Tag Archives: edge

Finishing Off the Deck Edge

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Denise delivered the third mate’s jersey, complete with all the details: hand embroidery of RELIANCE NYYC, ribbing at the collar, and ribbing at each sleeve end. Thank you very much!

1 third Mate

Meanwhile, Bill, Herb, and Sandy have dry fit one of the deck edge toe rails into place so we can perfect our plans to complete attachment.

2 deck edge dry fit

This toe rail assembly was actually an extension of the shell plating at roughly deck level to hold an angle iron piece with bull nose at the top. At the bow of the real RELIANCE, the nickel steel shell plate was 5/40″ thick, which lead to another of our “moments.” In our scale, that is 1/48″ thick!

3 detail of shell plate

Our RELIANCE model–with its deck the length of a J-24–had only 21 web-frames to which tobin bronze and nickel steel plates from about 1/48″ to about 5/128″ thick were attached. Imagine sailing your J-24 with that hull!

The toe rail really finishes off the deck, as you can see here:

4 deck view

(The bottom of the angle iron had been laid earlier as can be seen in the foreground)

Deck Edge Update, Shipments, and Spreader Progress

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Work continues on the deck edge toe rails. One is complete and the second one is going into the jig for some final-finish work.

1 deck edges

We received a large shipment of nickel plating from R.E. Sturdy, our third such shipment from them. Again, we give them our most sincere thanks and praise for donating to our team’s success.

2 received new ni plating

Also received in that shipment were plated topmast shroud turnbuckles and mast hoops; thank you Tom and Dorothy!

3. And mast hoops and topmast shroud turnbuckles

Keith continues to make amazing progress on the spreader and now it is on to the truss!

4. Spreader progresses

Finally, we moved our benches to align the mast, topmast, and topsail yard so initial work on rigging can be done. This will also enable us to complete our topmast with sheaves and cone parts.

5. Alignment

Continuing to See Progress

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We’ve been fretting about constructing our deck edge, having decided we needed the strength of a thin metal toe rail. First, we were going to shape it on our table saw in jigs and a metal cutting blade, then back to the old router routine. seen here:

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This has routed surfaces on both sides, and–in fact–has three routed surfaces and a bulb to very tight and thin dimensions. You can see there are two of us taking care of everything while Bill carefully guides the router along. By the end of the day, we had one 12-foot section completely routed out, and three others almost so. We were so curious about the fit that we just had to dry fit this first piece in place, and WOW it really changes everything. We’ll show you profiles of both sides once we’ve filed and sanded the surfaces to perfection next week.

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