Floors continued...

   Got a good days work in today, it felt pretty good having thought about it all week.  Have come to one dead end after another trying to find decent kauri in useful sizes, so have decided to press on with substitutes and use the real thing  - when I can find it - for the bright finished joinery only.  I used some nice kauri for a couple of cross floors, and regret it now as they'll be painted and hidden under the floorboards ultimately.  Bought some mahogany from BBS which will do the trick, actually it still seems a shame to paint over this, but at least it's readily available.
   First job was to give the rest of the aft floors (one new, one existing) two coats of CPES, and three coats for all the aft ribs as they are a bit average in places.  Next I chiseled and planed away a raised lip at the base of the aft bulkhead.  Any lingering doubts that this was an original feature were erased when I found it was fastened with two stainless screws, one bronze screw, and one copper nail.

Glueing kauri plugs into the midships floor, the engine beds
didn't come this far back.

Two new floors rough-sawn.

   Had an epiphany this week mulling over the engine beds.  The plan is to relocate them to their original position, which was slightly closer together than the later ones.  This was apparent looking at the plugged holes in the planks, and the modifications to the floor timbers.  What was not so apparent is why the aft-most floor was notched for the wider engine beds but didn't seem to have been altered at any point.  The answer finally dawned on me - the original engine beds didn't extend back that far, they stopped one floor further forward.  They would have been lengthened when the Cortina motor went in during the 70's to cope with the extra power.  So, today I plugged the notches in the floor in question.  Also removed the prop shaft and cut out two new mahogany floors to replace the ones that Peter had removed.  These will need final fitting and new bronze bolts.