What a day!....toe rails being coaxed out of a nice slab of teak. Thanks so much to Paul Clements for the use of his very fine custom furniture wood-working shop. Paul Clements is the founder /owner of The Pine Cottage - producing very fine custom furniture such as European antiques / reproductions. I'm just lucky the teak slabs I had been storing in his shop didn't end up in Mrs. Smith's bathroom vanity! :) They had been gathering dust for quite some time... Thanks to Glenn as well for taking the better part of a Sunday to assist me with tools that I have not had a lot of exposure to. Glenn practically grew up in wood-working shops of various specialty in Massachusetts. Glenn, you are a artist and gentlemen - like your politics as well!
Okay, here is the slab after the initial rip on the table saw. There was quite a bit of tension in the slab itself, and caused a few of the boards to develop a good amount of curve as they were drawn through the blade. Glenn and I got 5 boards 1 and 1/4" by roughly 2", with a length of 9' 8". After these five board were sawn from the original slab, we ran them through the SCMi Sandya sanding machine. The Sandya machine has three large sand paper belts within - 100 grit, 120 grit, and 150 grit. We made several passes through the Sandya, drawing out the grain....gorgeous!
Next, Glenn ripped the boards a further time - removing a 1/2" thick by 1" wide strip that would become the rub rail, and onto which a half oval of brass would be secured. After the five boards were ripped on the table saw to remove the future rub rail base, Glenn and I fed all boards through the Sandya for additional sanding.
My design for the toe rail included a 15 degree inside bevel - as you can see from the picture below. I also ran each board (5 toe rails and 5 rub rails) through the 1/4" router round over bit. I rounded both the top outside and top inside of each toe rail, as well as the top and bottom of the rub rail....I'm good with the router now! My design also called for a bit larger toe rail. The original toe rails were roughly 1" x 1", with the tops rounded over - no bevel. My design called for 1/4" additional width from the original, and for 1/4" additional height. In addition, I added a bevel to the inside. Also, the rub rail would be new to the Sea Sprite 23. I am curious to see if it's "too much" going on for this size vessel. We'll see.
This is essentially how the pieces will work together - the toe rail will hang over the deck by just a bit to create a small reveal with the rub rail. I rotated the picture to save your neck.
Towards the end of the day, we laid out the 5 pieces, cut one of the 5 into to two pieces, and then laid them out as they would be on the deck. We matched pieces with natural curves to complement Froonie's curves, and then created scarf joints that will be used to epoxy-bond the pieces together. The two shorter pieces will be the center pieces for each of the rough 21'-long toe rails. I also cut a very shallow dado in the bottom of each rail piece - this will provide a good place for the poly-sulphide bedding compound to go, creating a good watertight seal. We finished the day, by sweeping up mounds and mounds of saw dust - only a week's worth in the very productive shop!
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