On Board with Mark Corke

Perfect bullnose

The image above is from Popular Woodworking and illustrates, on the left, the problem that you normally have when using a round over router bit to create a bullnose as you may want to form on the front of a stair tread, locker lid or tons of other places on the boat. As will be seen the normal procedure is rout one half of the profile turn the board over and then rout the other but the bearing does not have a straight section to run against and thus thus a step is the result which either has to be worked out with a block plane or some sandpaper. The seccond diagram shows how this is overcome with the shaped bearing installed in place of the normal bearing guide. A simple and elegant solution for an age old problem  for which I am certain that Amana the makers of the router cutter shown are the first to bring out such a tool.

 

To access the relevant page in the Amana tools catalogue click here.

PYI Mini Floor anchors

  I wrote some time back about PYI anchors and indeed installed some on my own boat to hold the cabin sole in position so was excited to learn that my good friends at PYI have come out with a new product called the mini anchor which is aimed primarily at the OEM market. The basic principles are the same as the original product but instead of having the bayonet style latch the smaller anchors screw together and need to be undone with a screw driver rather then using a quarter dollar coin as it is possible to do with the larger versions.

 

As I was unfamiliar with the new anchors I thought it best to have a trial run so that next time when I want to use them I have the confidence to install them without fear of messing things up. You don't need a lot of tools but you do need to be careful in your marking out or the parts won't line up and the results could be disappointing this could be especially frustrating if you are using them on expensive teak and holly sole plywood.

 

The anchor consists of three parts The screw part that is held in place in the sole or other panel and actually screws into the bottom half, that,s the larger of the two bits that you can see in the picture and finally the flat locking nut that you only need if you attach the female part to something like an aluminum floor member. Lastly the other bit is the tool that you need to screw the female part into the boat. As this was a trial run I was able to do this at the work bench and therefore use a pillar drill. A hand held electric or rechargeable drill work just as well but be sure to keep in perpendicular to the surface.

 

The next step is to mark out where you want the anchors to be placed. This is definitely one of those time that you should check twice and drill once. Aim not only for a neat appearance but try to ensure that you will not be placing the anchors too close to an edge or worse still be drilling into a cable or pipe hidden from view. This was just a trial for me so I did not have any of those worries, but be neat. Mark the drilling centers with a crisp pencil mark, if installing into a pre finished cabin sole then I would have stuck a piece of masking tape down and made a mark on that.

 

The male part of the anchor is retained within a sunk cup and this needs to be a good fit as the anchor is simply a push fit. A 9/16^th bit is exactly the right size I found. A Forster bit would have been better but I did not have one of the of the correct size so I want ahead and used a standard twist bit which I made sure was sharp. I used some tape to mark the depth that I needed which is the depth of the cut and no more, refer tot he drawing and you will see how this insets into the cabin sole.

 

This shows the completed counterbore for the cup.

 

Next using a 10mm bit I drilled a clearance hole for the screw part the remainder of the way through the panel. Note that I am using a ½ inch ply here which is ideal, thinner ply stock could be more of a problem as the cup will be very close to the underside surface of the panel.

 

Here is the completed hole as I insert the male part of the anchor into place. The 9/16^th hole is snug fit and required the use of a few hammer taps to seat the anchor correctly flush with the surface. A scarp bit of wood between the anchor and hammer will protect the chrome finish.

 

How it should look when it is correctly installed.

 

I used the same 10mm drill to bore for the female part of the anchor. I was only drilling into softwood which has some 'give' when screwing in the anchor if boring into something tough like teak then a 10.5 mm drill would be a better bet. Make sure that you drill deep enough so that the anchor won't 'bottom out' before it is fully screwed in.

 

 

Chucking the insertion tool into a cordless drill I drove the anchor into the wood.

 

The female part of the anchor in place. It is very snug in the wood but you could use a little dab of epoxy if you were ever worried about it coming out, but I did not think this necessary.

 

The two parts can then be fixed together using a small screwdriver.

 

The completed anchor which is very neat and rattle free. If I were doing this for proper on a sole a little piece of strategically placed hatch tape under the board may be a good idea to prevent any squeaks.

 

TIP

 

If after marking out the sole drilling through with a 1/16^th bit will mark both the sole itself and provide a guide for the where to drill into the supporting structure.

SIA abrasives

The very nice folks at SIA recently sent me some abrasive paper to try and I have to say I am very impressed. To my knowledge I have never used them before always tending towards 3M the undeniable giants in the abrasives market. I have been using  a variety of SIA products most notably the PSA discs, velcro backed disks for the random orbit sander and strips for long board sanders. All the products cut well, don't load up and appear to be manufactured to a high specifications. I especially like the 320 grit discs folded in half and used for sanding down varnish between coats, they were used for inter coat sanding on the hatch boards and tiller that Ihave used as a back drop for the picture. Further details and a video are promised later in the week so you can see them in action but for now if you want further details you can go to the SIA website by clicking here, which if I have one complaint with is that picking the right product for a particular sanding application is next to impossible without recourse to the help line, so many products do they have!

Top tip - getting rid of pencil marks

 

Here is a tip that you might not know about. If you are setting out work with a pencil and you make a mistake or other wise need to remove an errant pencil mark from a wood surface use alcohol. It takes pencil marks off in a jiffy, the alcohol evaporates almost right away and it will not damage the workpiece  at all. Erasers work fine some of the time but they leave a black mark often which you still have to get rid of, sanding with a piece of abrasive paper often scratches the surface and is hard work, alcohol simply rubs the mark away.

