Matrim

Time for an update. I have been working on the rear deadwood plans (with a question elsewhere on site) while I waited for some thicker wood stock to arrive for the lower apron. I also have had some interesting thoughts on plan accuracy. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be obsessing overly about 'correct' sizes when the reality is that as long as I use the master plan as the target for every step then any inconsistency in lower steps will be counteracted. That's not to say that being accurate isn't good it's just that it's cope able if the process is correct. So as an example lets say I misunderstood Steel (very very possible) and I made my rising wood 1mm to high! As long as when I seat my frames I use the model height of the rising wood (say 9mm (random numbers) versus the should have been 8mm) and thus make the floor depth say 29mm instead of 30mm then the problem gets ironed out. An issue would only occur should I just use plan measurements for the next piece. Hopefully that makes sense to someone.
 
Anyway onto the next piece which is the lower apron (wood having arrived). It's not 'done' yet as this is my practice piece which I only use if by a miracle its perfect and this wasn't but only due to the last cut.
 
For the plans I did my usual job of adding lots of helper lines, the usual orange ones indicating parallel to cut lines and the green were sighting lines to try and help line up both plans. You will notice this also needs a mirrored plan due to the ledge.
 

This is a cut out of the full sheet which includes the other two apron pieces. One of the things I found very helpful when cutting this piece is ensuring all four sides of the blank were square (and not just two L sides which is what I usually do). This is due to the key fact that the bottom left of the apron is horizontal and flat and the three vertical lines are all at right angles to that line. Therefore I can cut my pattern and place it on the bottom of the wood blank and know I can use the sides of the blanks in the mill to allow me to accurately cut the inner of the right hand vertical cuts..
 
Anyway the process I ended up with was as follows. Overly detailed perhaps as ever..
 
1 - Cut blanks oversize
2 - Thickness blanks to target width with thicknesser
3 - use table saw to make certain all 4 sides were both flat and at right angles to each other
4 - Add pattern to one side using the bottom left vertical and horizontal lines as the line up points
5 - Use the left vertical side as the mill base and cut out the inner of the right two vertical joints (in this practice piece I actually did this the other way round with 6 and 7 which made things harder so this is how it will happen next time)
6 - Use the table saw to cut along the big orange line (which is parallel to the face of the joint)
 

7 - Use the step 6 cut as the base inside the mill to allow me to mill the face of the joint



8 - Use the sc roll saw to cut along the upper edge of the apron.
 
 

 
(Plus rough fit with fore deadwood above)

9 - Add the reverse pattern to the other side of the plan using the upper cut, and left two straights to help align.
10 - Use a scalpel to cut out the upper section of the paper pattern (above the red line) which marks the ledge position.
 
11 - Use the mill to cut out the depth required for the cut. Not exact here but the best procedure seemed to be to start on the right and move to the left (best sight line) and basically cut outside the line a little then slowly move it into the line. You end up with lots of tiny humps which will need smoothing out later but the key is that this gives an accurate side of the shelf.
12 - Use the scalpel to repeat step 10 but on the other side of the piece
13 - Repeat step 11 for the other side of the piece.
 
 

For 11 and 13 I hit a problem with how I was holding the piece and in the test cut changing this half way through (as the clamp started interfering with the mill) adjusted the depth of cut slightly causing the last 20mm of one side to be .1-.5 mm deeper than it should be
 
14 - Tidy the ledge curve with a scalpel
15 - Sand the end to the correct size
16 - Dry fit with surrounding pieces to see if continuing is possible. With the test piece it dry fitted nicely on the stem and with the upper deadwood above - all three needed some tidying but nothing major from the looks of things which was a relief.
 
 
So the pictures are actually with a slightly different order than above but it gives the general idea.
 
Thanks for reading.

Time for an update. I have been working on the rear deadwood plans (with a question elsewhere on site) while I waited for some thicker wood stock to arrive for the lower apron. I also have had some interesting thoughts on plan accuracy. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be obsessing overly about 'correct' sizes when the reality is that as long as I use the master plan as the target for every step then any inconsistency in lower steps will be counteracted. That's not to say that being accurate isn't good it's just that it's cope able if the process is correct. So as an example lets say I misunderstood Steel (very very possible) and I made my rising wood 1mm to high! As long as when I seat my frames I use the model height of the rising wood (say 9mm (random numbers) versus the should have been 8mm) and thus make the floor depth say 29mm instead of 30mm then the problem gets ironed out. An issue would only occur should I just use plan measurements for the next piece. Hopefully that makes sense to someone.
 
Anyway onto the next piece which is the lower apron (wood having arrived). It's not 'done' yet as this is my practice piece which I only use if by a miracle its perfect and this wasn't but only due to the last cut.
 
For the plans I did my usual job of adding lots of helper lines, the usual orange ones indicating parallel to cut lines and the green were sighting lines to try and help line up both plans. You will notice this also needs a mirrored plan due to the ledge.
 

This is a cut out of the full sheet which includes the other two apron pieces. One of the things I found very helpful when cutting this piece is ensuring all four sides of the blank were square (and not just two L sides which is what I usually do). This is due to the key fact that the bottom left of the apron is horizontal and flat and the three vertical lines are all at right angles to that line. Therefore I can cut my pattern and place it on the bottom of the wood blank and know I can use the sides of the blanks in the mill to allow me to accurately cut the inner of the right hand vertical cuts..
 
Anyway the process I ended up with was as follows. Overly detailed perhaps as ever..
 
1 - Cut blanks oversize
2 - Thickness blanks to target width with thicknesser
3 - use table saw to make certain all 4 sides were both flat and at right angles to each other
4 - Add pattern to one side using the bottom left vertical and horizontal lines as the line up points
5 - Use the left vertical side as the mill base and cut out the inner of the right two vertical joints (in this practice piece I actually did this the other way round with 6 and 7 which made things harder so this is how it will happen next time)
6 - Use the table saw to cut along the big orange line (which is parallel to the face of the joint)
 

7 - Use the step 6 cut as the base inside the mill to allow me to mill the face of the joint



8 - Use the sc roll saw to cut along the upper edge of the apron.
 
 

 
(Plus rough fit with fore deadwood above)

9 - Add the reverse pattern to the other side of the plan using the upper cut, and left two straights to help align.
10 - Use a scalpel to cut out the upper section of the paper pattern (above the red line) which marks the ledge position.
 
11 - Use the mill to cut out the depth required for the cut. Not exact here but the best procedure seemed to be to start on the right and move to the left (best sight line) and basically cut outside the line a little then slowly move it into the line. You end up with lots of tiny humps which will need smoothing out later but the key is that this gives an accurate side of the shelf.
12 - Use the scalpel to repeat step 10 but on the other side of the piece
13 - Repeat step 11 for the other side of the piece.
 
