This is an instrument panel for my classic wooden cruising sailboat which I
just finished and installed a few days ago. It was a tricky bugger to build.
Take a look at the slide show:

http://s736.photobucket.com/user/tda...strument%20pod

The problem was the corner pieces - I didn't have a piece of teak that was
thick enough to cut the corners on the square, which would have eased the
handling and clamping problem, but I did have some eight-quarter stock that
I could use on a 45 degree diagonal to get the radius out of it I needed.
Not only that, it had nice curved grain across the width of the piece so
that I could curve the grain around the corners, more or less.

I'll describe these in the order I placed the pictures in the Photobucket
slideshow, although Photobucket may not show them to you in that order. The
site has never been very good at getting that right. Nevertheless, it'll be
pretty clear what you're looking at, no matter the order you see them.

The first couple pictures are the finished piece, mounted on the boat. The
third one is an assembly picture, after I'd shot the slots with the Festool
Domino tool. The last two are after the glue-up, with the back panel in a
routed rabbet. By then I'd bandsawed the inner curves and smoothed them on a
drill-press-mounted drum sander, but hadn't yet shaped the outer curves.
Those I did later by bandsawing outside the line and sanding to the line on
a large disk sander. Some router table work finished up the edges.

The straight pieces are sixty-year-old Burma teak, and the corner pieces
came out of some stock I've been carrying around with me for about
thirty-five years. The back panel might be about that vintage too.

One problem with finishing it was that once you started brushing on the
varnish, there was no place to stop until you'd done both the complete
outside and the inside as well, about an inch and a half deep into the
piece. it was sort of like varnishing a coffee cup while you're holding it
by the handle. So one of the pictures shows the cradle that I rigged up to
sort of float the thing in mid-air while I was finishing it. I could move it
around some by the dowels to position it - turn it over, tilt it up on edge,
and so forth.

I like the Festool tools, as you can see by the background in one of the
pictures, but there's no way that I could afford to have one of those
Dominos in my shop for an occasional job like this. I was lucky enough to be
able to borrow it.

Tom

"tdacon" wrote in message
...
This is an instrument panel for my classic wooden cruising sailboat which
I just finished and installed a few days ago. It was a tricky bugger to
build. Take a look at the slide show:

Looks nice!

On Saturday, September 19, 2015 at 4:32:05 PM UTC-5, tdacon wrote:
This is an instrument panel for my classic wooden cruising sailboat which I
just finished and installed a few days ago. It was a tricky bugger to build.
Take a look at the slide show:

http://s736.photobucket.com/user/tda...strument%20pod

Tom

That is very nice. Excellent job. With work as that, I'd like to see the rest of the boat, as well.

Sonny

On 9/19/2015 5:32 PM, tdacon wrote:
This is an instrument panel for my classic wooden cruising sailboat
which I just finished and installed a few days ago. It was a tricky
bugger to build. Take a look at the slide show:

http://s736.photobucket.com/user/tda...strument%20pod


The problem was the corner pieces - I didn't have a piece of teak that
was thick enough to cut the corners on the square, which would have
eased the handling and clamping problem, but I did have some
eight-quarter stock that I could use on a 45 degree diagonal to get the
radius out of it I needed. Not only that, it had nice curved grain
across the width of the piece so that I could curve the grain around the
corners, more or less.

Looks very nice. Good job.

"Sonny" wrote in message
...

That is very nice. Excellent job. With work as that, I'd like to see the
rest of the boat, as well.

Sonny


Thank you, Sonny. Here's another PhotoBucket album with a bunch of boat
pictures.

Tom

"Sonny" wrote in message
...

That is very nice. Excellent job. With work as that, I'd like to see the
rest of the boat, as well.

Sonny


Thank you, Sonny. Here's another PhotoBucket album with a bunch of boat
pictures.


http://s736.photobucket.com/user/tda...deshow/Bettina


Tom

"Sonny" wrote:

That is very nice. Excellent job. With work as that, I'd like to
see the rest of the boat, as well.

Sonny
-------------------------------------------------------
"tdacon" wrote:


Thank you, Sonny. Here's another PhotoBucket album with a bunch of
boat pictures.
---------------------------------------------------------
A true "woodie" masochist.

