Artistic Flair to Companionway Hatch Boards: Very lengthy project post

Oct 19, 2017
7,732
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
New Companionway Boards

Repost from the Mariner Class Association Web site's Maintenance and Restoration forum.

I just brought my new mariner home after buying her over the phone from a picture I'd snapped with my phone while driving past were she sat on the roadside two states away from my house. I'd never heard of a mariner and wasn't looking for a sailboat. she just looked so pretty. I showed my wife the picture and she surprised me by asking if I was going to buy her. Once I recovered from my shock, I decided I was going to do just that.
I talked to the deceased owner's son on the phone and he assured me that it was in great condition, I could sail her right away, but the trailer needed new bearings. After asking for pictures of the interior, her bilge and bottom, and her sails, I told him I'd buy her. He said the mainsail was shot and took $500 off the asking price. I had him tell the boatyard to put new bearings in the trailer and I'd drive out to pick her up. the trailer had more issues than bearings. I paid for the bearings and the yard people helped pickup the boat so we could slip some carpet remnants between the hull and the steel she was sitting on. I got her home and did my first real look-over and she was NOT cruise ready. I didn't really expect her to be.
After reviewing several Web sites about mariners, one a very thorough account of the restoration of mariner #3224 (the same year as my new boat) by Ted Enfield (http://forums.iboats.com/forum/boat...r/10045890-o-day-mariner-sailboat-restoration) and the other, Nate Bayreuther's fantastic site: http://www.mariner1922.com . I built a 4x4 frame out of my kids old swing set and lifted Dragonfly (my wife's excellent suggestion. Dragonfly's old name was Tempest. I posted a description of the ritual to change the name of a boat on the Mariner site) off the trailer, pulled the centerboard, itemized all the rusting and lose bolts, tried to figure out the rigging, replaced the rollers with carpeted ways as well as other parts on the trailer.

I ordered a mainsail from HydeSailsDirect.com (formerly JudyB Sails). I recieved the measuring kit and snapped a bunch of pictures of parts and rake angles, ..., with tape measures pulled right alongside.

HydeSailsDirect is run by Judy, a very nice, knowledgeable and helpful woman in California. She told me a lot about what to look for when buying my boat, especially to be sure the CB would swing and how to tap for hollow spots. Hyde Sails has great pricing and excellent reviews and after talking with Judy, I was happy to order from her. However, direct does not mean what I thought. the sails are cut in the Philippines so I wasn't going to see my new mainsail until Winter started. This gave me WAY too much time to get my new purchase going and I put most of the work off until other things came up and I couldn't get back to it even through the next Summer.
The hatch boards, in the mean time, were not pretty and would be easy for a semi-retired woodworker/furniture maker to handle. I started looking online for ideas of unique artwork or treatments people were doing for their wooden hatches. I wanted something that made Dragonfly uniquely mine. If you saw the inside of the log house my wife and I live in and her incredible gardens you would know what I mean. There are any number of examples of unique, artistic, hand-crafted house doors on the World Wide Web. What I found surprising is that, in the fabulous world of independent, individual-minded, do-it-yourselfers that sailboat owners are, I could find no examples of custom made hatches that satisfied their artistic expression. There were plenty of custom hatches, from simple utilitarian replacement hatches to fancy constructs with hinges and lots of glass (plastics) windows for lighting, but none were decorated with art. Later, upon researching again, to be sure, I did find 2 very simple examples.

THE THEME OF MY THINKING: I thought, 'companionway hatch boards are a central point in the cockpit when a yachtsman is entertaining. The companionway is nearly the center of the boat in many cases. Besides the boat herself being a work of art to show off, when sitting with friends and having a drink in the evening, there's that companionway front and center. It's kind of like the fireplace and mantle in the middle of the livingroom. Why not make it a conversation piece by, essentially, hanging a painting over that mantle. Make is as interesting and integral as the name painted on the stern. When closing the boat up in the slip or on your trailer, the name painted on the transom often attracts a lot of attention and comments, it does from me. Why not use the plane of that companionway hatch to take it another step further?' This seemed like an untapped opportunity. So, here's my hatch board project.