 

For 11 and 13 I hit a problem with how I was holding the piece and in the test cut changing this half way through (as the clamp started interfering with the mill) adjusted the depth of cut slightly causing the last 20mm of one side to be .1-.5 mm deeper than it should be
 
14 - Tidy the ledge curve with a scalpel
15 - Sand the end to the correct size
16 - Dry fit with surrounding pieces to see if continuing is possible. With the test piece it dry fitted nicely on the stem and with the upper deadwood above - all three needed some tidying but nothing major from the looks of things which was a relief.
 
 
So the pictures are actually with a slightly different order than above but it gives the general idea.
 
Thanks for reading.

Time for an update. I have been working on the rear deadwood plans (with a question elsewhere on site) while I waited for some thicker wood stock to arrive for the lower apron. I also have had some interesting thoughts on plan accuracy. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be obsessing overly about 'correct' sizes when the reality is that as long as I use the master plan as the target for every step then any inconsistency in lower steps will be counteracted. That's not to say that being accurate isn't good it's just that it's cope able if the process is correct. So as an example lets say I misunderstood Steel (very very possible) and I made my rising wood 1mm to high! As long as when I seat my frames I use the model height of the rising wood (say 9mm (random numbers) versus the should have been 8mm) and thus make the floor depth say 29mm instead of 30mm then the problem gets ironed out. An issue would only occur should I just use plan measurements for the next piece. Hopefully that makes sense to someone.
 
Anyway onto the next piece which is the lower apron (wood having arrived). It's not 'done' yet as this is my practice piece which I only use if by a miracle its perfect and this wasn't but only due to the last cut.
 
For the plans I did my usual job of adding lots of helper lines, the usual orange ones indicating parallel to cut lines and the green were sighting lines to try and help line up both plans. You will notice this also needs a mirrored plan due to the ledge.
 

This is a cut out of the full sheet which includes the other two apron pieces. One of the things I found very helpful when cutting this piece is ensuring all four sides of the blank were square (and not just two L sides which is what I usually do). This is due to the key fact that the bottom left of the apron is horizontal and flat and the three vertical lines are all at right angles to that line. Therefore I can cut my pattern and place it on the bottom of the wood blank and know I can use the sides of the blanks in the mill to allow me to accurately cut the inner of the right hand vertical cuts..
 
Anyway the process I ended up with was as follows. Overly detailed perhaps as ever..
 
1 - Cut blanks oversize
2 - Thickness blanks to target width with thicknesser
3 - use table saw to make certain all 4 sides were both flat and at right angles to each other
4 - Add pattern to one side using the bottom left vertical and horizontal lines as the line up points
5 - Use the left vertical side as the mill base and cut out the inner of the right two vertical joints (in this practice piece I actually did this the other way round with 6 and 7 which made things harder so this is how it will happen next time)
6 - Use the table saw to cut along the big orange line (which is parallel to the face of the joint)
 

7 - Use the step 6 cut as the base inside the mill to allow me to mill the face of the joint



8 - Use the sc roll saw to cut along the upper edge of the apron.
 
 

 
(Plus rough fit with fore deadwood above)

9 - Add the reverse pattern to the other side of the plan using the upper cut, and left two straights to help align.
10 - Use a scalpel to cut out the upper section of the paper pattern (above the red line) which marks the ledge position.
 
11 - Use the mill to cut out the depth required for the cut. Not exact here but the best procedure seemed to be to start on the right and move to the left (best sight line) and basically cut outside the line a little then slowly move it into the line. You end up with lots of tiny humps which will need smoothing out later but the key is that this gives an accurate side of the shelf.
12 - Use the scalpel to repeat step 10 but on the other side of the piece
13 - Repeat step 11 for the other side of the piece.
 
 

For 11 and 13 I hit a problem with how I was holding the piece and in the test cut changing this half way through (as the clamp started interfering with the mill) adjusted the depth of cut slightly causing the last 20mm of one side to be .1-.5 mm deeper than it should be
 
14 - Tidy the ledge curve with a scalpel
15 - Sand the end to the correct size
16 - Dry fit with surrounding pieces to see if continuing is possible. With the test piece it dry fitted nicely on the stem and with the upper deadwood above - all three needed some tidying but nothing major from the looks of things which was a relief.
 
 
So the pictures are actually with a slightly different order than above but it gives the general idea.
 
Thanks for reading.

Time for an update. I have been working on the rear deadwood plans (with a question elsewhere on site) while I waited for some thicker wood stock to arrive for the lower apron. I also have had some interesting thoughts on plan accuracy. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be obsessing overly about 'correct' sizes when the reality is that as long as I use the master plan as the target for every step then any inconsistency in lower steps will be counteracted. That's not to say that being accurate isn't good it's just that it's cope able if the process is correct. So as an example lets say I misunderstood Steel (very very possible) and I made my rising wood 1mm to high! As long as when I seat my frames I use the model height of the rising wood (say 9mm (random numbers) versus the should have been 8mm) and thus make the floor depth say 29mm instead of 30mm then the problem gets ironed out. An issue would only occur should I just use plan measurements for the next piece. Hopefully that makes sense to someone.
 
Anyway onto the next piece which is the lower apron (wood having arrived). It's not 'done' yet as this is my practice piece which I only use if by a miracle its perfect and this wasn't but only due to the last cut.
 
For the plans I did my usual job of adding lots of helper lines, the usual orange ones indicating parallel to cut lines and the green were sighting lines to try and help line up both plans. You will notice this also needs a mirrored plan due to the ledge.
 

This is a cut out of the full sheet which includes the other two apron pieces. One of the things I found very helpful when cutting this piece is ensuring all four sides of the blank were square (and not just two L sides which is what I usually do). This is due to the key fact that the bottom left of the apron is horizontal and flat and the three vertical lines are all at right angles to that line. Therefore I can cut my pattern and place it on the bottom of the wood blank and know I can use the sides of the blanks in the mill to allow me to accurately cut the inner of the right hand vertical cuts..
 
Anyway the process I ended up with was as follows. Overly detailed perhaps as ever..
 
1 - Cut blanks oversize
2 - Thickness blanks to target width with thicknesser
3 - use table saw to make certain all 4 sides were both flat and at right angles to each other
4 - Add pattern to one side using the bottom left vertical and horizontal lines as the line up points
5 - Use the left vertical side as the mill base and cut out the inner of the right two vertical joints (in this practice piece I actually did this the other way round with 6 and 7 which made things harder so this is how it will happen next time)
6 - Use the table saw to cut along the big orange line (which is parallel to the face of the joint)
 

7 - Use the step 6 cut as the base inside the mill to allow me to mill the face of the joint



8 - Use the sc roll saw to cut along the upper edge of the apron.
 
