As we all head to the exit of 2025 I will continue to summarize the progress in various key systems and areas on Lance over the past few months.

This week I’ll bring you up to date on where the Galley is at so far. 

Easily one of the most used and most important areas for our day to day live in Lance and our 10,000 + mile “maiden voyage” this past summer proved that our design worked well as we used it during that two month test drive.  We prioritized large areas of open countertop, dual deep sink, induction cooktop and large fridge and freezer and you can see the basic layout from the 3D model screengrab here.

GALLEY COUNTERTOPS:

Here is what it looked like as of the beginning of June, just before we hit the road to the East Coast of the US. This is looking forward so Drivers Side DS on the Left and Passenger Side PS on the Right.  Entry door into the Hab (Habitat/box) is on the upper Right with the large vertical door 10 cubic foot Fridge/Freezer on your Right as you enter.

Deep double sink being undermounted to the 25mm/1” solid surface acrylic countertop.

Lots of options for water at the sink; hot/cold adjustment at the base of the faucet with both a large flexible rinsing hose with its own nozzle & lever and then an independently controlled rotating spigot.  To the Right of the main faucet is an ultra purified drinking water nozzle that has water that has been put through a full Acuva UV treatment to remove any possible remaining particles after ……….

……… it comes out of the main filtration which is handled by this triple set of progressive main filtration that all our potable water goes through.

We have eXcellent water pressure running about 65PSI thanks to this Kohree 7GPM pump.  All the water system equipment is located in the externally accessed compartment that is midway along the DS.

On the PS of the Galley there is more countertop and our 2 burner induction cooktop that is eXtremely efficient and a joy to cook on.  This cooktop fits snugly in the countertop cutout so it can be easily lifted out and plugged in outside when we want to cook out there.

The vertical extruded aluminium XAL on the Right here is the linear actuator for the PS Front corner of the Queen Bed lift system.
Underneath both countertops it is all drawers as we find these much more efficient to use than cupboards and overall we have more than 20 drawers inside of Lance.

GALLEY DRAWERS:

I have always preferred dovetail joints for all drawers given their superior strength that stands up for decades of use and I think they look great too and so that’s what we went with for Lance.  I was going to do this all myself but with almost a hundred dovetailed corners to do and SO many other jobs demanding my time and attention I decided to job this out.  I found a fabulous company to work with called Barker Doors who offer a service using CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machines to custom cut all your drawers.  I had all the drawers fully modeled in Fusion 360 so it was easy for me to send them these files with all the exact measurements I needed and they cut all the 5/8” Baltic Birch plywood to size for all the sides and the bottoms and then CNC cut all the dovetails. 
   In the end this all worked out to cost less than I would have paid for just the Baltic Birch plywood and drawer slides so I was super happy with how this all worked out and I can recommend Barker Doors to anyone VERY strongly.
They shipped all the pre-cut drawers to me as flatpacks like this so the whole shipment of all the drawers was not too large and they were all very well shrink wrapped and carefully boxed up so they arrived with no damage at all.
They also offered a great prices on the the top quality Blum undermount ball bearing drawer slides I wanted so it all came as a single order which made my life easier.

Mounting more than 40 drawer slides to the XAL framework was very straightforward but time consuming to get them all exactly parallel and lined up.
and some required a bit of Houdini moves to hold in place and  tighten up.
Next, I set up a little workbench on top of the PS Galley counter to assemble each drawer.
Each set of dovetails only required a few drops of wood glue and they went together very well with two bar clamps and some taps with my little hammer to get the joints to fit together all the way.  The dovetails were so precise that every drawer went together perfectly square and were solid as a rock.
The Blum drawer slides required two slots in the bottom of each rear drawer side so I cut those out next and then I mounted to the Orange locking hardware to the bottom of the front corners.  These are where the drawer slides clip into the drawer and make it very easy to lift out a drawer at any time.  It’s a great system!
Installing each drawer was now a simple process of pulling out each drawer slide……….
………… setting the pins in the rear of each drawer slide into the corresponding holes I had previously drilled and pushing them closed till they clicked in place.
Et Voila!  We’ve got drawers!  Sad to say that I wasn’t able to get this done before we left on our big summer adventure so we REALLY appreciate having these now!
I wanted all surfaces of these drawers to have a tough durable finish and decided to go with this two part Rubi Monocoat finish that you put on by hand with cloths rather than brush or spray.  Hand rubbed finishes have always been my favorite and while this was a new one for me I was eXtremely pleased with the end result and the whole process of applying it.
It was a bit laborious and a good workout but a very satisfying process for me.
Difficult to see in photos but the Baltic Birch plywood came out with a glowing warm colour and a very tough finish that is also very easy to reapply in the future.
To reduce the loss of usable space under the sinks I used these low profile P-traps which have turned out to work very well.
and only required a small cut out on the rear of the two under sink drawers to clear nicely.

GALLEY CEILING & COB LED LIGHTING

Onwards and upwards I turned my attention to the ceiling of the Galley.  It took a LOT of research to find the Goldilocks material for the ceiling but I finally found this White wood textured PVC trim molding material that checked all the boxes of light, easy to clean and attractive.  It comes in 6” wide 8ft long planks and was very easy to work with.
For lighting, I decided to use COB (Circuit on Board) LED strip lights which I set inside lengths of 20mm wide black aluminium U channel which I ran in between each of the White PVC ceiling planks. I like these newer COB strips for two reasons; they provide an uninterrupted line of light rather than individual points of light in the regular LED strips and they can be adjusted from about 2200K (very warm amber) up to 6500K (daylight white). 
In the past, SMD LED strips you have to chose a specific colour temp and they often have 60–120 LEDs per meter (≈1.5–3 LEDs per inch) whereas these COB lights have hundreds of micro‑LEDs tightly together, giving continuous light with no visible dots of light.
Once I had the layout done and the strips of PVC and AL channel cut to length, the process went quite quickly.  I could apply the construction adhesive to each plank and AL channel and press them up into place and then use my super handy cargo jacks and some scrap lengths of XAL to press these all up against the ceiling so they ended up flat and aligned.  
You can buy the COB LED lights in 20 meter rolls which you then cut to the lengths you want and solder three wires to the copper strips underlying the Yellow COB light strips.  Takes a bit of practice to get these tight solder joints without any cross connections but all went pretty well after a few practice solders.
Then I twist the wires to help reduce any electrical interference and slide a clear tube of heat shrink tubing over the joints and shrink them in place for a nice clean and protected connection.

Each of the LED strips have self adhesive on the back so you just peel off the protective wax layer and press these into the AL channel.
I purchased the Black AL channel with frosted clip in covers so once I had the COB LED light strips glued in place and wired up …………
……………. I could now press these clear covers in place.
Here’s the result at about 6000k.  These LED light strips are also fully dimmable so you can adjust both the colour temp from warm to cold white and from off to full almost daylight brightness.

We are very pleased with the end result.

Yet to come is the making of all the fronts to these drawers where I will get to use the fabulous 125 year old Cherry that my dear friends Colin, Rick and Sherry gifted us with but that probably won’t be until we get back here next year from our trip down to Baja so due stay tuned for all of THAT!

My sincere thanks for taking your valuable time to read these updates and join us on our adventures.  Please leave your questions and comments in the Join the Discussion box below and hope to see you here again next week.

Wayne