat.

Next step fitting the decks and mast steps.

 

fixing a mirror dinghy

I used some oak that I had in the shed to make a new section of gunwhale for the bow. This is now glued into place with West system resin.

New gunwale detail

When the resin went off I drilled and screw fixed the gunwales for additional strength

screwing the gunwales

Be careful when buying brass screws, these are scarce now and most of the screws that you see in the hardware stores are yellow metal and will corrode in salt water. I went to a chandler to get proper brass screws, and I never throw out brass fittings or screws!.

 

fixing the bow of a mirror dinghy

I have replaced the backing for the bow which holds the forward chain plate. I glued this into place with waterproof glue and screwed it with brass screws through the bow plate.  The next step is painting

I re used all of the forward deck support timbers , simply to save on the effort of copying them. These were screwed and glued into place prior to painting the inner lockers.

the bow lockers. I am using International paints starting with precoat (3 coats) and then finishing with International gloss

Always use the best paint available.

I find that the International range of paints are very good, they give good coverage and a high level of opacity per coat. Don’t try to save money on cheap non marine paints it really is not worth it. This is particularly true when painting inside lockers where future maintenance will be troublesome.