With the main hatch almost done I turned my attention to the Foreroom fish hatch and it’s covering boards.

Starting with the Coaming I decided to have another go at doing something of a joint, with the experience gained from my last attempts it turned out quite well.

Firstly I found the angle using the protractor off the saw then cut 4 pieces to length allowing enough length for the joint to be cut.

Then I cut a rebate on the side pieces for the covers to sit into using the saw, with the optional fence extension.

Next back to the saw to cut most of the material away, finishing off the joints by hand.

When it came to assembly I didn’t want some sort of weird shape with unequal angels so I set the assembly up on my saw and with a bit of fiddling got the result I wanted.

Once the glue had dried work started on the covers, these need to be a nice fit so care was taken when measuring and cutting, making then slightly longer and using the sander to carefully trim, I am quite happy with the fit hopefully enough clearance for paint.

Next up cutting the recesses and grooves for the handles re-using the jig for main hatch boards.
This went much the same as last time however I wasn’t able to hold these ones very well due to there smaller size consequently some chattering occurred causing a poor machined finish.

All sides were sanded and cleaned up then the finishing touch of making up “cleats”.

These need to be made from stronger material than either Pines I have been using, one thing dad told me was that old good quality wooden rulers were made from quality wood even Boxwood, dad saved old rulers and I still have them.

Now I don’t know if the wood I used is Boxwood but the stuff I used is very fine grained and quite strong.

The donor ruler was cut in a way to make a profile that could be then cut to length making more than enough “cleats”, the only down side is the grain isn’t running the best way for strength, so much for my bright idea, luckily the wood is quite strong enough even with the grain running the wrong way.

Before cutting to length a radius was sanded on.

After setting up the saw cutting off “cleats” was easy, the photo doesn’t show it but I put a piece of scrap over the “cleat” to prevent them flinging off into who knows where.

With enough “cleats” cleaned up I marked their positions as per drawing and added some masking tape to help align what are quite small parts, then they were glued on.

That’s it for the moment, thanks for looking in and stay safe.

Cheers,
Stephen.

The hatch cover handles started by cutting a small groove using an even smaller woodruff cutter than before to rough out the width and length, reusing the jig made for making the recess.

One little trick to find out when the cutter is getting close to touching the job is to use a piece of paper, as you slowly move the job towards the cutter it will start to grab the paper then you know you are getting close.

I set the stops on the mill to give me a repeated slot length, this was done with a bit of back and forth try a bit and check taking my time, even though I had a couple of spare pieces I didn’t want to stuff any up.

Next thing was to get some brass strip that was 1.3mm x .5mm something I didn’t have in stock, though I had some Brass sheet .5mm thick, all I had to do is cut some strips 1.3mm wide.
I know from previous experience that cutting such thin strips is problematic I therefore decided to use one of the zero clearance saw table inserts I bought with the saw.

Using a .5mm wide slitting blade I cut through the insert until I got to a height I was happy with then removed the insert and carefully added a very small amount of clearance so the slitting blade would not rub.

When it came to cutting the .5mm sheet I stuck it to an old piece of ply wood using double sided tape to provide some support, set the required thickness and cut a few strips.

After cleaning up the double sided tape which was by now getting quite ordinary because of the cutting oil I used when cutting, I started cutting it into the required lengths.

To do this I used 2 pieces of scrap to trap and support the strip while I cut it, this preformed 2 functions one to prevent the piece from deforming the other to prevent it flying across the room at the end of cut, these 2 things I have learnt the hard way in the past.

Now I had the handles made and having roughly cut the slots on the mill for them to sit in I needed to finish off the slots, after making a bit of a mess of the first one, I then had a look around the workshop trying to find a suitable tool with no luck.

Then I decided to modify a scalpel blade and turn it into a little chisel, this was quite easily done using a bench grinder, being careful not to overheat the blade.

Then the process of cutting all of the slots to size began, this took me quite a while as I wanted a good fit for all of them.

Once all the slots were finished off I began gluing in the handles using Titebond 3.

There are a couple of workers that came along in their Sunday best for a photo in the ship yard, they are quite happy with the progress.😁

At the end I am quite happy with the end result even though the handles seemed like a bit of an anti climax, what seems like a lot of work for little reward.

Still some more work to do on the Hatch coaming, and eventually painting blue.

Next up Fore room Hatch coaming and covers.

That’s it for the moment, thanks for looking in and stay safe.

Cheers,
Stephen.

As the Hatch Coaming has progressed I have decided to make the covers and centre beams removable as in the original following the description in Ted Frosts book Tree to Sea, the idea being when displayed, some or all of the hatch covers can be removed to revile fishing nets and net floats.

Although the main fish hold won’t be the full depth I am hopeful there will be enough depth to create the illusion of depth, hopefully this will add a point of interest.

One trouble with this idea is it adds to how much work is involved and the level of accuracy goes up significantly to create it, nothing new there. 😁

After accurately finding the center of the end pieces I machined a groove, then squared off the end using a scalpel.

Next I glued the outer parts together and left them overnight.
Then carefully measured and cut the center beam into two parts and assembled them.