Collapsible can

 
We have been having some very warm weather up here in the north east recently which makes a change from the cold we had to endure over the very long winter but just look at this can that I foolishly left near the open door of the workshop and therefore in the bright sun. The can looks like I had crushed it on purpose ready to take to the recycling center with the rest of the trash but in fact that is not the case, it did this by itself. I am not sure why this happens but atmosphric pressure has collapsed the can which actually now has a split in it. I know it always says to open cans of paint stripper carefully to allow the pressure to equalize but I would love to know the scientific reason, if anyone can shed some light on this phenomenon then I would love to hear it.

Handy holes

 

At some time or another everyone has to drill some holes in their boats whether it be for cables, hoses or some other thing. There are a bunch of ways out there to do it, but in truth all too often boat owners and boatyards pick up and use the first drill that they can lay their hands on.  The two shown above are the cheap spade bit on the left, and what is known as a forstner bit on the right. Both are intended, and were designed for wood but that is where the similarity ends. The spade bit. even when new and sharp, does an ineffective  job as it does not so much cut as scrape. The forstner bit on the other hand  probably cuts the best hole you can get - in almost any material other than metal. If possible every hole should be backed up on the underside with some scrap to prevent tearout which is especially noticeable with the spade type bit.

The picture below shows a three quarter inch hole that I had to drill yesterday through a plywood bulkhead using a forstner bit.  I think you would agree that even from the picture you can see that it is very clean and neat.

A forstner bit does work on fiberglass, but like the spade bit produces clouds of dust as the complete hole is reduced to waste, so when you go up to a 2 inch hole things start to get a very dusty and nasty. When working with fiberglass I like to use a proper hole saw as it only cuts out the perimeter.  It does a great job for not too much money  and will even produce a neat cut out when not backed up on the waste side.

 
It can be a pain in the neck sometimes trying to remove the disc that gets stuck inside the saw, but I have found that the 5 inch diameter saw is great for making plywood discs from scraps that can be used as backing plates to through hulls and sea cocks. Just coat them with epoxy before installation and they last for years. One final tip and that is to only buy the hole saws and other expensive bits as you need them. You can buy kits but you always end up paying for sizes that you will rarely if ever need.  Avoid those cheap hole saws from the dollar store.  The teeth are too fine and will burn up on the first hole.  Save your money - they are junk!

PYI floor anchors

 
The tools above are those required to install cabin sole anchors into the cabin of a boat. The anchors themselves are those funny looking things in the middle of the picture. Available from PYI they are at once a neat solution to the age old problem of how to secure floor boards into a boat so that they will be both secure and at the same time easy to get up should the need arise. Of course you can use screws or bolts to hold the flooring in position and it will certainly be secure but not at all easy to remove in a hurry should they need to be lifted.

I have just installed some more of these in a boat that I have been working on and am as much  amazed this time as I was the first time that I installed them some years ago. Basically the anchors work by having a bottom half that is screwed into the rib or other supporting structure under the sole and a top half with a bayonet connection that simple pushes down and half twists to lock it into place. Once installed the only tool needed to remove a section of sole is a large coin, a quarter works but an old fashioned British penney is larger and better suited for the purpose. With some hatch tape under the sole squeaks are non existent and if properly installed the top of the anchor is totally flush with the top surface of the sole. Available in either brass or stainless they area neat answer to an age old problem. The full specifications, prices and a step by step of the process which I described some time ago in words and pictures can be down loaded from the PYI site by clicking here. But I suggest to do as I did and have a go at installing an anchor on a few offcuts first so you fully understand the process before attacking the sole in your boat.

 

Workbench tops

 

Little by little I am getting my workshop set up and although I have been making do with an old bench something better and more robust was called for. Regular readers may remember that some months ago I installed some over head cupboards, these were followed by some lower cupboards on top of which I have now installed a proper bench top. A bench top needs to be robust, solid and capable of taking a beating, that means that it has to have some mass behind it. Also the bench top that I required needed to be 12 feet long. A solid top from beech or maple is ideal but very expensive and at that length the chances of twisting are great. Plywood would be another option but several layers would be needed to build up the requisite thickness and unless you go with expensive stuff which seems a waste for a bench top it is far from smooth. In the end I went with a technique that I explored some years ago when I was working on one of my books about workshop benches, and installed a couple of solid core door slabs. Carefully butted together and ripped to width they are perfect for just such an application. The base unit is constructed of plywood and framed out with good quality 2 by 4's so I had something to attach the tops to, all in all a very satisfying few hours work. I had a new vise that I also installed but as you can see from the picture the metal back jaw is still exposed but this will be covered as soon as the 1 by 3 front apron is attached to the edge of the bench.

 

This is another image of the bench and I should add that the vise is in fact in the center of the bench, there is about another 5 feet to the left of the vise. Incidentally you can buy solid core doors at Home Depot and Lowes for about $45 each which is much cheaper than many of the solid wood alternatives mentioned above. The lower unit will, in time get some drawers and doors to match the upper units,

Manual table saw

 

This looks like a very nice tool and the video shows impressive results however it should do at $1300.  It is very expensive but I do like the concept alot. It would appear that the saw used is in fact a blade from a  Shark saw which you can get at Home Depot for $10 so I think that if you wanted this kind of gadget then with some time a little ingenuity could build your own. I should be noted that the Shark saw blades are based on the Japaneese saw principle and cut on the pull stroke, thus when used on the table saw bench in the video cut as the wood is pushed away from the operator.

Tool dictionary

You may find these descriptions useful if you are deciding on some new tools for the workshop.

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light . Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, 'Oh sh--!'

SKILL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

DIAGONAL CUTTER:Hand tool used with Romex to locate a specific circuit breaker in a "flash".

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle... It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.

TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes , trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgotten to disconnect.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. For older paint cans Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.

UTILITY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use.

SON-OF-A-BITCH TOOL:(A personal favorite!!) Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling 'Son of a BITCH!' at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.

Hope you found this informative. If it relates to your own experiences don't feel alone.