Nice work.

Lew

"Lew Hodgett" wrote:

"Sonny" wrote:

That is very nice. Excellent job. With work as that, I'd like to
see the rest of the boat, as well.

Sonny
-------------------------------------------------------
"tdacon" wrote:


Thank you, Sonny. Here's another PhotoBucket album with a bunch of
boat pictures.
---------------------------------------------------------
A true "woodie" masochist.

Nice work.

Lew
----------------------------------------------------
A little heavy on the clip. Sorry about that.

http://s736.photobucket.com/user/tda...deshow/Bettina

Lew

On 9/19/2015 8:02 PM, tdacon wrote:
"Sonny" wrote in message
...

That is very nice. Excellent job. With work as that, I'd like to
see the rest of the boat, as well.

Sonny


Thank you, Sonny. Here's another PhotoBucket album with a bunch of boat
pictures.


http://s736.photobucket.com/user/tda...deshow/Bettina


Tom
You have a beautiful boat. With all of the bightwork do you ever get it
out and under sail.

I have a much smaller boat, and the best place on earth is on a broad
reach with a good wind.

On Saturday, September 19, 2015 at 7:03:02 PM UTC-5, tdacon wrote:

http://s736.photobucket.com/user/tda...deshow/Bettina

Tom

Thanks Tom. Enjoyed the tour. Very nice, all around. I suppose you made the (steering) wheel and dining table, also.... beautiful!

Sonny

"tdacon" wrote:
This is an instrument panel for my classic wooden cruising sailboat which
I just finished and installed a few days ago. It was a tricky bugger to
build. Take a look at the slide show:

http://s736.photobucket.com/user/tda...strument%20pod

The problem was the corner pieces - I didn't have a piece of teak that
was thick enough to cut the corners on the square, which would have eased
the handling and clamping problem, but I did have some eight-quarter
stock that I could use on a 45 degree diagonal to get the radius out of
it I needed. Not only that, it had nice curved grain across the width of
the piece so that I could curve the grain around the corners, more or less.

I'll describe these in the order I placed the pictures in the Photobucket
slideshow, although Photobucket may not show them to you in that order.
The site has never been very good at getting that right. Nevertheless,
it'll be pretty clear what you're looking at, no matter the order you see them.

The first couple pictures are the finished piece, mounted on the boat.
The third one is an assembly picture, after I'd shot the slots with the
Festool Domino tool. The last two are after the glue-up, with the back
panel in a routed rabbet. By then I'd bandsawed the inner curves and
smoothed them on a drill-press-mounted drum sander, but hadn't yet shaped
the outer curves. Those I did later by bandsawing outside the line and
sanding to the line on a large disk sander. Some router table work finished up the edges.

The straight pieces are sixty-year-old Burma teak, and the corner pieces
came out of some stock I've been carrying around with me for about
thirty-five years. The back panel might be about that vintage too.

One problem with finishing it was that once you started brushing on the
varnish, there was no place to stop until you'd done both the complete
outside and the inside as well, about an inch and a half deep into the
piece. it was sort of like varnishing a coffee cup while you're holding
it by the handle. So one of the pictures shows the cradle that I rigged
up to sort of float the thing in mid-air while I was finishing it. I
could move it around some by the dowels to position it - turn it over,
tilt it up on edge, and so forth.

I like the Festool tools, as you can see by the background in one of the
pictures, but there's no way that I could afford to have one of those
Dominos in my shop for an occasional job like this. I was lucky enough to
be able to borrow it.

Tom

Very cool! Many years ago I built a clock with the same basic design. I
wish I'd had my domino then. :-)

On 9/19/2015 4:32 PM, tdacon wrote:

This is an instrument panel for my classic wooden cruising sailboat
which I just finished and installed a few days ago. It was a tricky
bugger to build. Take a look at the slide show:

http://s736.photobucket.com/user/tda...strument%20pod

Obviously a man who does not shy away from challenges.

Well done!