Next was the hatch covers there being 6 on the main part and 2 on the aft part, these would need to be accurately measured and cut for it to work.
I wanted hatch covers to able to be put in any order.
Teds description of the hatch covers indicates the grab handles are flush, with a recess chiseled out.
This represented a bit of a challenge, firstly these grab handles need to be in the same relative position, of coarse this called for a simple jig to fix the location, once made the jig was attached to the vice using double sided tape.

A test run on a piece of scrap showed the orientation to be wrong, after a quick modification this was rectified and using what I would call a small woodruff cutter, 3 cuts were made to get the required height, this was repeated 32 times.

Next comes the handles themselves this is proving to be more of a challenge than expected and will be included in the next update.

As I am inching slowly closer to needing to apply some finishes, I have experimented with a locally made hobby Acrylic Lacquer the brand being SMS.

I bought a starter pack that includes Black, White also Gloss and Matt Clear. I soon found that I could thin the black to something more like an Ink and when sprayed onto some stanchion off cuts that had been glued together it did a great job of weathering the Huon pine, so far I am very impressed with this product, more experiments to come.

The two photos of my test block, one showing solid black through to very thin ink like black with a clear over the top and an unpainted piece for comparison, the other photo showing stained and clear coated with a just stained piece for comparison.

That’s it for the moment, thanks for looking in and stay safe.

Cheers,
Stephen.

I began by remaking the 2 forward covering boards, even though I had a good template (the old ones) this still took quite a while, but I got there in the end.

I re-did some more stanchions swapped others and opened up the clearance between covering board and stanchions on most of them, meaning there is more clearance than I would really like, though if I don’t tell anyone no one will know. 😁

Moving away from the covering boards and stanchions, while still not quite complete, I still need to trim the inside edge of all the covering boards.

This deviation is partly because I don’t really know what to do next, I still have concerns about the stanchions, currently I am considering making up the capping rail and temporally fitting it.

I thought I would make a start on the main fish hatch coaming. Firstly consulting Ted Frost’s book to get material thickness, then making up the required material, I chose what I think is Kauri pine because I have plenty of it and I find it quite nice to work with.

Going by Ted’s sketch there was also an opportunity to have a go at some miniature joinery, something I don’t have any real experience with, one thing I did find out is Kauri pine is not really well suited to miniature joinery.

After several hours of enjoyable work I had the beginnings well under way and with a reject/spare front piece that nearly turned into two rejects/spare front pieces, I trimmed too much off the side of the first one and the second one ended up too short so there was nearly a third one made though after some careful consideration small packing pieces were added to the second one, of course the aft part of the coaming joints were a beautiful fit first time.

Next I wanted to make the angled rebate where the covers locate into. To do this I dragged out the Proxxon router attachment once again, I found that I wasn’t happy with the fence on this so I machined it flat on the mill.

Next I made up a block with the correct angle to use as a guide, then stuck it to the fence with double sided sticky tape.

I cut the rebate in several passes not wanting to try and cut it all in one pass.

That’s about it for the moment, more to come soon ( I hope ).

Cheers,
Stephen.

More surprises and a sideways or backwards step.

After I had worked out that I needed to alter the stern, which was a something of a shock another thing I found later is that a long time ago I had cut the stem too short!!!! How I managed to do that I have no idea, can’t blame the apprentice.

I thought I would check how fare the stanchions were by removing the covering boards and using a long piece of spruce to check them, now there is always a chance when you check things that a problem will show up and it did.
I was expecting there was a fault as I had done a quick check earlier but I wanted to remove the covering boards to do a proper check. I ended up replacing 18 stanchions and I may still replace some more, “O” the joys of scratch building.

After I had recovered from all that shock and unhappiness, without placing any progress expectations on myself, next job was to make and fit packing blocks this was a fairly simple process and went smoothly, I allowed the glue to set overnight before faring using a file and sanding blocks.

Next day I went back out to the workshop without much of an idea on how best to remove the 1.5mm from the stern any ideas I had had were going to be quite difficult to do.

Before that I trimmed of the three stern covering boards.

Then remembering I have a Proxxon router attachment I dug it out and found a 1/8” Carbide burr, I know that is quite a small cutter but my limited experience says that it is better to use the small easy to control cutter than a large hard to control cutter when doing this sort of free hand work.

After carefully setting the depth, this method turned out to work wonderfully in removing most of the material followed by several hours of hand fitting and refitting. Unfortunately I had removed a bit too much depth right aft so some packing was glued in place.

With the new packing pieces fitted the stanchions didn’t sit well so I set up the sander and trimmed the bottom edge, I wanted to do this now to make sure they sit down in place.

Next I tried refitting the covering boards I will have to trim most of them, unfortunately the two forward boards weren't going to work, even though I did try opening up the clearance between the board and stanchion there was too big a gap worst of all there wasn’t enough material to trim on the inside edge, so I will need to remake those at that point I had had enough for the day, even starting to think about other jobs I could work on.

That’s it for the moment, thanks for having a look.

Cheers,
Stephen.

And so the process continues, rinse and repeat.

I have tried to make the length of covering board to what I think would be possible in real life so the longest boards are around 20 feet long and from material that is not very wide the boards with a lot of curvature are shorter but wider.