 

 
(Plus rough fit with fore deadwood above)

9 - Add the reverse pattern to the other side of the plan using the upper cut, and left two straights to help align.
10 - Use a scalpel to cut out the upper section of the paper pattern (above the red line) which marks the ledge position.
 
11 - Use the mill to cut out the depth required for the cut. Not exact here but the best procedure seemed to be to start on the right and move to the left (best sight line) and basically cut outside the line a little then slowly move it into the line. You end up with lots of tiny humps which will need smoothing out later but the key is that this gives an accurate side of the shelf.
12 - Use the scalpel to repeat step 10 but on the other side of the piece
13 - Repeat step 11 for the other side of the piece.
 
 

For 11 and 13 I hit a problem with how I was holding the piece and in the test cut changing this half way through (as the clamp started interfering with the mill) adjusted the depth of cut slightly causing the last 20mm of one side to be .1-.5 mm deeper than it should be
 
14 - Tidy the ledge curve with a scalpel
15 - Sand the end to the correct size
16 - Dry fit with surrounding pieces to see if continuing is possible. With the test piece it dry fitted nicely on the stem and with the upper deadwood above - all three needed some tidying but nothing major from the looks of things which was a relief.
 
 
So the pictures are actually with a slightly different order than above but it gives the general idea.
 
Thanks for reading.

Time for an update. I have been working on the rear deadwood plans (with a question elsewhere on site) while I waited for some thicker wood stock to arrive for the lower apron. I also have had some interesting thoughts on plan accuracy. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be obsessing overly about 'correct' sizes when the reality is that as long as I use the master plan as the target for every step then any inconsistency in lower steps will be counteracted. That's not to say that being accurate isn't good it's just that it's cope able if the process is correct. So as an example lets say I misunderstood Steel (very very possible) and I made my rising wood 1mm to high! As long as when I seat my frames I use the model height of the rising wood (say 9mm (random numbers) versus the should have been 8mm) and thus make the floor depth say 29mm instead of 30mm then the problem gets ironed out. An issue would only occur should I just use plan measurements for the next piece. Hopefully that makes sense to someone.
 
Anyway onto the next piece which is the lower apron (wood having arrived). It's not 'done' yet as this is my practice piece which I only use if by a miracle its perfect and this wasn't but only due to the last cut.
 
For the plans I did my usual job of adding lots of helper lines, the usual orange ones indicating parallel to cut lines and the green were sighting lines to try and help line up both plans. You will notice this also needs a mirrored plan due to the ledge.
 

This is a cut out of the full sheet which includes the other two apron pieces. One of the things I found very helpful when cutting this piece is ensuring all four sides of the blank were square (and not just two L sides which is what I usually do). This is due to the key fact that the bottom left of the apron is horizontal and flat and the three vertical lines are all at right angles to that line. Therefore I can cut my pattern and place it on the bottom of the wood blank and know I can use the sides of the blanks in the mill to allow me to accurately cut the inner of the right hand vertical cuts..
 
Anyway the process I ended up with was as follows. Overly detailed perhaps as ever..
 
1 - Cut blanks oversize
2 - Thickness blanks to target width with thicknesser
3 - use table saw to make certain all 4 sides were both flat and at right angles to each other
4 - Add pattern to one side using the bottom left vertical and horizontal lines as the line up points
5 - Use the left vertical side as the mill base and cut out the inner of the right two vertical joints (in this practice piece I actually did this the other way round with 6 and 7 which made things harder so this is how it will happen next time)
6 - Use the table saw to cut along the big orange line (which is parallel to the face of the joint)
 

7 - Use the step 6 cut as the base inside the mill to allow me to mill the face of the joint



8 - Use the sc roll saw to cut along the upper edge of the apron.
 
 

 
(Plus rough fit with fore deadwood above)

9 - Add the reverse pattern to the other side of the plan using the upper cut, and left two straights to help align.
10 - Use a scalpel to cut out the upper section of the paper pattern (above the red line) which marks the ledge position.
 
11 - Use the mill to cut out the depth required for the cut. Not exact here but the best procedure seemed to be to start on the right and move to the left (best sight line) and basically cut outside the line a little then slowly move it into the line. You end up with lots of tiny humps which will need smoothing out later but the key is that this gives an accurate side of the shelf.
12 - Use the scalpel to repeat step 10 but on the other side of the piece
13 - Repeat step 11 for the other side of the piece.
 
 

For 11 and 13 I hit a problem with how I was holding the piece and in the test cut changing this half way through (as the clamp started interfering with the mill) adjusted the depth of cut slightly causing the last 20mm of one side to be .1-.5 mm deeper than it should be
 
14 - Tidy the ledge curve with a scalpel
15 - Sand the end to the correct size
16 - Dry fit with surrounding pieces to see if continuing is possible. With the test piece it dry fitted nicely on the stem and with the upper deadwood above - all three needed some tidying but nothing major from the looks of things which was a relief.
 
 
So the pictures are actually with a slightly different order than above but it gives the general idea.
 
Thanks for reading.

Time for an update. I have been working on the rear deadwood plans (with a question elsewhere on site) while I waited for some thicker wood stock to arrive for the lower apron. I also have had some interesting thoughts on plan accuracy. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be obsessing overly about 'correct' sizes when the reality is that as long as I use the master plan as the target for every step then any inconsistency in lower steps will be counteracted. That's not to say that being accurate isn't good it's just that it's cope able if the process is correct. So as an example lets say I misunderstood Steel (very very possible) and I made my rising wood 1mm to high! As long as when I seat my frames I use the model height of the rising wood (say 9mm (random numbers) versus the should have been 8mm) and thus make the floor depth say 29mm instead of 30mm then the problem gets ironed out. An issue would only occur should I just use plan measurements for the next piece. Hopefully that makes sense to someone.
 
Anyway onto the next piece which is the lower apron (wood having arrived). It's not 'done' yet as this is my practice piece which I only use if by a miracle its perfect and this wasn't but only due to the last cut.
 
For the plans I did my usual job of adding lots of helper lines, the usual orange ones indicating parallel to cut lines and the green were sighting lines to try and help line up both plans. You will notice this also needs a mirrored plan due to the ledge.
 

This is a cut out of the full sheet which includes the other two apron pieces. One of the things I found very helpful when cutting this piece is ensuring all four sides of the blank were square (and not just two L sides which is what I usually do). This is due to the key fact that the bottom left of the apron is horizontal and flat and the three vertical lines are all at right angles to that line. Therefore I can cut my pattern and place it on the bottom of the wood blank and know I can use the sides of the blanks in the mill to allow me to accurately cut the inner of the right hand vertical cuts..
 
