…but on a boat, not a barn.
I’ve always believed the various woodworking specialties would be well served to cross-fertilize more. Want to learn to bed hardware perfectly? Learn from a stockmaker. Want to achieve perfection with card scrapers on expensive and fragile, highly figured wood? Watch a luthier. Restoring original finishes? A museum furniture conservator. Bending wood? A traditional boatbuilder or chairmaker, of course.
This simple little door below is an excellent example. Were it for something in your kid’s room, you could build it in three or four cumulative hours. But for a boat….2+ days is closer to the mark. Why so long? The additional steps required to make it weatherproof are the small part. The big part is that almost nothing is square, plumb or perfectly symmetrical on a boat. Everything has to be fitted in place.
This refit project from 1969 Oregon is as well made as any, with H. Mahogany frames, old-growth Doug Fir stringers, chines, beams and carlins, first-rate DF marine plywood, and all bronze hardware. Excellent professional workmanship and no expense or effort was spared in the structure.
But boats are basically wood bent around a mold, with the curves faired with wooden battens and in some cases by eye. The measure of the parts is symmetrical to the eye, but not anything you can take to the table saw. That door opening, originally designed for ¼” plywood, looks great…but the right door frame is a whole quarter of an inch off in angle from its left counterpart, and the centerboard trunk is 3/16” to port of the center of the opening. That’s why boatbuilding is one of the last major refuges of hand tools…easier to cut oversize and trim in place rather than to climb the ladder into that boat dozens of times.
I had to begin at the bottom and fit each board individually….and the rough stock had to be laid up oversize accordingly. This particular boat’s quality construction is worthy of something better than just a sheet of plywood stuck in there, so I high-graded (ripped out the defects) and laid up 2”-wide quartersawn strips of old-growth, air dried Western Red Cedar planking stock rejected and left over from last year’s boat (above). The defects were largely carpenter ant holes. Cedar is soft, and because I didn’t want to change the original construction of the door opening and its ¼” slots, I laminated the laid up cedar with epoxy to Luan doorskin, as a cedar edge that thin would be easily split out with a minor bump.
Yeah, I know…laminating solid stock to plywood is asking for trouble, both from the potential of splitting and cupping should the outer solid wood become wetter than the stable plywood on the back and expand. But no wood I’ve ever used is a stable to moisture as this old q-sawn cedar; I encapsulated the cedar in epoxy topped by more coats of spar varnish on the front than back…and I’ll take my chances, as I couldn’t find a better use for those short pieces of leftover tight-ringed, high-resin cedar I refuse to make kindling of. It’s been complete over a month now in the hot sun and cool rain as I finished the project (yes, I set it out in the weather…if it’s gonna fail, better to fail now than when its needed)…and I don’t think I’m gonna have a problem. These doors are important as they can prevent swamping in a storm.
The edges that fit in the quarter inch slots are coved, and each board is beveled to shed water away from the cuddy interior when installed, as does the weather stripping.
The cap is Honduras Mahogany screwed down with contrasting Purpleheart bungs. I can’t really hide those bungs without darkening the finish…which would fade in the sun…so I might as well make them decorative.
The port light is weather-stripped Lexan with contrasting cedar trim bunged in cedar…and also lined with doorskin…
…and a nice SS locking hasp makes the final touch. And most importantly, if you look in the starboard cockpit bin in the first pic, you’ll see a shock corded, easy-access storage rack for it for use when under way.
“When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think…that a time is to come when those (heirlooms) will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, ‘See! This our father did for us.’ “ –John Ruskin.
Replies
Beautiful work! In reading the title, I was wondering hou someone made a door with three pieces.
You mention stockmakers, thanks! Despite the stunning work done by them, they have never been seen in FWW or any other modern woodworking mag, at least that I have seen. I call myself a stockmaker but I am a FAR cry from the kind you are refering to. Fitted skeleton buttplates, shadowline cheekpieces, and fine checkering on wood most would only use for veneer due to the stunning figure makes for a real work of art.
Oh, and watch out for rollovers! Never had it happen to me but then I have yet to sail on the open ocean. I am near SF and have always wanted to crew on one of the races to Hawai. May the wind always be at your back...
Michael Bush
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