Commander 147

[mbd]

Thanks Jerry. It looks like you "capped" where it connects to the cabin trunk too. It's a nice finished look and give some protection to the end grain on the attachment piece - whatever that would be called. The Sea Sprite 23 had those caps and I thought they'd look really nice with all wood coamings - now I know - at least when YOU do it. Seriously - so beautifully done! And the coamings are so a featured on these boats too. Wow....

[Commander 147]

Thanks Jerry. It looks like you "capped" where it connects to the cabin trunk too. It's a nice finished look and give some protection to the end grain on the attachment piece - whatever that would be called. The Sea Sprite 23 had those caps and I thought they'd look really nice with all wood coamings - now I know - at least when YOU do it. Seriously - so beautifully done! And the coamings are so a featured on these boats too. Wow....

Actually Mike the returns are not capped and when I went back and looked at the picture I could see why you would think they were. They appear capped because I rounded over the top edges with a round over bit in the router. And the end grain appears darker than the face grain of the wood. The problem with capping something like this is that wood expands and shrinks at different rates based on it's orientation. The cap that would be on top would not expand or contract hardly at all in it's length. But the wood under it will expand at a much larger percentage than the cap on top. I did a quick search online and found what appears to be a good article about wood expansion and contraction as it takes on and gives off moisture content. Take a look here. You will see a picture that shows wood only expands and contract 1% in length but 8% tangentially.


http://workshopcompanion.com/KnowHow...d_Movement.htm