The Aft Deck

The port aft deck.

One of the more fiddly areas is the aft deck. Lots of short pieces to cut and fit, each one taking about 20 minutes once the process is refined.

The upside of small pieces is that lots of short ends can be used up, along with the earlier failures and very occasional poor quality strake (just one so far).

The most useful tools for this job are: a decent cabinet maker's screwdriver; Starretts jig-saw blades which cut on the up and down-stroke and a 5mm drill which is not used to drill holes. Perhaps more on these later.

Just to be pedantic; there are eight separate processes:

1. Measure and cut the piece to rough length
2. Cut the mitre and bevel into the aft cabin panel
3. Pick up the aft profile from the margin piece and cut.
4. Lay in position and mark for at least two screws (three as you work into the middle of the deck)
5. Accurately profile to the margin and any rosettes, and cut
6. Counter bore the screw holes
7. Open up the counterbores to 9.5mm for the plugs
8. Screw down

and of course, it'll all have to come up again to prep the deck and glue down.

[Now Playing: Absolutely Nothing - I'm too busy concentrating]