At first, I was going to carve the boards, maybe Celtic knot rope-work, my cabinetmaker's mark is an old style Victorian dolphin or fish, I might carve that. My wife, Linda, suggested I wood burn my design. That sounded interesting. I have never burned into wood before. I sketched a few design ideas and settled on a rose (Linda's maiden name is LaRose), the Victorian dolphin and a Dragonfly. I found myself doodling numerous ideas for images to burn. I did a few test burnings on plywood and sanded some cedar shingles and really got into the wood burning.





My daughter and her boyfriend gave me a really nice wood burning machine with lots of different tips. What a difference from the simple soldering iron style single tip wood burner I had. The unit is called a Razortip. It has temperature control and can plug in two styluses at once. They heat up almost instantly (the old one needed a couple of minutes to get to temperature).

Next I needed to decide what to make my hatches out of. I wanted solid wood for the grain of a flat sawn board (it's the worst choice for wood movement but it's the most interesting grain pattern). The rotary sawn veneer of plywood doesn't usually have as much figure in the grain. Teak is beautiful and I wanted the wood to be part of the beauty of the piece, but teak gets dark when it ages and that would lack contrast for the burning. Mahogany, Koa, etcetera, all have the same disadvantage. Pine and ash are too plain. The wood grain should have character in its own right. Cedar, in this case Spanish Red Cedar, it was available locally, seemed like a great choice. Cedar is rot resistant, one of my criteria (Really, I think the boards will wear-out before rot ever becomes a problem), I could live with the softness by making sure to build up a good solid coating of polyurethane-based spar varnish, maybe 8 coats, and taking good care of it. I bought my cedar at a local millwork (cheaper, surprisingly enough, than the box store by-the-piece prices. If you buy any wood but construction grade lumber from those stores, do a b.f. price comparison against a local millwork shop. I think you'll find you're getting played. I built a kayak rack out of sapele because it was half the price of oak from Lowes). I planed the boards to a smidge over half an inch.
I measured the size and angles of my old hatch boards and decided on a construction technique. I went with a spline construction for two reasons. One, the spline would be made from sapele, a dark, mahogany-type wood from Africa that would give a small detail of contrast at the edges, and two, that allowed me to cut-to-size instead of having to allow for tongue width and length. Not a problem normally but when cutting at angles other than 90 degrees, exactness can get confusing.
The hatch boards would be only half an inch over-all material thickness, the spline thickness need only be a saw curf width (1/8") and 1/2" deep. The sapele spline would then measure 1" x 1/8" x the length of the curf. The spline is mostly for alignment while gluing, although end grain gluing is generally very weak, so any joint where end grain butts together would require the face grain-to-face grain surface of the spline joint. I measured and laid out my design and got started.

Steps:
1. Making the Panels: The panels would need to be glued up to meet the width required for each board. both boards together total 26" so each one has to be 13" wide, plus a small overlapped bevel between the panels (I will add that to the lower panel). It is a good idea to make the blanks about 1/8” - 1/4” over-sized. Subtracting the 1-1/2" top rail means my panels need to be 11-1/2" plus 1/4” wide and my rough cut planks are between 5-1/4" and 8" wide. One glue joint is needed.

I have to say, I have worked successfully with many types of wood before, but the only projects I had done with cedar up to this time were rougher carpentry type jobs, casing doors and window, wall paneling and my deck railing, all in finished 3/4" stock. 1/2" cedar is very fragile. I made two attempts to glue up my half inch panels that ended with my dadoes splitting out before I found a way to manage. At first I setup my clamps and laid out wax paper for my parts and did a dry run before applying a 2 part 20 min epoxy and getting it in clamps. The first time, the pressure of the clamps was uneven and the 1/2" thickness couldn't counter the bowing force of the clamps. POP and one panel was lost. I built a table top clamping jig to hold the panels flat while I clamped them but this time, my premeasured 20 min epoxy hardened in just 3 minutes and another panel was lost along with the limited amount of spline material on hand. I ended up not having the dark/light contrast and I never got it into my jig. I switched to Gorilla Glue. Gorilla glue is better for this type of gluing anyhow, since it uses the water to penetrate the pores better than epoxy and is a stronger material bond (the glue itself has strength) than yellow glue. It even holds end-grain joints together well. The nicest things about Gorilla Glue is that it sets faster than wood glue, but slower than 20 min. epoxy, is water proof and it doesn't need as much clamping pressure because it is gap filling. Care has to be taken to moisten the glue surfaces first (I think of it like painting with water colors - the paint flows where the water wash is spread before-hand) and the water also improved penetration and the activation action of the glue. Always use water with Gorilla Glue.
I tried a different approach because of Gorilla Glue's low clamp pressure needs. I covered the length of the glue joints with waxed paper and wound packing tape around the parts to hold them together. This proved to be fast and with five or so turns, quite adequate for pressure. The pressure was also very evenly distributed with a winding of tape around either end, one around the middle and two more dividing the two halves again.