Anyway the process I ended up with was as follows. Overly detailed perhaps as ever..
 
1 - Cut blanks oversize
2 - Thickness blanks to target width with thicknesser
3 - use table saw to make certain all 4 sides were both flat and at right angles to each other
4 - Add pattern to one side using the bottom left vertical and horizontal lines as the line up points
5 - Use the left vertical side as the mill base and cut out the inner of the right two vertical joints (in this practice piece I actually did this the other way round with 6 and 7 which made things harder so this is how it will happen next time)
6 - Use the table saw to cut along the big orange line (which is parallel to the face of the joint)
 

7 - Use the step 6 cut as the base inside the mill to allow me to mill the face of the joint



8 - Use the sc roll saw to cut along the upper edge of the apron.
 
 

 
(Plus rough fit with fore deadwood above)

9 - Add the reverse pattern to the other side of the plan using the upper cut, and left two straights to help align.
10 - Use a scalpel to cut out the upper section of the paper pattern (above the red line) which marks the ledge position.
 
11 - Use the mill to cut out the depth required for the cut. Not exact here but the best procedure seemed to be to start on the right and move to the left (best sight line) and basically cut outside the line a little then slowly move it into the line. You end up with lots of tiny humps which will need smoothing out later but the key is that this gives an accurate side of the shelf.
12 - Use the scalpel to repeat step 10 but on the other side of the piece
13 - Repeat step 11 for the other side of the piece.
 
 

For 11 and 13 I hit a problem with how I was holding the piece and in the test cut changing this half way through (as the clamp started interfering with the mill) adjusted the depth of cut slightly causing the last 20mm of one side to be .1-.5 mm deeper than it should be
 
14 - Tidy the ledge curve with a scalpel
15 - Sand the end to the correct size
16 - Dry fit with surrounding pieces to see if continuing is possible. With the test piece it dry fitted nicely on the stem and with the upper deadwood above - all three needed some tidying but nothing major from the looks of things which was a relief.
 
 
So the pictures are actually with a slightly different order than above but it gives the general idea.
 
Thanks for reading.

Time for an update. I have been working on the rear deadwood plans (with a question elsewhere on site) while I waited for some thicker wood stock to arrive for the lower apron. I also have had some interesting thoughts on plan accuracy. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be obsessing overly about 'correct' sizes when the reality is that as long as I use the master plan as the target for every step then any inconsistency in lower steps will be counteracted. That's not to say that being accurate isn't good it's just that it's cope able if the process is correct. So as an example lets say I misunderstood Steel (very very possible) and I made my rising wood 1mm to high! As long as when I seat my frames I use the model height of the rising wood (say 9mm (random numbers) versus the should have been 8mm) and thus make the floor depth say 29mm instead of 30mm then the problem gets ironed out. An issue would only occur should I just use plan measurements for the next piece. Hopefully that makes sense to someone.
 
Anyway onto the next piece which is the lower apron (wood having arrived). It's not 'done' yet as this is my practice piece which I only use if by a miracle its perfect and this wasn't but only due to the last cut.
 
For the plans I did my usual job of adding lots of helper lines, the usual orange ones indicating parallel to cut lines and the green were sighting lines to try and help line up both plans. You will notice this also needs a mirrored plan due to the ledge.
 

This is a cut out of the full sheet which includes the other two apron pieces. One of the things I found very helpful when cutting this piece is ensuring all four sides of the blank were square (and not just two L sides which is what I usually do). This is due to the key fact that the bottom left of the apron is horizontal and flat and the three vertical lines are all at right angles to that line. Therefore I can cut my pattern and place it on the bottom of the wood blank and know I can use the sides of the blanks in the mill to allow me to accurately cut the inner of the right hand vertical cuts..
 
Anyway the process I ended up with was as follows. Overly detailed perhaps as ever..
 
1 - Cut blanks oversize
2 - Thickness blanks to target width with thicknesser
3 - use table saw to make certain all 4 sides were both flat and at right angles to each other
4 - Add pattern to one side using the bottom left vertical and horizontal lines as the line up points
5 - Use the left vertical side as the mill base and cut out the inner of the right two vertical joints (in this practice piece I actually did this the other way round with 6 and 7 which made things harder so this is how it will happen next time)
6 - Use the table saw to cut along the big orange line (which is parallel to the face of the joint)
 

7 - Use the step 6 cut as the base inside the mill to allow me to mill the face of the joint



8 - Use the sc roll saw to cut along the upper edge of the apron.
 
 

 
(Plus rough fit with fore deadwood above)

9 - Add the reverse pattern to the other side of the plan using the upper cut, and left two straights to help align.
10 - Use a scalpel to cut out the upper section of the paper pattern (above the red line) which marks the ledge position.
 
11 - Use the mill to cut out the depth required for the cut. Not exact here but the best procedure seemed to be to start on the right and move to the left (best sight line) and basically cut outside the line a little then slowly move it into the line. You end up with lots of tiny humps which will need smoothing out later but the key is that this gives an accurate side of the shelf.
12 - Use the scalpel to repeat step 10 but on the other side of the piece
13 - Repeat step 11 for the other side of the piece.
 
 

For 11 and 13 I hit a problem with how I was holding the piece and in the test cut changing this half way through (as the clamp started interfering with the mill) adjusted the depth of cut slightly causing the last 20mm of one side to be .1-.5 mm deeper than it should be
 
14 - Tidy the ledge curve with a scalpel
15 - Sand the end to the correct size
16 - Dry fit with surrounding pieces to see if continuing is possible. With the test piece it dry fitted nicely on the stem and with the upper deadwood above - all three needed some tidying but nothing major from the looks of things which was a relief.
 
 
So the pictures are actually with a slightly different order than above but it gives the general idea.
 
Thanks for reading.

Time for an update. I have been working on the rear deadwood plans (with a question elsewhere on site) while I waited for some thicker wood stock to arrive for the lower apron. I also have had some interesting thoughts on plan accuracy. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be obsessing overly about 'correct' sizes when the reality is that as long as I use the master plan as the target for every step then any inconsistency in lower steps will be counteracted. That's not to say that being accurate isn't good it's just that it's cope able if the process is correct. So as an example lets say I misunderstood Steel (very very possible) and I made my rising wood 1mm to high! As long as when I seat my frames I use the model height of the rising wood (say 9mm (random numbers) versus the should have been 8mm) and thus make the floor depth say 29mm instead of 30mm then the problem gets ironed out. An issue would only occur should I just use plan measurements for the next piece. Hopefully that makes sense to someone.
 
