Keith,

Thanks for the realworld input. A couple of years back I lucked out on a sale and got the Navman 3100 series wind, speed, depth with a 'repeater'. The display heads are something like 4 or 4 1/2 inches square. So the main three of them and a compass will be a tight fit above the companion way. Also, I incessantly worry about the compass being thrown off by the readouts. Craig (c_amos)suggested mocking up the dash on a piece of plywood and 'swinging' the compass Some reading may be in order before I try that. The tally stands at two above the hatch...

Ebb, sir!

I cobbled together a woodie version of the bender in the technical thread. I had hung onto a collection of old plywood cabinet doors from years ago because they were nice, solid chunks of material. Now I know why I carted 'em around for ten years!! A bender they are now!

In the noodling I did, I found all of 'commercial' units did both 7/8" and 1" on the same platen/form/die, whatever you'd call it. So I suspect that 1/8" just don't matter to the pros out there... a million here, a million there... so I used a 1/2"radius cove bit and glued and screwed the two halfs together. A 10" radius seemed like the best bet for what we got planned here. (although there are a couple of 5-6inch radius bends I'm hoping to pull off with a conduit bender) It seems that the crowning machine is the one that will make a big difference in the bow shape and bow strenght. And I haven't started making one of those yet, but it's a pretty straight forward machine. A couple of bolts and a couple of pulleys.

B.s. it's only been in the 40s for the last week. Utterly depressing....