: What would be a healthy sub for a
: bulkhead and only a bulkhead? Can I glass a hardware store piece of ply
: and use it?

Undoubtedly ! I've use indoor grade plywood for bulkheads (4mm for the aft
bulkhead, 6mm for the one my feet rest on), glassed both sides and taped in
to the hull on both sides and they stand a lot of abuse. When I needed to add
a bulkhead to an old fibreglass double, I used a piece of plywood cut down
from a sheet I had found on the beach - truly marine ply ;-)

: I have decided to place my Arctic Tern 14 bow bulkhead much closer to my feet
: than than plans call for.

Are you still fitting moveable footrests, or do you intend to paddle with
your feet directly on the bulkhead ? If the latter, remember that your feet
may prefer not to be vertical. There is nothing that says your bulkhead has
to be vertical. Or even flat ! My front bulkhead in the Hybrid Cormorant
slopes away (ie. it meets the deck further forward than where it meets
the keel) but is also dihedral - the centre of the bulkhead is further aft
than where it meets the sheer. It was fabricated from two pieces of ply and
fitted after the deck and hull were joined. It was pretty fiddly to get the
shape right (I went through a lot of cardboard trial versions held in with
blu-tack), but I know it can take a lot of pressure, because the boat is
such a tight fit.

I don't seem to have a good photo of the front bulkhead, so here is one of
the aft bulkhead, which was made in three pieces, to reduce the cockpit
volume (it also made it easy to fit the hatch into the bulkhead before
fitting it to the boat, and meant I could reach behind the centre section
to glass it in before adding the side pieces which I could reach behind
through the hatch. With a bulkhead hatch, there is no deck hatch through
which to reach the bulkhead when fitting it!). The ply at the sides is
cheap B&Q ply, whilst the centre section is actually from an old wardrobe
I took apart :-)

Andy