Anyway onto the next piece which is the lower apron (wood having arrived). It's not 'done' yet as this is my practice piece which I only use if by a miracle its perfect and this wasn't but only due to the last cut.
 
For the plans I did my usual job of adding lots of helper lines, the usual orange ones indicating parallel to cut lines and the green were sighting lines to try and help line up both plans. You will notice this also needs a mirrored plan due to the ledge.
 

This is a cut out of the full sheet which includes the other two apron pieces. One of the things I found very helpful when cutting this piece is ensuring all four sides of the blank were square (and not just two L sides which is what I usually do). This is due to the key fact that the bottom left of the apron is horizontal and flat and the three vertical lines are all at right angles to that line. Therefore I can cut my pattern and place it on the bottom of the wood blank and know I can use the sides of the blanks in the mill to allow me to accurately cut the inner of the right hand vertical cuts..
 
Anyway the process I ended up with was as follows. Overly detailed perhaps as ever..
 
1 - Cut blanks oversize
2 - Thickness blanks to target width with thicknesser
3 - use table saw to make certain all 4 sides were both flat and at right angles to each other
4 - Add pattern to one side using the bottom left vertical and horizontal lines as the line up points
5 - Use the left vertical side as the mill base and cut out the inner of the right two vertical joints (in this practice piece I actually did this the other way round with 6 and 7 which made things harder so this is how it will happen next time)
6 - Use the table saw to cut along the big orange line (which is parallel to the face of the joint)
 

7 - Use the step 6 cut as the base inside the mill to allow me to mill the face of the joint



8 - Use the sc roll saw to cut along the upper edge of the apron.
 
 

 
(Plus rough fit with fore deadwood above)

9 - Add the reverse pattern to the other side of the plan using the upper cut, and left two straights to help align.
10 - Use a scalpel to cut out the upper section of the paper pattern (above the red line) which marks the ledge position.
 
11 - Use the mill to cut out the depth required for the cut. Not exact here but the best procedure seemed to be to start on the right and move to the left (best sight line) and basically cut outside the line a little then slowly move it into the line. You end up with lots of tiny humps which will need smoothing out later but the key is that this gives an accurate side of the shelf.
12 - Use the scalpel to repeat step 10 but on the other side of the piece
13 - Repeat step 11 for the other side of the piece.
 
 

For 11 and 13 I hit a problem with how I was holding the piece and in the test cut changing this half way through (as the clamp started interfering with the mill) adjusted the depth of cut slightly causing the last 20mm of one side to be .1-.5 mm deeper than it should be
 
14 - Tidy the ledge curve with a scalpel
15 - Sand the end to the correct size
16 - Dry fit with surrounding pieces to see if continuing is possible. With the test piece it dry fitted nicely on the stem and with the upper deadwood above - all three needed some tidying but nothing major from the looks of things which was a relief.
 
 
So the pictures are actually with a slightly different order than above but it gives the general idea.
 
Thanks for reading.

Update time. Once the vertical cuts were dealt with I briefly used some of the 'wrong' pieces to test how easy it would be to accurately cut the side cuts and rapidly decided the game wasn't worth the candle (nice old phrase that, apparently way back when prior to electricity candles were expensive so gamblers had to decide if the potential prize through playing was worth the cost of the candle (or not)to have light to play by - causing that phrase to move into the language). Anyway though I could have worked round it I decided it wasn't worth it so essentially wiped the side cuts and just cut to all the pieces to width.
 
I then needed to cut the end butt joints and ensure they fitted well with the adjourining pieces. For this I generated 'joining templates' which consisted of the majority of a rising wood piece and the next two joints to either side. That way I could put pieces together and ensure they matched.
 

As you can see the blue indicated the 'live' piece and the black either side adjourning pieces. One sheet was produced for each section.
 
I also cut out the side templates (roughly) and stuck them to the pieces. This was to roughly check alignment but also so I could see from the side potentially issues as well.
 

Things seemed good so I rapidly hit another problem (and one that Mark P had noticed when my fish plan was produced) and that was that I had not included every line I might have needed on my base plan and specifically in this case the forward mark where the keel stops. Now the rear section lies very close to the Aft Perpendicular but as its angled I was less trusting of this. So after some failed attempts to measure on the master and then use a ruler to set the keel at the correct location (never working) I then produced another throw away plan by drawing vertical lines on the master plan for all the forward keel boxing joint lines, the fore perpendicular (which was on the fish plan), the forward rising wood joints (in red) . This could then be placed on the fish plan with the fore perpendicular being the join between the two and then allowed me to place the keel exactly. 

I need to insert some temporary battens to hold the keel at some point soon as well.

Anyway this was obviously important as the keel is the fulcrum of the entire build and the rising wood needs to be exact otherwise it would throw everything off
 
 

 

Next up 'wood' wise I am going to glue and bolt the stem.

Plans wise I am moving to the lower/upper apron and the fore deadwood.
 
 
 

Very thorough description Joss, much enjoyed reading this.
 
cheers
 
Pat

Update time. Once the vertical cuts were dealt with I briefly used some of the 'wrong' pieces to test how easy it would be to accurately cut the side cuts and rapidly decided the game wasn't worth the candle (nice old phrase that, apparently way back when prior to electricity candles were expensive so gamblers had to decide if the potential prize through playing was worth the cost of the candle (or not)to have light to play by - causing that phrase to move into the language). Anyway though I could have worked round it I decided it wasn't worth it so essentially wiped the side cuts and just cut to all the pieces to width.
 
I then needed to cut the end butt joints and ensure they fitted well with the adjourining pieces. For this I generated 'joining templates' which consisted of the majority of a rising wood piece and the next two joints to either side. That way I could put pieces together and ensure they matched.
 

As you can see the blue indicated the 'live' piece and the black either side adjourning pieces. One sheet was produced for each section.
 
I also cut out the side templates (roughly) and stuck them to the pieces. This was to roughly check alignment but also so I could see from the side potentially issues as well.
 

Things seemed good so I rapidly hit another problem (and one that Mark P had noticed when my fish plan was produced) and that was that I had not included every line I might have needed on my base plan and specifically in this case the forward mark where the keel stops. Now the rear section lies very close to the Aft Perpendicular but as its angled I was less trusting of this. So after some failed attempts to measure on the master and then use a ruler to set the keel at the correct location (never working) I then produced another throw away plan by drawing vertical lines on the master plan for all the forward keel boxing joint lines, the fore perpendicular (which was on the fish plan), the forward rising wood joints (in red) . This could then be placed on the fish plan with the fore perpendicular being the join between the two and then allowed me to place the keel exactly. 

