Commander 147

[Chance]

Jerry,
Very impressive. Cabinetry is first rate and looks like it was always there to begin with. What type of white paint have you spot painted the cabin interior with or is that just primer? I have not bought my paint yet and only have past experience with Petit Easypoxy (one part poly). Is your white a gloss, semi gloss, or? I was at a marina last weekend and met an owner of a Cape Dory 25D who was finishing some interior painting and he used Sherwin Williams tinted to Cape Dorries original tan color that was in the sail locker areas. The paint he used looked good, but not sure of it's long term durability.

Your mahogany trim and bright work is excellent. What clear coating did you elect to go with on the mahogany?

Ahh, I see the trim that is to be installed on the inboard leading edges of the split bulkheads. I have yet to figure out how to make the trim (my bulkheads are similar in shape to yours) to cover up the edges of mine. I want to cap them in mahogany, something like a dadoed solid piece and fasten them counter sunk bronze screws followed by plugs. I'ts an area I have no experience in, but then again I had hardly any experience in glass work either, and seem to have overcome that learning curve. Is your trim like that or is it a laminated build up, and if so did you dado it or will it sit flat on top of the bulkhead edges?

[Commander 147]

The paint I'm using is Pettit EZ Cabin Coat mold and mildew resistant paint. It is a water based paint that has a semi gloss appearance. The first batch of it I bought was the white and it was just to white for my taste. So I'm using the white for the first two coats of paint and then I'm going to follow with two coats of the their off white. It has a slight cream color to it and it looks great with the woodwork. It also doesn't blind you when you look at it with it's brilliance.

On the mahogany trim I had some epifanes here and decided to go with it.

As far as my trim for the edges of the main bulkheads here are a couple of pictures of the edge of one piece and you can see a did a dado on the backside to completely cover the edge of the plywood. The pieces are a glued up laminate and you can see my form to make them in my post number 145 of this gallery along with the glue I used. If you decide to go that way it is important to use a glue that hardens into a crystaline form so you don't get creep like you would with normal woodworking glue. Also if you go this way it is important to keep the slices of wood in the same order that you cut them from the board. It makes it much harder to detect that they are a bunch of strips glued up together. I've shown friends those pieces and until I told them how I made them they did not notice that it was strips glued together. Also in the past when I did glue ups like this I used to plane the surfaces of the pieces I glued together. These pieces had such a tight radius to follow that the pieces had to be so thin there was no way I could surface them. So I put a very good blade on the tablesaw and just ripped them off of a single board and kept them in order. After glue up you can't tell they were only surfaced with a saw blade. Oh and one last hint about the thickness of the pieces you glue together. The way to determine the thickness required for the individual strips is to slice a piece the thickness you think will work and then bend it around your form. If you can hold it tightly against the form around the entire curve without it breaking you are thin enough. If on the other had it snaps then cut another piece thinner and try again. Repeat the process until the piece is able to follow the form without breaking.

[Commander 147]

I took the time (when I really should have been doing other things) to work on Destiny's electric panel area this weekend. I have always disliked how boat builders put the smallest fuse panel in that they can get away with on boats. Today we have a lot more electronics than we used to in addition to the normal stuff like lights and power outlets. In addition I like dedicated breakers for each electrical item. With this setup I should be able to have dedicated breakers for everything and and 3 or 4 left over for spares.

The panel is hinged to allow easy access. To the left of the panel is where a 110VAC outlet will be available for use when at the dock in plugged into shore power.

The two frames I made for the panel I made as mortise and tennon frames as you can see in the first picture.

The second picture is a mock up of how it will look later.

[ebb]

Jerry,
Interested in your modus operandi.....
Great tip on bending and gluing a continuous trim piece. (Cutting from one piece and stacking in order!)
Looks like you had to actually cut veneer thickness (1/16") for that bend.
Can't see too well because there is a white smuuge on the end photo shot - must be the reflection.
But get the idea.