--
eWoodShop: www.eWoodShop.com
Wood Shop: www.e-WoodShop.net
https://www.google.com/+eWoodShop
https://plus.google.com/+KarlCaillouet/posts
http://www.custommade.com/by/ewoodshop/
KarlCaillouet@ (the obvious)

You have a beautiful boat. With all of the bightwork do you ever get it
out and under sail.

In earlier days did my own varnishing, but I'm getting too old and creaky to
crawl around on deck any more. So I have the exterior varnish done
professionally now - two full coats a year.

A boat like that, you have to try hard to minimize repeated work or that's
all you'll ever do. So the topsides of the hull and the mast have been
sprayed with linear polyurethane (LP). The paint on the hull is now 15 years
old, and when I hauled it last year all I had to do to is was buff it out.

I have a much smaller boat, and the best place on earth is on a broad reach
with a good wind.

Amen to that, brother. Here's a short video of the old girl on a close reach
on Port Townsend bay: https://youtu.be/b2lSWi76DHU


Tom

"Sonny" wrote in message
...

On Saturday, September 19, 2015 at 7:03:02 PM UTC-5, tdacon wrote:

http://s736.photobucket.com/user/tda...deshow/Bettina

Tom

Thanks Tom. Enjoyed the tour. Very nice, all around. I suppose you
made the (steering) wheel and dining table, also.... beautiful!

The table, yes, thanks, but the wheel came from a Scandanivian company that
specializes in them. A guy would grow old in a hurry trying to make a fussy
thing like that when you hadn't already developed and tested all the jigs
you'd want to use.

Tom

Very cool! Many years ago I built a clock with the same basic design. I
wish I'd had my domino then. :-)

I was staggered by the precision, and by how easy it was to get the two
pieces to register accurately. I used it to do a test section of one end of
the box before I committed to the real thing, and it didn't take long to
figure it out. I'd have one if I could justify it, but I couldn't unless I
did this kind of thing professionally.

Tom

"Swingman" wrote in message
...

Obviously a man who does not shy away from challenges.

Well done!

Gracias, amigo.

Tom

On 9/20/2015 10:35 AM, tdacon wrote:

Amen to that, brother. Here's a short video of the old girl on a close
reach on Port Townsend bay: https://youtu.be/b2lSWi76DHU

Wonderful ... worked on wooden three masted schooner in Australia for a
too brief period.

She had been used in the whaling industry, sunk, salvaged and put back
into service, with an auxiliary diesel, as a supply boat for our
offshore seismograph crew.

Nothing more beautiful when under sail, or when anchored down at night
under the Southern cross, with the only sound the creaking timbers and
slight breeze in her rigging lines.

Back in my high rolling days, when I could afford a sail boat, I viewed
sailing like I viewed cocaine ...

I had too much to lose to do either.

--
eWoodShop: www.eWoodShop.com
Wood Shop: www.e-WoodShop.net
https://www.google.com/+eWoodShop
https://plus.google.com/+KarlCaillouet/posts
http://www.custommade.com/by/ewoodshop/
KarlCaillouet@ (the obvious)

On Sun, 20 Sep 2015 08:35:37 -0700, "tdacon"
wrote:

You have a beautiful boat. With all of the bightwork do you ever get it
out and under sail.

In earlier days did my own varnishing, but I'm getting too old and creaky to
crawl around on deck any more. So I have the exterior varnish done
professionally now - two full coats a year.

A boat like that, you have to try hard to minimize repeated work or that's
all you'll ever do. So the topsides of the hull and the mast have been
sprayed with linear polyurethane (LP). The paint on the hull is now 15 years
old, and when I hauled it last year all I had to do to is was buff it out.

I have a much smaller boat, and the best place on earth is on a broad reach
with a good wind.

Amen to that, brother. Here's a short video of the old girl on a close reach
on Port Townsend bay: https://youtu.be/b2lSWi76DHU

....and people here complain about the price of Festools! ;-)

Nice, very nice!

On 9/19/2015 4:32 PM, tdacon wrote:
This is an instrument panel for my classic wooden cruising sailboat
which I just finished and installed a few days ago. It was a tricky
bugger to build. Take a look at the slide show:

http://s736.photobucket.com/user/tda...strument%20pod

Again great work!