I need to insert some temporary battens to hold the keel at some point soon as well.

Anyway this was obviously important as the keel is the fulcrum of the entire build and the rising wood needs to be exact otherwise it would throw everything off
 
 

 

Next up 'wood' wise I am going to glue and bolt the stem.

Plans wise I am moving to the lower/upper apron and the fore deadwood.
 
 
 

Update time. Once the vertical cuts were dealt with I briefly used some of the 'wrong' pieces to test how easy it would be to accurately cut the side cuts and rapidly decided the game wasn't worth the candle (nice old phrase that, apparently way back when prior to electricity candles were expensive so gamblers had to decide if the potential prize through playing was worth the cost of the candle (or not)to have light to play by - causing that phrase to move into the language). Anyway though I could have worked round it I decided it wasn't worth it so essentially wiped the side cuts and just cut to all the pieces to width.
 
I then needed to cut the end butt joints and ensure they fitted well with the adjourining pieces. For this I generated 'joining templates' which consisted of the majority of a rising wood piece and the next two joints to either side. That way I could put pieces together and ensure they matched.
 

As you can see the blue indicated the 'live' piece and the black either side adjourning pieces. One sheet was produced for each section.
 
I also cut out the side templates (roughly) and stuck them to the pieces. This was to roughly check alignment but also so I could see from the side potentially issues as well.
 

Things seemed good so I rapidly hit another problem (and one that Mark P had noticed when my fish plan was produced) and that was that I had not included every line I might have needed on my base plan and specifically in this case the forward mark where the keel stops. Now the rear section lies very close to the Aft Perpendicular but as its angled I was less trusting of this. So after some failed attempts to measure on the master and then use a ruler to set the keel at the correct location (never working) I then produced another throw away plan by drawing vertical lines on the master plan for all the forward keel boxing joint lines, the fore perpendicular (which was on the fish plan), the forward rising wood joints (in red) . This could then be placed on the fish plan with the fore perpendicular being the join between the two and then allowed me to place the keel exactly. 

I need to insert some temporary battens to hold the keel at some point soon as well.

Anyway this was obviously important as the keel is the fulcrum of the entire build and the rising wood needs to be exact otherwise it would throw everything off
 
 

 

Next up 'wood' wise I am going to glue and bolt the stem.

Plans wise I am moving to the lower/upper apron and the fore deadwood.
 
 
 

Update time. Once the vertical cuts were dealt with I briefly used some of the 'wrong' pieces to test how easy it would be to accurately cut the side cuts and rapidly decided the game wasn't worth the candle (nice old phrase that, apparently way back when prior to electricity candles were expensive so gamblers had to decide if the potential prize through playing was worth the cost of the candle (or not)to have light to play by - causing that phrase to move into the language). Anyway though I could have worked round it I decided it wasn't worth it so essentially wiped the side cuts and just cut to all the pieces to width.
 
I then needed to cut the end butt joints and ensure they fitted well with the adjourining pieces. For this I generated 'joining templates' which consisted of the majority of a rising wood piece and the next two joints to either side. That way I could put pieces together and ensure they matched.
 

As you can see the blue indicated the 'live' piece and the black either side adjourning pieces. One sheet was produced for each section.
 
I also cut out the side templates (roughly) and stuck them to the pieces. This was to roughly check alignment but also so I could see from the side potentially issues as well.
 

Things seemed good so I rapidly hit another problem (and one that Mark P had noticed when my fish plan was produced) and that was that I had not included every line I might have needed on my base plan and specifically in this case the forward mark where the keel stops. Now the rear section lies very close to the Aft Perpendicular but as its angled I was less trusting of this. So after some failed attempts to measure on the master and then use a ruler to set the keel at the correct location (never working) I then produced another throw away plan by drawing vertical lines on the master plan for all the forward keel boxing joint lines, the fore perpendicular (which was on the fish plan), the forward rising wood joints (in red) . This could then be placed on the fish plan with the fore perpendicular being the join between the two and then allowed me to place the keel exactly. 

I need to insert some temporary battens to hold the keel at some point soon as well.

Anyway this was obviously important as the keel is the fulcrum of the entire build and the rising wood needs to be exact otherwise it would throw everything off
 
 

 

Next up 'wood' wise I am going to glue and bolt the stem.

Plans wise I am moving to the lower/upper apron and the fore deadwood.
 
 
 

Update time. Once the vertical cuts were dealt with I briefly used some of the 'wrong' pieces to test how easy it would be to accurately cut the side cuts and rapidly decided the game wasn't worth the candle (nice old phrase that, apparently way back when prior to electricity candles were expensive so gamblers had to decide if the potential prize through playing was worth the cost of the candle (or not)to have light to play by - causing that phrase to move into the language). Anyway though I could have worked round it I decided it wasn't worth it so essentially wiped the side cuts and just cut to all the pieces to width.
 
I then needed to cut the end butt joints and ensure they fitted well with the adjourining pieces. For this I generated 'joining templates' which consisted of the majority of a rising wood piece and the next two joints to either side. That way I could put pieces together and ensure they matched.
 

As you can see the blue indicated the 'live' piece and the black either side adjourning pieces. One sheet was produced for each section.
 
I also cut out the side templates (roughly) and stuck them to the pieces. This was to roughly check alignment but also so I could see from the side potentially issues as well.
 

Things seemed good so I rapidly hit another problem (and one that Mark P had noticed when my fish plan was produced) and that was that I had not included every line I might have needed on my base plan and specifically in this case the forward mark where the keel stops. Now the rear section lies very close to the Aft Perpendicular but as its angled I was less trusting of this. So after some failed attempts to measure on the master and then use a ruler to set the keel at the correct location (never working) I then produced another throw away plan by drawing vertical lines on the master plan for all the forward keel boxing joint lines, the fore perpendicular (which was on the fish plan), the forward rising wood joints (in red) . This could then be placed on the fish plan with the fore perpendicular being the join between the two and then allowed me to place the keel exactly. 

I need to insert some temporary battens to hold the keel at some point soon as well.

Anyway this was obviously important as the keel is the fulcrum of the entire build and the rising wood needs to be exact otherwise it would throw everything off
 
 

 

Next up 'wood' wise I am going to glue and bolt the stem.

Plans wise I am moving to the lower/upper apron and the fore deadwood.
 
 
 

Update time. Once the vertical cuts were dealt with I briefly used some of the 'wrong' pieces to test how easy it would be to accurately cut the side cuts and rapidly decided the game wasn't worth the candle (nice old phrase that, apparently way back when prior to electricity candles were expensive so gamblers had to decide if the potential prize through playing was worth the cost of the candle (or not)to have light to play by - causing that phrase to move into the language). Anyway though I could have worked round it I decided it wasn't worth it so essentially wiped the side cuts and just cut to all the pieces to width.
 