Here's one panel with the end-rails taped together.
When I took the tape off, I only touched the panels with a 220 grit Porter Cable mini-belt sander to knock the excess glue off and level any minor wondering of the joints.

2. Cutting the Panels: Next, I trimmed the panels to size putting the angles for the taper in.
This is all table saw work. A simple adjustment to the crosscut fence would do the job. It can be hard to hold work from wandering against an angled fence like that. Normally, I might put a clamp on it or a stop on the end of the fence. The wide panels and 1/2” thickness makes it hard to get a purchase with clamps. Because the panels are wide enough to give good support, I might have used the rip fence with an angled wedge. There is the danger of the wedge moving in the middle of the cut too. However, as long as the material is easy to cut and the blade is sharp, I managed to do a fine job just holding the panel to the cross-cut fence and moved it slow and steady through the blade.

It is a good idea to draw the cut-line first so you can see if you start to wander.
3. Dados on the End: cut the dadoes in the end to accommodate the end rails. To cut the dadoes, it is essential that the panels are flat to stay firm against the table saw fence to get an even groove. Boards that have been planed down as much as these boards have been are particularly susceptible to cupping. When boards are glues up into wider boards, that property can be even more exaggerated (pay attention to reverse the radial grain at the board ends so the cupping direction of each part counters it's adjacent piece). That's why the panels need the end rails and can't just be solid boards cut to size. The rails glued across the grain in a tongue-and-groove or splined joint help keep the panel from warping. I clamped bracing across the panels to hold them flat while I cut the dados in the ends for the rails. I used a small Jorgenson clamp and a short bar-clamp to hold the braces across the width of the panels just above the height of the fence.

This pulled any cupping out. To be sure I kept solid pressure against the fence (so the dado didn't wander and vary the thickness of the shoulders).
I use fingerboards to guide the work through the blade. These are boards cut at an angle across the end (somewhere around 12 to 22 degrees) with fingers of about 3/16” to 1/4” thick, cut into the angled end. Cut the fingers about 4” long (shorter fingers are stiffer, longer fingers are more flexible. I change it out depending on the needs). Once you start cutting with finger board guides you can't back out of your cut without shutting down the saw (you shouldn't do that anyway). The finger boards should be set so they flex one finger not quite bumping into the next. I clamp them down to the table so the last finger is just past the middle of the saw blade. That way the cut is completed before it leaves the guide.

The most important consideration is that the fingerboard is set so the piece enters the guide before it hits the blade. For deeper cuts, where more blade is above the table, make a wider fingerboard or place two together with a spacer so the last finger of the first doesn't lay against the first finger of the second board. This can make it too hard to push through. I cut mirrored angles for the left and right rails

4. The Rails: I cut the rails to 1-1/2” and put a dado down the center of one edge (1/2” deep by 1/8” wide). Then I cut the rails to rough lengths to be trimmed to length after gluing to the panels. Dados are easy to cut with a good dado blade but my set didn't go down to 1/8” so I used my regular blade. The issue with a standard carbide tipped blade is that the corners are recessed to help prevent tear out so you get a tiny ridge that runs along the corner of the cut. A pocket knife will take it out but it can keep a squared board end or tenon from sitting fully into the groove. The rails called for the use of a push stick to help keep hands away from the blade. I learned to use a stick that kept your hand at least 11” away from the blade because that is the average buffer typically needed to pull back from a slip. Forward pressure against resistance while cutting on a heavy, dense piece of wood that suddenly lets go can carry your hand ahead before you have time to react. I tried to design my push stick to have a generous nose to keep the wood from riding up on the saw blade and height over the work so I am not actually pushing my hand towards the blade. The idea is that if I were to slip, the forces would carry my hand above the blade instead of into it. This example of my idea of a good push stick is at the end of its life. The notch to catch the wood is almost gone. I am going to plane the end flat along the grain and glue a new head on with a renewed nose and notch. It was actually about two inches longer when I first made it out of a 2x4.
5. Attaching the frame: I used the same clamping system to attach the side rails that I used for the panels and I did them without the added complications of the waxed paper. It worked just fine, even on splintery cedar. I cleaned up the bubbling glue easily with a Porter Cable mini belt sander and a 220 grit belt.
{I love the Porter Cable mini because of its small size but it is still heavy and it will get hot after extended use. Fortunately, as a belt sander, it works quickly. Be careful and keep a light touch, use finer grit than you might for an oscillating or orbital sander and never spend too much time on one area, feather out the sanding. I searched and found 2-1/2” x 14” belts in 220, 320 and 400 grits ( https://www.amazon.com/Inch-Silicon-Carbide-Sanding-Belts/dp/B00DH0EL50 ), but I had to search using Google to find the Amazon page to order from. A search within Amazon did not yield results. I prefer the mini over an orbital sander because of its directional sanding. I can always see the tiny squiggles in the finish when a palm sander is used}.