But to be clear, I understood that you just finished the instrument
panel for your classic wooden cruising sailboat.

Did you build the boat too?

On 9/20/2015 10:43 AM, tdacon wrote:

Very cool! Many years ago I built a clock with the same basic
design. I
wish I'd had my domino then. :-)

I was staggered by the precision, and by how easy it was to get the two
pieces to register accurately. I used it to do a test section of one end
of the box before I committed to the real thing, and it didn't take long
to figure it out. I'd have one if I could justify it, but I couldn't
unless I did this kind of thing professionally.

Tom



You just can't appreciate the precision unless you use the tool.

Fortunately I sell a majority of my designs/work.


In the event you use the tool again keep this in mind.

I noticed that you had green tape to mark centers for the mortises. It
appears you did that correctly but keep in mind something I did not
consider one day...

I found out the hard way that if you don't use the same tape on both
reference surfaces that the mortises will not be indexed to each properly.

I found this out by having a piece of tape, not for reference, that was
used for another purpose, that was off to the side and the fence was
slightly off parallel to the reference surface. I had to plug, and
re-cut the mortise.

I also have commented that while you can get away with using the work
bench surface and the bottom of the tool as the reference surface for a
plate joiner/biscuit cutter, you should not with the Domino.

A slightly warped board or a slight amount of debris under the work
piece can throw alignment off considerably. AND this can happen when
using the fence as the debris or a warp can do the same. BUT the domino
fence is typically narrower than the work and has less effect if the
work is warped in a particular direction, crowned up in the middle.
And you are less likely to miss removing debris on top of the work, the
fence reference surface, than if it was under your work and slightly
lifting your work.


Again great work!

"Leon" wrote in message
...

Did you build the boat too?

Oh, no. The boat was built by a renowned Hong Kong shipyard in 1957, and
came into my possession in 1976 as a shabby and somewhat neglected
fixer-upper - no serious problems, but not much maintenance either over a
number of years. She was designed by Laurent Giles, an English designer.
Since Hong Kong was then English, the English designers had developed close
relationships with the major Hong Kong yards, so she was built there and I
believe was then sailed to the West Coast for, or by, the original owner.

Tom

"Swingman" wrote in message
...

Wonderful ... worked on wooden three masted schooner in Australia for a too
brief period.
Nothing more beautiful when under sail, or when anchored down at night
under the Southern cross, with the only sound the creaking timbers and
slight breeze in her rigging lines.

Big schooners. Nothing finer.

Back in my high rolling days, when I could afford a sail boat, I viewed
sailing like I viewed cocaine ...
I had too much to lose to do either.

I hope you don't mind if I quote that observation around Port Townsend's
wooden boat community.

Tom

"Leon" wrote in message
...

snip Domino discussion

Thanks, Leon. Great tips. That piece of marine plywood in a couple of those
pictures was what I used as a reference surface, and I was careful to sweep
it off between cuts and inspect the tool for any chips that might have
lodged in it.

Those relatively narrow pieces stayed dead flat during the build so I didn't
have any trouble with registration. But I can see how you might run into
issues with furniture-sized wood.

That bench is pretty nubbly - it takes a real beating, and we don't
reference anything off of it. There are a couple low roll-around assembly
tables with pretty good surfaces that we use for larger glue-ups (I share
the shop with a shipwright who now does mostly cabinet work).

Tom

On 9/21/2015 11:06 AM, tdacon wrote:
"Leon" wrote in message
...

Did you build the boat too?

Oh, no. The boat was built by a renowned Hong Kong shipyard in 1957, and
came into my possession in 1976 as a shabby and somewhat neglected
fixer-upper - no serious problems, but not much maintenance either over
a number of years. She was designed by Laurent Giles, an English
designer. Since Hong Kong was then English, the English designers had
developed close relationships with the major Hong Kong yards, so she was
built there and I believe was then sailed to the West Coast for, or by,
the original owner.

Tom



I know just about nothing about sail boats, I never would have guessed
that it is almost 60 years old.. Testament to the care it has seen
since you obtained it almost 40 years ago.

Beautiful boat!

Thanks, everyone, for your kind comments.

Best regards,
Tom