April 4, 2020
Today's task was to fabricate the new drop boards, otherwise known as washboards; they seal up the companionway when the companionway hatch is pulled aft to a closed position. I began by taking a section of cardboard and hot-glueing thin strips of wood to it to get the basic width of the opening. My plan was to have two drop boards, roughly 8.5" in height.
Back in the shop, I pulled out the two pieces leftover from the lengthy coaming board blanks. I transferred the dimensions of the cardboard template to the two blanks, and began to re-dimension them. The process was as follows: rip the boards on the table saw to the height dimension (I purposefully left more material here to start), then cut the boards to width using marks transferred from the template, next I took the boards from 1" thick to 5/8" thick, finally, I made a series of small adjustments by sanding to arrive at the desired assembly. At this point the boards are, individually and therefore collectively, too high.
My focus turned from rough fitting the boards to fine-tuning their fit. I removed the excess height from each of the boards while also cutting a rabbit into each of the boards where they mate together. This process of mating the boards with an overlap joint was iterative, though it took just a few trips down to the table saw to accomplish the desired fit.
Here we have the drop boards (showing the rabbit in the lower drop board), completed, sans varnish.
The photo below shows the drop boards in place and the companionway hatch pulled aft to the closed position. I will be installing a latch mechanism so that a lock can be placed on the aft face of the upper drop board.
Total Time Today: 4.5 hrs
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