6. Top and Bottom Rails: Once the ends were glued and out of the clamps (tape) I trimmed to size on the table saw. Take a thin piece of wood and cut it to fit between the overhanging end rails. This is your fence guide so you can trim the overhang off of the opposite edge. The guide has to be thick enough to keep the overhanging rail ends off the fence. Then just flip the panel over and trim normally. For looks, I only put a horizontal rail across the top of the upper hatch board and the bottom of the lower hatch board. The goal is to have the panels look like a completed frame and panel piece when put together rather than two separate frame and panel pieces that butt against each other.

7. The Angled Bottom: If you cut the panels 1/4” over-sized in width, attention needs to be paid to which side you trim to get your panel to size. Remember there is a taper that needs to match when you are done. Measure it out, but you will probably need to take the excess off the top edge of the top panel and the excess off the bottom edge of the bottom panel. However, there is also the angled cut that needs to be made between the two panels. The 18 degrees I measured mine at doesn't affect the fit too much but it is noticeable. If the two panels aligned perfectly before the angled overlap was cut, they will be slightly off after the cut. The bottom of the top panel will be ever-so-slightly wider than the top of the bottom panel. I wouldn't worry about it too much because there should be plenty of tolerance in the companionway's slot to cover the minor discrepancy or you can make your top panel about 1/16” narrower than your bottom panel. Be sure to double check your measurements and compare them to your opening size. The important measurements, if you have the taper right, are the bottom width as it sits in the doorway, the top width and the overall height so the sliding hatch closes without leaving a big gap. It shouldn't scrap your new hatch boards either or you will be refinishing them more often than you want.

8. Sanding: Sanding is pretty straight forward. The hardest part is that I needed to finish-sand my boards before I burned them. I bought 220 grit, 320 grit and 400 grit belts for my little PC mini but the frames are always hard to handle with a belt sander. It needs to be finished up by hand. With a 400 grit cross grain scoring, it is pretty easy to take that out by hand starting with 220, then moving to 320 and 400 grit by hand. I have tried putting painters tape across the ends where I don't want to sand but the glue can leave unwanted marks when the surface is 300 grit smooth or better.

9. Laying out the Design: I tried to pick a clear open area that won't get shuffled around once I start. This is finish sanded wood product with no protection on it and I was about to start marking it up with pencil lines, leaning all over it and then using wood burning tools on it. The drawing and sample burning were done, all I had to do was redraw it onto the wooden panels in full size. I might have been smarter to draw it out on a piece of paper full size and transfer it from there but I drew it free hand and it worked out okay. I discovered that you can also print an image and transfer it by ironing to wood. The computer makes it easy to flip the image for this process. I just butted the top and bottom panels together but I recommend connecting them together by some method so they don't move once you start. I had to fix a misalignment in the burned image. It wasn't bad and there was no way I could tell once I was done, but still.


