110 Cookson Lane | Whitefield, ME 04353 | 207-232-7600 | tim@lackeysailing.com
Ms Lynne G | Friday, October 10, 2014
Now that the paint had cured overnight, I went ahead and removed all the tape and other masking materials from the deck.
I needed to wait before I could overtape the deck and get to work on the hull again, so there was little else to do on the boat at the moment. But thinking ahead a bit to the new woodwork, I decided to mill a new toerail profile mockup to put the basic plan for the concept to the test. The owners had wanted something a little beefier than the original toerail, and with a more or less fixed height for the stem piece (since the stem casting fit over this section of the rail), I thought a new rail the same height as this (a bit over an inch) made sense. I planned a trapezoidal shape for the new rail, much the same as the old.
Using a piece of the old toerail to start, I checked its fit on the deck near the chainplates, since these would dictate the maximum width of the bottom of the new toerail. To grow in height, the new rail should be wider at the base too, and taking into account the chainplates' position, plus the desire for a certain reveal inboard of the new rounded gunwale, I eventually settled on 1-5/16" wide for the base of the new toerail.
From a length of scrap 2x4 lumber, I milled a blank to 1-5/16" wide, and 1-5/32" high, which matched the original height of the old stem piece. Then, I chose a 10° angle on the outboard side of the new section, a 5° bevel on the bottom to account for the deck camber and keep the rail more or less vertical in orientation, and another 5° for the inboard edge.
Cutting off a several inch-long section of my blank, I rounded the top corners to approximate what the final profile might look like, then tested it hither and yon on the deck edge, eying it for appearance and function. At the bow, I placed the old stem piece in place; though the angles didn't match up with the modified toerail, this gave a sense of how the bow sections would eventually work out as well, though the pieces would be smoothly integrated in the final version.
I checked the clearance at the chainplates with one of the turnbuckles, which seemed to be a functional fit. I might increase the inboard angle on another mockup version the toeraill a bit for a little more clearance here.
Finally, I got back to work on the brightwork that I'd started a while back, and after final preparations I applied a second coat to the pieces--both sides where possible, but only a single side on pieces where the back side would be visible.
Total Time Billed on This Job Today: 4.25
Hours