I then needed to cut the end butt joints and ensure they fitted well with the adjourining pieces. For this I generated 'joining templates' which consisted of the majority of a rising wood piece and the next two joints to either side. That way I could put pieces together and ensure they matched.
 

As you can see the blue indicated the 'live' piece and the black either side adjourning pieces. One sheet was produced for each section.
 
I also cut out the side templates (roughly) and stuck them to the pieces. This was to roughly check alignment but also so I could see from the side potentially issues as well.
 

Things seemed good so I rapidly hit another problem (and one that Mark P had noticed when my fish plan was produced) and that was that I had not included every line I might have needed on my base plan and specifically in this case the forward mark where the keel stops. Now the rear section lies very close to the Aft Perpendicular but as its angled I was less trusting of this. So after some failed attempts to measure on the master and then use a ruler to set the keel at the correct location (never working) I then produced another throw away plan by drawing vertical lines on the master plan for all the forward keel boxing joint lines, the fore perpendicular (which was on the fish plan), the forward rising wood joints (in red) . This could then be placed on the fish plan with the fore perpendicular being the join between the two and then allowed me to place the keel exactly. 

I need to insert some temporary battens to hold the keel at some point soon as well.

Anyway this was obviously important as the keel is the fulcrum of the entire build and the rising wood needs to be exact otherwise it would throw everything off
 
 

 

Next up 'wood' wise I am going to glue and bolt the stem.

Plans wise I am moving to the lower/upper apron and the fore deadwood.
 
 
 

Update time. Once the vertical cuts were dealt with I briefly used some of the 'wrong' pieces to test how easy it would be to accurately cut the side cuts and rapidly decided the game wasn't worth the candle (nice old phrase that, apparently way back when prior to electricity candles were expensive so gamblers had to decide if the potential prize through playing was worth the cost of the candle (or not)to have light to play by - causing that phrase to move into the language). Anyway though I could have worked round it I decided it wasn't worth it so essentially wiped the side cuts and just cut to all the pieces to width.
 
I then needed to cut the end butt joints and ensure they fitted well with the adjourining pieces. For this I generated 'joining templates' which consisted of the majority of a rising wood piece and the next two joints to either side. That way I could put pieces together and ensure they matched.
 

As you can see the blue indicated the 'live' piece and the black either side adjourning pieces. One sheet was produced for each section.
 
I also cut out the side templates (roughly) and stuck them to the pieces. This was to roughly check alignment but also so I could see from the side potentially issues as well.
 

Things seemed good so I rapidly hit another problem (and one that Mark P had noticed when my fish plan was produced) and that was that I had not included every line I might have needed on my base plan and specifically in this case the forward mark where the keel stops. Now the rear section lies very close to the Aft Perpendicular but as its angled I was less trusting of this. So after some failed attempts to measure on the master and then use a ruler to set the keel at the correct location (never working) I then produced another throw away plan by drawing vertical lines on the master plan for all the forward keel boxing joint lines, the fore perpendicular (which was on the fish plan), the forward rising wood joints (in red) . This could then be placed on the fish plan with the fore perpendicular being the join between the two and then allowed me to place the keel exactly. 

I need to insert some temporary battens to hold the keel at some point soon as well.

Anyway this was obviously important as the keel is the fulcrum of the entire build and the rising wood needs to be exact otherwise it would throw everything off
 
 

 

Next up 'wood' wise I am going to glue and bolt the stem.

Plans wise I am moving to the lower/upper apron and the fore deadwood.
 
 
 

Currently cutting the top cuts with the mill and like a lot of ship building things it is proving that old quote of 'think three times, measure twice, cut once' is usually true.
I rapidly hit issues due to having to do maths in my head when cutting. So let's say the horizontal axis was at 0.48 and I needed to make a cut 3.68 then ... anyway the waste of electricity and chance of mistakes were huge so after some thought I decided on a more reasoned approach. I split the stages of cuts into 4 so we have drop cut/cut/release and setup and decided the horizontal axis would be sacrosanct so at least one axis would have minimal risk of backlash. 
 
I then split the cuts into three simplified unique types - Forward to zero, Forward 1 full turn and forward by a specific amount indicated on a cut list in this way F0+0.43 1FT 1FT +0.55 would be forward to zero for 0.43, two separate full turns (so 2.43 cut so far) then forward to 0.55 (so 2.99 for that cut). For the cut and release cuts these would always use the positive axis and move forward. The vertical axis though had the drop cut moving forward and the release cut moving up (so had back to zero 1BT for 1 back turn and -0.44) . That way I could split the cut into recognisable steps that can, more importantly, be tracked.
 
Now that is is also a lot of maths so I wrote a simple program to do the maths and produce the individual steps for me. (screen shot below, that particular cut list is for the fourth rising wood, you will note I also colour the release step in bold red as that's the point an error is more likely to occur). The program not also calculated the individual steps it also printed the end drill point on the sherline axis counters so i could also mentally evaluate the step as I was cutting it. Finally I also added incremental counters so I could show on screen the horizontal and vertical cut list so I could validate that the amounts the program thought it was cutting matched the input I wanted it to cut.
 

 
The nice thing about this approach is that it simplified the methodology. I would start on a piece, go to turbo cad with a handy sheet of A4. Write D/C/R/S and then measure off the plan each cut directly. Once done transfer the totals into the application adding the expected start wood depth and the start height and run the app. Once finished I would validate the horizontal and vertical cuts were as expected then print them off.
Now the actual cutting. I used a 4mm end mill - I tried the 6mm as the largest mill to fit the gaps but found this had a tendency to damage the wood or at least cause excess weird shavings... The 4mm seemed a good compromise between cutting and not being so thin as to be influenced by the wood it was cutting into.
 
When cutting I carried out each step in the cut chart and then crossed it out with a pencil before carrying out another. I also restricted any cut to 2mm max (so a 2.16 cut would be a single cut of 2 followed by a cut of 0.16). This was protection in the larger cuts of wood damage or losing alignment. I also found the end mill mush preferred cutting into the wood from the direction closest to me as opposed to scooping it out from the end closest to the mill base ( logical really when it approaches from 'my' side the drill cuts a relatively even amount of material, when from the other side it starts with a very light cut the gets progressively deeper - whether that's true or not I don't know but I found cutting this way made for cleaner cuts with less mill complaining). This meant I had to carry out a cut then return the mill to its start point as I set up the next. 
 