A couple of problems have arisen, the first one I noticed a few weeks ago, this being that there is a gap between covering board and stringer because of the deck camber, bit of an oversight on my behalf. I had a few ideas one was to use filler to build up this area though I think it better to use strips of wood glued down then fared with a file or sanding block.

The other problem is how to make the tug stern this presents some challenges along with a rethink of build procedure, I originally thought I would make and fit the stanchions + covering boards then plank the bulwarks and lastly plank the deck, this has been scrapped and currently I am thinking of fitting covering boards and deck planking then fit stanchions and lastly plank the bulwarks, subject to change.

One reason for this is the aft stanchions lean inboard considerably therefore cannot be done the same way as the rest, if I tried to I would drill a hole through the hull not a good idea, some of these stanchions also have knees that straddle the covering board and a bit of the deck planking so as in real practice according to Ted Frost’s book the deck needs to be laid first.

In Ted Frost’s book he says the stern covering boards were made from 4” thick Oak due to this area being subjected to large amounts of pressure at times when going up to or in port, this being the whole reason for the tug stern.

I made a card template of the 3 last covering boards and glued them together to form one.

Then cut my interpretation of the scarf joint that joins the 3 pieces together, I am not sure if it is right though I think this joint might help prevent the pieces moving inwards if pushed from the outside.
I made a former to steam bend the center section on.

At the end of the day I had cut and pinned the 3 pieces in position though there is still some material to remove, better to sneak up on the final shape.

One thing that has been troubling me is the difference in thickness between most of the covering boards and these beefy stern boards, my main concern being how did the deck sit up against the thick boards was it flush?

The plans show a raised stern piece.

I was going to simply put a chamfer on to blend the two together, then while packing up for the day I looked at one of the sketches in Teds book and to my horror/surprise the thicker boards remain at deck level the extra 1.5 inches being let into the hull. Why hadn't I noticed this earlier, the only concession is nothing is glued in place yet.

From old photos earlier in the build, ( I had forgotten what I had done ) I should be able to remove some material without compromising the strength.

That’s it for the moment, thanks for having a look.

I welcome any helpful comments and suggestions.

Cheers,
Stephen.

Covering boards and Stanchions continued, I am generally very happy with the way the covering boards and stanchions are going, though not without some problems.

I ended up using the mill to drill a hole in each stanchion allowing some easy hole position adjustment.
I put some double sided tape onto a bit of scrap to help with positioning the stanchion in the vice, this made the whole putting a stanchion in the vice an easy task.

After the success of the first batch of covering board and stanchions I guess I got a bit excited and ripped into the 2nd batch and somehow the hole positions went a bit haywire, what I mean is the distance from the top strake to the hole centre was changing, I am able to get around this by altering the stanchion hole position, easily done because I am drilling the holes in my mill, still it’s not ideal.


The next day that I went out to my workshop I discovered it is easy to misinterpret what my little measuring jig is saying this is due to it’s short legs that can rock easily, so with the benefit of hindsight I should have waited to install the “Binn Irons” then the jig legs could have been longer reducing any tendency to rock, “O” well live and learn.

I proceeded with a lot more caution for the 3rd covering board batch.
I made up some custom sanding blocks for finishing the notches in the covering boards. Using double sided sticky tape (in my opinion an indispensable thing to have in any workshop) to stick some sandpaper to a block of wood.

Thanks for having a look.

Cheers,
Stephen.

Both Knightheads temporally fitted.

Drilling pin holes for Stanchions, I was having trouble keeping the drill from not moving the jig when I turned it on, this problem was reduced by using a foot switch instead of the switch on the drill.

The first of the Stanchions and Knightheads temporally fitted, at this point I am very happy with progress, using the jigs I have made.

I have roughed out the covering board, using a scroll saw.

Fitting the covering board.

I made a filler piece to give the first two covering boards and deck planks somewhere to rest on.

So far so good. 😀
Thanks for having a look.

Cheers,
Stephen.

Making the jig, making the steel bush first.

Using some pine I had lying around, trouble was when I pushed the steel bush into it the end broke out, so I made another one out of plywood.

With the jig temporarily secured using double sided tape and using the “deck planking jig” to find the angle I used an edge finder to fix my position.

Photos show the original jig.
Then centre drilled.
Then spot faced.
Finally drilled.
I drilled and tapped M4 for an adjusting screw and lock nut.

Then the jig in use.
Transferred the pin locations then drilled for the first Knights head.

For the “graining” I have used Rustins Walnut stain I only had the Walnut and Red Mahogany, Rustins are my preferred brand.

I think the Walnut looks good it shows the grain nicely with the Huon Pine.

Cheers,
Stephen.

Not much progress, a bit more work on the first covering board.
I am viewing this first board as a learning experience.

Trimming the board to the center line.

Then temporarily pinning in place with .7mm brass wire.

I made a couple of very simple jigs to show where the outer edge of the stanchions will sit and help keep the stanchion parallel to the outer hull shape.

Before I go further I will make a jig for drilling into the upper hull.

Thanks for having a look.

Cheers,
Stephen.