10. Burning: When I started, I only had a basic iron, similar to a wand style soldering iron. It had a couple of tips. I started with the skew tip. I don't know what the official name for it is but it looks like a lathe skew. This I used to outline everything. I spent about four evenings, when I could get the time, working on just the outline. My wife and I watch Ink Masters once in a while and it is a lot like that process. The outline defines the whole design and limits it as well. When I get better at burning I may not be so dependent upon the outline for future artwork. This is the time that my daughter and her boyfriend gave me the new super-duper, fancy-dandy wood burning Razertip machine. I started using that and tried out a few of the different tips. Wow! What a difference. As I told my daughter later, you could tell where in the design I changed tools because the old burner made heavy lines that bled out, burning very slightly, the surrounding grain. The new one had a tip that looked more like an Exacto-knife. It made fine, crisp lines for amazing detail work. I had to lean the tip at an angle to get a look consistent with the previous tool.
Once I finished the outline, I could work on the two panels individually. When working around the adjoining edges, it is a good idea to keep referencing the two pieces in order to maintain a consistency of style and technique. There is the chance that it could come out looking like two different works that happened to line-up.
Shading was more smooth and consistent as well. The old tool would go through hot and cool cycles that meant I sometimes waited to re-burn an area when it was on a down-cycle and the gradient shading wasn't as smooth. I didn't really notice the short-comings of the old tool. I just figured that was the peculiarities of the medium. How can coloring wood by burning it ever be as precise as a sharp pencil, a fine tipped pen or a high-grade paintbrush?
On the down side, this meant I could really go all out on the detail and that meant more time. The whole piece came out great. I am very happy with the results.


11. Finish: I hand sanded the areas around the burning, once I was done. The time that this work sat out on the table had an effect on the smoothness. I didn't dare try, but I image it is a bad idea to sand over the burned areas. Much of the burning actually cuts deep into the wood. Apparently wood burning tools can also be used for carving. I'll try that some other time. However, the softly shaded parts, I would guess, are only surface deep and would disappear if I sanded them. This created a sort of corona around my image that I sort of liked.

It makes it more obvious that it is handwork, almost like a relief carving. I only used 220 grit paper to quickly sand the panel before applying a layer of spar-varnish to it. The rougher sanding is intended to allow for better penetration of that initial layer of varnish. After that, I used 320 grit paper to take it back down to bare wood and add the second coat.

I used a water-based spar-varnish called Ultra Gold. It claims to give better protection than oil-based varnishes. It went on smoothly, there was little odor, the finish spread smoothly, didn't dry while I was working it in, my brush cleaned up with soap and water between coats and it sanded well between coats. I used 320 grit paper after 6 hours and applied a second coat.

I applied two coats to the other side, coating the edges each time before flipping back over to add more coats to the first side.

In the end, I gave the outside burned face 8 coats and 6 coats to the inside surface while the edges enjoyed a coat each time regardless of which side I was covering, so they got a total of 14 coats. I buffed the second to last coat out with 400 grit sand paper. The last coat looked like glass.

12. Switched Hardware Over: I removed the latch from the old door and used a sharp chopstick to mark the drill holes for through bolting on the new one. I put the new boards in place. They look pretty good. Now I have to sand out and finish the teak slides which are coming away from the cabin opening near the top. However, for now, I just want to get the centerboard back in and go sailing.


