Dovetails

Today we set up my new Keller dovetail jig. It's a freaking magic tool, set it up once and you never need to adjust it again. So simple to use and does perfect through dovetails.

We needed to use it on something so we decided to make the fore-hatch combing out of some spare Batu reeded decking we had lying around. This Batu probably comes from some pillaged Indonesian rain forest but seeing as it was scrap, and it's more noble to use it on a boat than a house, I don't feel too bad about it. It's really nice looking wood - I'm going to pretend it's teak.

We milled the reeding off in the thicknesser and cut four planks to size. We made a box and numbered the joins and then got to work with the jig. Things were going well and we were working out little shortcuts and techniques. Two lessons we learned were

1. Make sure the chuck is far enough away from the jig because steel nuts can rout aluminium, and
2. Make sure you slide the router off the jig and don't pull it up because when you hit aluminium at 6000 r.p.m. lots of exciting things happen.

Dad's polar fleece jumper saved his gut from some serious routing. The bit got tangled up in it and stopped dead. And when I say dead I mean totally forked. It bent the shaft. After a trip to the hardware store and $25 later we were back in business. The new bit was much better than the one we totalled so perhaps it was meant to be.

With the joints cut we partially fitted it together and smeared the surfaces with some epoxy and fibre filler. We tapped it in tight, wiped off the squeeze-out, squared it up, and left it to set.

Another good day's work. :)

Boat Destruction

Finally got the first day of boat work done in the new shed.

Left at 5:00 am on my faithful GS500 from Perth and passed a fatal accident at Mandurah (some kids drag racing and lost control - the girl in the back seat wasn't wearing a seat belt and was thrown through the window and died - what a waste). When I finally got to Busselton just before 8:00 I came upon a motorbike accident. A lady came out of Fairway Drv straight into the path of the guy on the bike - he didn't have a chance to stop. I found out later from my mate at the hospital that he broke his neck and was flown out to Perth by the RFDS.

It really freaks you out seeing a bike accident - especially ehen you're riding one yourself!

I was on the scene before the ambulance and police and so stopped to direct traffic. When the police turned up they asked me to keep directing traffic so I was there for an hour - the Busselton bypass was closed to eastbound traffic.

Anyway after all of that drama I finally made it to the folk's place.

Dad and I got stuck into cleaning up the shed and decided to take this bench dad had made for this guy out to his farm to give us more room. We got back and after having lunch went out and cut two honking great holes in the deck for the forehatch and the companion way sliding hatch.

And that was it for the day. More a day of boat destruction than construction.

Oh well.