After last weeks chatter with the 5″ holesaw, I decided to use a jigsaw to cut out the centers. It worked well, but man, did it take a long time. A long time for vents anyway. I got three of the top rings of each vent glued and screwed together and all the others rings cut. Basically, there are 3 rings for the top of the vent and 3 rings for a collar to slip over the vent pipe.
Got a couple of more coats of varnish on the engine room hatch and I put some time in on the handles for it as well. A few months ago, I made a few wooden cleats to go in the rigging. Anyway, I had a few more to finish out and took care of that this weekend as well.
The place that I get my wood from is almost out of good Honduran Mahogony so I went with African of which they have an excellant supply and it is 1/2 the cost. Probably stick with it from here on out if the vents varnish out the same.
The engine room vents are essentially mushroom vents that cover 5″ aluminum pipes. There are two of them, one intake and the other an outtake vent. The vents are made from 6, OD 9″/ID 5″ diameter rings glued together, with sufficient venting for ~8 cubic inches of air flow.
I made a jig for the router to cut the disks to 9″ and with Amy helping out, it didn’t take that long. However the inside 5″ cutout was a problem. I bought a $4 5″ holesaw from Harbor Freight (not my favorite store, but the $60 holesaw from Lowes seemed ourageous) but there too much chatter to maintain 5″ and I basically gave up. Thanks for helping Ross. I did however get a couple of more coats of varnish on the engine room hatch. I’ll try to use the router again or jig saw next weekend.
I started varnishing the engine room hatch this week. Two or three of the slats for the top came from another board and it was pretty obvious when the first coat brought out the grain. Oh well, hopefully the sun will darken the mahogony so that it will look more uniform. Other than that, it looks great.
I spent most of my time this week designing the compass binacle and the hatch for the helm/wheel box. Probably start those in a few weeks. I may try a different type of joint for the wheel box hatch frame, but will design it first to see how it compares with stuff I’ve done already.