What blade do you use? Obviously has to be as thin as possible so as not to waste too much precious wood.
What glue? Epoxy? Don't think so.
I worry about creep in all aliphatic derived glues.
Brown glue - viz Weldwood water mix powder resin glue? imco, just fine for interior trim.
[And as I have said befor: I've witnessed 50' spruce mast scarfs glued with Weldwood Resin Glue.]

Have a tip on applying the glue to the veneers?

And the form you use.....
Do you bend into a form? (my preference for clamping ease), OR around a form?
How do you control even clamping pressure to avoid excessive squeeze out? (Yeah, Right, Carefully!)

[Commander 147]

Ebb

You are correct that the strips that were glued up are in fact only 1/16" thick to make the radius.

As far as saw blades, I have come to like Freud blades the best. I've used all of the top brands (a high quality blade is a joy to use compared to a cheap blade) including Forrest blades. But Freud manufactures differant grades of carbide for their differant saw blades. And the prices for what you get are really reasonable. And while a thinner blade will in theory cost you less material it will also vibrate more durning the cutting process. This will result in a rougher surface which is what I was trying to avoid for the glue up. This is the blade I used for cutting the strips.

http://www.freudtools.com/p-29-gener...sebr-nbsp.aspx

The glue I prefer is Weldwood plastic resin glue. As you mentioned it is a powder that is mixed with water I actually use a small mixmaster I bought at a yard sale to mix it completely. And it depends on the job I'm doing as to how I apply it. In the case of this trim it was so narrow that I just used a brush. I flipped over the top piece and coated that surface and the surface that was exposed on the top of the remaining stack. Then I flipped over the the second piece on top of the first one I had just applied the glue to and did the same thing again. I continue in this manner until the whole stack is ready for the form. When I am doing wider strips I like to use a roller to spread the glue. It goes much faster and gives you a more even application of the glue.

Before I put the stack in the form I turn them up on edge and push everything in alignment. Then I will take a couple of pieces of painters tape and wrap around the stack on each end to help hold them in alignment as the clamp up is begun.

The form is the most important part of the glue up. And it depends on the piece I'm doing if I will bend into a form or around a form. In the case of these pieces I bend around the form. I had a long straight part of the glue up and then a sharp curve. I was able to clamp the straight part to stablize the material before bending around the curve.

I like to use MDF for my forms because the material is consistant throughout, it is stable and it is dead flat. I start out by doing a full scale drawing of the finished part on a piece of 3/4" thick MDF. This gives me the inside curvature and the outside curvature (they are differant due to the material's thickness) of my form pieces. You can see a portion of my form's layout in the first picture below. The double line near the inside of the piece in the drawing showed where my dado would be cut later and that is actually the shape of the edge of the bulk head it is going over.

When I lay out the shape of the piece on the MDF I also lay out where the clamps will go around the form. And on this form you can see where I drew lines to cut the outside of the form into smaller blocks to make glue up easier.

Next I cut the picture of the final piece out of the center. I use a longboard to hand sand the edges of the form that will go up against the piece. When they are perfectly smooth, I glue and screw another piece of MDF to the one that I just finished making. Then I use a flush trimming router bit to cut the second piece (that I need for the added thickness of the form) to the exact shape of the first piece.

I fear this may be getting to be to long of a response to Ebb's questions and don't want to bore you. So let me say one more thing and provide one more picture of the form all clamped up and if you still have questions please ask and I will answer.

The last thing I want to mention is the edges of the form and anyplace where glue might get where it is not wanted I protect with packing tape. It keeps the part from sticking to the form. And as far as squeeze out goes, I try to protect things under the form that I am concerned about and just let it happen. As you can see in the last picture.

[Chance]

Jerry,
Thank you kindly for the quality response and in answering my questions. Your truley a master at what you do. Very nice craftsmanship I must say. Thanks for making the lightbuld come on in my head, now I understand the process.
Okay, so here's some more:
I see the three lines you drew on the clamping form before you cut. I understand how to get the first line representing the edge of the bulkhead, but how do you draw the inner line (that represents the depth of the dado) and the outer line that represents the actual mahogany trim? Do you use a compass?

