Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you.

Guess what Santa brought me for Christmas this year?

A note from Santa, and a new router on the way.

Apparently, Santa Claus reads my blog. That's right! Santa left me a gift card to Lowe's, along with a personalized note saying that I might want to pick out my own router.

IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE, I TELL YOU!! 

The timing couldn't be better, because progress on my dash beam is moving along beautifully. Let's take a look:

Dash, gussets and wedges all disassembled and ready for epoxy.

All my epoxying tools laid out and ready: Chip brush, scraper, kitchen scale, awl (for aligning screw holes covered in epoxy muck), mahogany wood dust for thickening the epoxy, mixing cup, stick, and of course, all the parts staged and ready.

Glued, screwed, clamped, scraped, wiped, scraped, wiped, scraped, and wiped. I can't overemphasize the benefits of a handy scraper and a rag. Notice that I've cut the wedges shorter than the dash to give the dash a little overhang. 

Port side.

With the gussets and wedges permanently attached, I laid out the dash beam on my full-size construction drawing to check it for accuracy. Here, I need to make a couple of notes for future reference...

The dash beam on the starboard side is about 1/8" short in comparison to the width of the vertical part of the frame. I'll probably need to shim this. The topmost part of the crown is slightly high on this side. 

On the port side, the dash beam width and notch is about dead-on. The wedge and gusset may need to be trimmed back slightly. 

So with those observations documented, I began preparing to make the cutout for my instrument cluster inlay.

I started by re-drawing the all-important centerline on the back of the beam. I marked the halfway point, and drew the lateral center of the oval. Then, I attached the template that I designed & printed on my computer. 

The oval is 12" wide, so obviously I couldn't print that at 100% scale on 8.5 x 11 paper. So, I did as I'd learned from my Glen-L plans, and printed the half-width — ALL centerlines clearly marked, of course. I traced one side with the help of some carbon paper, then flipped it over for the other side.

After drawing the oval, I traced over the carbon paper lines with a pencil. I wanted to make sure I'd be able to see the line while cutting. 

With the alignment double-checked, I placed my largest instrument — the Faria tachometer — to make certain there would be enough room for clearance. 

It appeared there will be plenty of room. 

Faria Euro Beige tachometer. 

After checking all the little details, I drilled the pilot hole. 

Before cutting, I decided that there was so much clearance for the tachometer that I drew the oval 1/8" smaller all the way around. 

Then I started cutting it with my jigsaw. 

Here, the rough cut is made, but it needs a lot of sanding. 

So, I sanded it. A LOT.

After all that sanding, I'm happy with the oval cutout. The final dimensions are 4-5/8" x 11-7/8".

And now, thanks to Santa, I'll be ready to round-over those edges with a brand-new router... very soon. THANK YOU, Santa! 

And that's not all! In addition to the gift card from Santa, I got another really cool boating-related gift from my boy. He gave me a beautiful, framed art print of Ole Evinrude's 1911 patent illustration for an outboard motor. Check it out:

Isn't this cool? 

Merry Christmas.

¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

 — Luke 2:13 – 14