I hope you found this post informative, if not entertaining. I fully expect the spar-varnish to do well for me, it is what I have had on my kitchen countertop for the last 10 years. Glossy magazines tend to stick to it if left too long but it cleans up with fingernail polish remover or acetone quite easily and no ill effects.
If you have any comments, critiques or suggestions, I would be more than happy to hear them. Most of my career as a woodworker has been spent working alone and I don't take the time to read magazines or participate in any forums until this last year on the Mariner Class Association and now SBO, so I don't get to hear much about what other people have experienced.
Recommendations: I would recommend the Porter Cable mini-belt sander for light work and finish work. It certainly doesn't take the place of hand sanding. I think the heating-up and weight of the mini keeps it from being a good sander for large projects or lengthy/heavy use. It is not shaped to use as a bench sander and I wouldn't want to clamp it and use it as one because of the over-heating. I've replaced the drive belt once and it isn't easy to get on. There is no pressure release for the drive pulleys.
I recommend HydeSailsDirect.com for their top notch customer service and their price. They seem to know their jobs and their industry. However, I haven't had my new mainsail out of the bag yet so I can't speak directly to the lasting quality of their work. I have no doubt I will find my new sail fits and performs well. I expect it will last me a long time too. The down side is in the delivery time. You may have been reading this posting a year ago if I had been able to keep the momentum on my boat-repair-and-restoration going with a more immediate prospect of getting her in the water. On the other hand, I may have had to change focus before my work was done anyhow.
I think there is nothing bad to say about the Razertip woodburner. If you are interested in getting into wood burning, that little box of fun is well worth investing in. I still have a lot to learn and more tips than I know how to use. I will be expanding my knowledge and experience on the use of those in the immediate future.
The Ultra Gold Spar-varnish is fantastic stuff. It dries faster, smells much less and cleans-up easier than any oil-based varnish I have used. The finish is hard and lasting, as my maple kitchen countertop has proven. You can take less time between coats and thus get more coats on. It spreads nicely with a good brush, I have also applied it successfully with a cloth. I would caution that the work not be too large at once or there is the danger of running out of working-time before the whole piece is covered. Keep your working area reasonably doable for its working time. The harden finish is unaffected by water, acetone, alcohol, and hot pan bottoms (the last within limits, of course). My dining table was finished in an oil-based spar-varnish and it has an inexplicable hole in the finish that looks like a blob of hot wax fell on a spot and burned away the finish leaving bare wood exposed in a little round patch. I don't know how it got there and I don't know what caused it so, I couldn't say the same thing couldn't have happened to the Ultra Gold finish, only that it hasn't. No marring other than normal wear after ten years of use. I can only point to the claim on the label that it provides superior UV protection, I have no experience with that. If I find there's a problem, I'll look at other options for exterior work but, I don't expet I will have a problem.
I am reposting this article on building my hatch boards here because I have seen that the SBO community loves project posts and often pictures and descriptions are requested of each other over some new endeavor. I hope, if this article finds a positive response, to have a number of projects around Dragonfly that I would be happy to document and present to the SBO community. If you have a positive response to this post but enough is enough and you don't want to see another post like this, feel free to let me know that too. If you don't have a positive response to this post you could either lie to me, (thank you in advance for that) or let me know, I'll get over it.
Future projects I hope to work on: Solar arch and diving platform, integrated mast raising system, eletric aux motor with power in cabin, pressurized water tank(s) and shower, collapsable yuloh, nav lights, interior cabinets, boarding ladder on trailer.

-Will (Dragonfly #2632, Littleton, NH)
 
May 20, 2016
3,014
Catalina 36 MK1 94 Everett, WA
Here is a pic of the hatch boards I made for my good friend John (jssailem). The name of his boat is “Hadley”. After his grandson of the same name and a WWII destroyer (DD774) of the same name where his grandfather was the keel laying Captain (first captain of record). Please correct me if I mangled this John.

The wood is Ipe more commonly known in boat circles as iron wood. It is inlayed with 0.15” maple. There is a 1.5” strip of maple running down the inside center. I gave it to John rough sanded, his job was to finish sanding and varnish. The inside was also run thru a panel raising shaper to bring it down to fit in the companionway slots.
0E3133E8-4C15-425C-A0C2-8C801068FE98.jpeg
 
Jan 8, 2015
360
MacGregor 26S, Goman Express 30 Kerr Reservoir
Wow! Very inspiring. I am in the process of replacing my hatch boards as well. I hadn't even thought of ingraving the boards until I saw your work. I am glad I saw your post before I put the finish on. Now I have to come up with an appropriate image for my boat.
IMG_20171111_080718575.jpg
 
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Likes: Will Gilmore
Oct 19, 2017
7,732
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
That's fantastic, Leslie. Your inlay work is excellent. I searched the Web quite a bit trying to find examples of just this kind of custom work and there is almost nothing out there. That's why I've decided to try doing it for a living. I'll see how it goes.
-Will (Dragonfly)
 
May 20, 2016
3,014
Catalina 36 MK1 94 Everett, WA
BTW —. Hats off to all the veterans out there like John’s and my Grandfathers. We owe the so much on this day (Veterans Day) especially.

Les
 
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Likes: Will Gilmore
Oct 19, 2017
7,732
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
I am in the process of replacing my hatch boards as well
That is nice looking wood you are using. Dark for teak, what is it. I have a commission to burn one in mahogany, I worry about it being too dark.
-Will (Dragonfly)
 
Jan 8, 2015
360
MacGregor 26S, Goman Express 30 Kerr Reservoir
I am using Ipe wood as well. Leslie tell me more about how you did this... "The inside was also run thru a panel raising shaper to bring it down to fit in the companionway slots." My boards are 1" thick that I'll have to fit into a 1/2" slot.
 