[Commander 147]

Chance

Actually the inner line that represents the depth of the dado is the same as the bulkhead edge. The bottom of the dado is what will bear on the bulkhead edge so that is the first line and it matches the edge of the bulkhead. Then you could use a compass to get the other lines parallel to the bulk head line but I have always found that difficult to do. So I use a small 6" steel scale that is divided up into 32nds of an inch and make small pencil lines the correct distance from the original line every half inch or so apart in the area of the curve and then just connect the lines. For me it is just easier.

[Chance]

Jerry,
Okay. So, let me see if I got this right......after the three lines are drawn on the MDF, you cut the clamping jig. First you cut on the outer line that reprensents the top of the trim and then cut on the inner line that represents the bottom of the trim, correct? The line that represents the actual bulkhead (bottom of dado) is not cut but only used for a reference point for the other two lines, correct?

By the way, beautiful mortise and tenon stile and rails on Destiny's electrical panel cabinet!!

Your fiddle rails look very similar to mine. I'll post photos some time.

[ebb]

Used the wine preserver type that comes in a tall aluminum wine bottle sized can.
Won't recommend it. Maybe good for getting the heavier than air element into an opened wine bottle
but I think the stuff comes out at too high a pressure for displacing air in the top of a varnish can.

When varnishing and having the can opemed and closed a number of times,
trying to keep the varnish from skinning was a failure.

There is a fairly new product with a tricky name aimed at paint can people.
If I saw it I'd get it to try. The argon can't come out at too much pressure to be useful imco.
It'll just get blown out of the can.

[Commander 147]

Ebb

Good to hear actual experiences with these products. Thanks for chiming in.

[ebb]

Found it on the System Three store site (Bloxygen Left Over Finish Preserver - System Three Resins, Inc) with a little write up.

We just used argon to tent some historical vehicle wool floor mats that were being consumed by clothing moths.
Our reasoning was that the bugs couldn't live without air for X number of days.
We sucked the air out of the Banana Bag with a vacuum cleaner and then slowly re-inflated the plastic bag with argon from a welding supply bottle.
And argon as the most inert gas on the planet wasn't going to react with anything historical in the process.
Or poison anybody riding in the car after 'treatment'.

Don't know about displacing oxygen in a fairly full paintcan with argon. It seems to me it would have to be somehow fogged on to be actually effective, rather than using the supplied straw.

Anything is better than marbles!
And much safer than using propane gas from yer torch!

[Commander 147]

System three's website must be down cannot get it to come up. Even tried the link from a Google search.

[Commander 147]

I have a moisture meter for wood. The way the meter works is you input the specific gravity for a species of wood and then when you lay the meter on the wood it will tell you the moisture content of the wood.

So today after doing some fillets down below I decided to start tackling the deck issue. I looked up the specific gravity level of balsa and it was .17. My meter only goes down to .30 so I set it at the lowest setting and thought I would give it a try anyway on the deck. Well the meter read 20% moisture everywhere I placed it on Destiny's starboard deck near the cockpit so I though it would not work correctly on balsa.

Then I started drilling holes in the deck and as soon as I would reach the bottom of the top skin with the drill bit it would fall through and bounce of the bottom skin. Oh NO!!!! Well I started cutting it open and here is what I found.

Let the games begin.

[ebb]

...'let the game begin.'
Be interesting to see how you wrestle* with this one!
Mike Goodwin called it tunafish.
Think it a bit better to deal with rotton tuna balsa fish than rotton plywood that others get into.
Count yerself lucky!
Haven't had to do A-338's deck YET.
But it does look like if you do it in sections at a time'
it's not too big a deal. Big costly!!!!
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*Collegiate and Olympic wrestling is great sport to watch. I do mean watch.
Here are some takedown moves you'll have use on your deck:
double leg - single leg - high crotch - duck under - standing switch - stuff the head - head lock - and the front head lock. Got that?
(taken from wikipedia)

[Commander 147]

I guess I'll take a break for a few hours and let it cool back down some before I grind the edges of the cutout down to a bevel. I got the first section this far and found some not so rotten balsa. So I'll do this section complete and move onto the next section. I get in and out of the boat here so I want this area solid again as soon as possible.