Preparing Rail Fastener Holes & Fitting SB Coaming

November 13, 2015

The AM was spent participating in a 5K run - a relaxing run around a beautiful neighborhood!  When I came around to getting back on the boat for some work I decided to prepare the rub and toe rails for their fasteners.  I brought the portable drill press onto the back porch, set up a couple blocks on opposite sides of the press to support the length of rails, and then got to measuring the location of the fasteners.  I measured and made a pencil mark every 8" down the length of each rail, I then followed that with a quick tap of a finish nail on top of the pencil mark to allow the drill bit to self-center itself.

The bit I choose was a forstner bit, 3/8" in size.  I set the depth to allow plenty of room for the head of the screw (I originally was leaning toward pan-head screws, but I choose countersunk in the end) as well as room for repeated sanding work - if need be. 

The process for drilling the bung holes was: slide the rail into position, lower the bit until the pilot point just engages the mark made by the finish nail, raise the bit, turn power on, lower bit until it bottoms out on the depth gage, raise the bit, turn the power off, and then slide the rail for the next boring.

The process was pretty straightforward...just time consuming.

After the toe rails were finished, I then turned to the rub rails.  The rub rails were shallower in depth, so I adjusted the depth gage to the appropriate position.

Like the toe rails, I followed the same process for drilling out the bung holes on the rub rails.

After I finished all of the rails I carried them over to the boat and placed them on the side decks.  I then turned my attention to fitting the starboard coaming board into position.  The last time I had worked on the coaming boards I had simply cut them out of the planed mahogany planks, now came the fitting work - adjusting the surfaces and angles until everything fit properly.  I was able to finish most of this fitting process by the end of the day.  I will dry-fit the rails tomorrow.

Total Time: 4 Hrs.