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Likes: Will Gilmore
Oct 22, 2014
20,989
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
Les made these beautiful boards. I am very proud to have them on the S/V Hadley.

The USS Hadley served our nation during battle for Okinawa. The brave sailors aboard the Hadley knew the ship was named after my Granfather, CDR Hugh Hadley. They preformed remarkably during trying times and in the process accomplished historical acts.

Hadley is also the name of my granddaughter.

You history buffs might find the USS Hadley story an interesting study. My Grandfather lost his life aboard the USS Little trying to protect the Marines on Guadalcanal. For his heroic efforts a US Naval ship bore his name.

Thank you Les. And thank you, the Sailors and families of the USS Hadley and USS Little.
 
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Likes: Will Gilmore
Oct 19, 2017
7,732
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
My boards are 1" thick that I'll have to fit into a 1/2" slot
Cowpokee,
Why so thick? Ipe wood is pretty strong, You shouldn't have to worry about a following sea being able to break it at 3/4", even 5/8". They will be much lighter to handle too. Are you planning on shaping it like a rained panel or putting a rabbet in the ends? I have never worked in Iron wood so I don't know it's characteristics other than it is very heavy and hard.
-Will (Dragonfly)
 
Oct 19, 2017
7,732
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
I am very proud to have them on the S/V Hadley.
I can understand why. There is a lot of pride all around those boards. Thank you for letting me see them and thank you and your family for your service.
-Will (Dragonfly)
 
Oct 22, 2014
20,989
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
Cowpokee
Will is correct the wood is heavy.

Les addressed it by dividing the panels into three. They are lighter than the two panels of plexiglass that came with the boat.
He cut the boards so that the joint sheds water.
 
Jan 8, 2015
360
MacGregor 26S, Goman Express 30 Kerr Reservoir
Cowpokee
Will is correct the wood is heavy.

Les addressed it by dividing the panels into three.


Good call, I had intended on making just two panels only because that is what the boat currently has, but it's not too late to change that.

They are lighter than the two panels of plexiglass that came with the boat.
He cut the boards so that the joint sheds water.


Yes, if you look close in my pic posted earlier, I cut a ship lap between the panels which is similar to the cut I am intending on doing on the edges unless Les can explain his "panel raising shaper" to where I could copy his work.
 
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Oct 19, 2017
7,732
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
unless Les can explain his "panel raising shaper" to where I could copy his work
If you have a shaper, you should be able to order a set of standard raised panel shaper blades.
You usually get them as part of a set of 3 blades for making frame and panel doors. all it is is a longer blade that angles up by about 3/8" for 1-1/2" of depth into the panel. You can also get them for a router but, Ironwood is not what I try those on. I was taught to do it with a table saw and jack plane. The difference is that the shaper cuts a square edge for about 1/4" before tapering up the the center of the panel. In a door frame, the saw-cut tapered edge is hidden by the frame dados but seasonal shrinking and swelling of the panel may cause the panel to become loose in it's frame. In the case of your hatch boards, the taper would be cut across end grain and swelling in that direction doesn't happen. What you will see is the hatch boards getting taller and shorter in the opening. When they are shorter, they will get tight at the top and the bottoms may come up a little. When they swell and get taller, they will be loose at the top and might scrape your top sliding hatch. Not sure of the characteristics for ironwood in that regard but, it probably won't be a drastic enough change in size to worry about. Cut just a little tolerance for the upper sliding hatch. It you like the raised panel look, I do, you will probably want to taper the top and bottom edges also. In that case, I think the table saw cut would look better because the square edge at the end of the taper doesn't have the same finished look. It looks like something that should be hidden in a groove except there is no groove.
Just some ideas to ponder.
-Will (Dragonfly)
 
Jan 8, 2015
360
MacGregor 26S, Goman Express 30 Kerr Reservoir
OK, thanks Will. It looks similar to my dado set...only better!
 
Oct 19, 2017
7,732
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
Cowpokee, that is awesome.:clap: Thanks so much for following thru with the post. You do nice work. It is an honor knowing I inspired that. Maybe there will be more art to follow our examples.

- Will ("the muse", Dragonfly)