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. :)