Usually I also pulled the mill away from the wood to set up the next cut with one important exception which was the drop cuts which I tried to setup half on and half off the wood. This is because the drop cuts usually occur after the tiny 'steps' and this way reduced the risk of those steps (some as small as 1.36mm wide) being damaged..
 
Anyway apart from the cut list no nice pictures here and only a technical description. I am almost done with these top cuts then have to think about the best way to do the sides...

Meh. Just when you start working another lockdown appears to slow you up. I've admittedly not stopped as I had to redo the keel after a process mistake. The Mark III keel went fine though so this post is to cover the nails/sizing and false keel stages.
 
Once I had the joint on piece 6 done (and the process mistake was here. I had to remove the extra 'meat' so it was exact size top to bottom as otherwise when I attach to the rest of the keel it is too large). Anyway on the Mark III version I adjusted the plans so I cut it out at the correct height. This was then joined to the rest of the keel in the fashion described above and I then started on the bolts. I probably mentioned earlier that I went the bamboo path this time - after firstly this will not be visible and secondly it allows me to thickness post bolt addition. To simplify matters I generated a bolt plan in turbo cad and then copied and pasted until I had twenty or so on a sheet. I could then print this, cut off the template (which showed the rabbett so could be the correct way up)  and pasted it to the relevant joints (making very certain that the rabbett was at the correct side).
 
As so
 

 
Now I did not need to bother with exact movements of the mill and could just drill through with a microsd board drill at the correct size (I went for 1mm which is actually far larger than the correct diameter of the scale bolts BUTTTTTT these bolts were clenched by hammering each end so would expand making them larger visually, this also allowed a thicker bamboo treenail so more lateral strength in the joints. Also (again) no one will see there.)
 

 
The drill was not quite large enough to make it through so I then switched to a pin drill to finish the last 2-3mm - at that point the rest of the hole provided a decent guide so it would be hard for the bit to wander.
 

 
Not bad. 
 
Next up I wanted the keel on BEFORE I thicknessed the sides to length OR the actual length for that matter. Thicknessers can cause a 'bump' at each end of a piece of wood worked on (if unlucky and your attention wanders) so if this happened it would be later removed when thicknessed to length. The other advantage is that the false keel and keel get side thicknessed simultaneously so wont end up with even marginal differences. 
 
This is also where cutting the false keel to the same start width as the actual helps as you don't have to worry about overlap. 
 
Here is me attempting to ensure false keel pieces do not have their joints at the keels joints
 

 
and here is a standard clamp shot. I did two false keel pieces a day (one before work and one after) as the risk of them sliding due to the blackened glue is high and I have made mistakes in the past trying to do all such types of work at the same time.
 

 
After the keel was on I could thickness to the sides. Here I was very careful to move the thicknesser two notches then thickness then move two notches and to repeat on the other side mainly so my piece 6 boxing joint would not be heavily out of place.
 
After this I used the disc sander to thickness the front 'ledge' to the correct size before using a very long ruler (two metres?) to get the rear end of the keel to the correct size. To get the angle I went back to the plans which had this marked already (see the left size of piece one)
 

I could then cut this out (marking the correct side with the angle first so I didn't accidentally use the sissored side..
 

 
The angle was done on the disc sander but I did use a scroll saw to remove some of the excess as sanding produces more dust than I like even with a decent extractor and mask on. It's not easy to see but you can see the line of the false keel running all the way through.
 

 
So happily the keel/false keel unit is done. I used cherry for the false keel (as opposed to the apple I am using elsewhere) for no particular reason (false keels in real life were a different wood to the main frame). Now I have this done and I am happy with it it should provide a stable foundation for the rest of the ship. If something goes wrong (which it will) with a later piece then I wont have to restart from scratch.
 
Here is an unexciting shot of the keel in place.
 

 
and finally here is a close up of the correct sized keel/false keel showing both the bolts and a false keel joint.
 

 
Next up I will probably start on the stem. Only because it is easier to fit without the next section of the keel in place. Thanks for reading this far and happy modelling!
 

Currently cutting the top cuts with the mill and like a lot of ship building things it is proving that old quote of 'think three times, measure twice, cut once' is usually true.
I rapidly hit issues due to having to do maths in my head when cutting. So let's say the horizontal axis was at 0.48 and I needed to make a cut 3.68 then ... anyway the waste of electricity and chance of mistakes were huge so after some thought I decided on a more reasoned approach. I split the stages of cuts into 4 so we have drop cut/cut/release and setup and decided the horizontal axis would be sacrosanct so at least one axis would have minimal risk of backlash. 
 
I then split the cuts into three simplified unique types - Forward to zero, Forward 1 full turn and forward by a specific amount indicated on a cut list in this way F0+0.43 1FT 1FT +0.55 would be forward to zero for 0.43, two separate full turns (so 2.43 cut so far) then forward to 0.55 (so 2.99 for that cut). For the cut and release cuts these would always use the positive axis and move forward. The vertical axis though had the drop cut moving forward and the release cut moving up (so had back to zero 1BT for 1 back turn and -0.44) . That way I could split the cut into recognisable steps that can, more importantly, be tracked.
 
Now that is is also a lot of maths so I wrote a simple program to do the maths and produce the individual steps for me. (screen shot below, that particular cut list is for the fourth rising wood, you will note I also colour the release step in bold red as that's the point an error is more likely to occur). The program not also calculated the individual steps it also printed the end drill point on the sherline axis counters so i could also mentally evaluate the step as I was cutting it. Finally I also added incremental counters so I could show on screen the horizontal and vertical cut list so I could validate that the amounts the program thought it was cutting matched the input I wanted it to cut.
 

 
The nice thing about this approach is that it simplified the methodology. I would start on a piece, go to turbo cad with a handy sheet of A4. Write D/C/R/S and then measure off the plan each cut directly. Once done transfer the totals into the application adding the expected start wood depth and the start height and run the app. Once finished I would validate the horizontal and vertical cuts were as expected then print them off.
Now the actual cutting. I used a 4mm end mill - I tried the 6mm as the largest mill to fit the gaps but found this had a tendency to damage the wood or at least cause excess weird shavings... The 4mm seemed a good compromise between cutting and not being so thin as to be influenced by the wood it was cutting into.
 
When cutting I carried out each step in the cut chart and then crossed it out with a pencil before carrying out another. I also restricted any cut to 2mm max (so a 2.16 cut would be a single cut of 2 followed by a cut of 0.16). This was protection in the larger cuts of wood damage or losing alignment. I also found the end mill mush preferred cutting into the wood from the direction closest to me as opposed to scooping it out from the end closest to the mill base ( logical really when it approaches from 'my' side the drill cuts a relatively even amount of material, when from the other side it starts with a very light cut the gets progressively deeper - whether that's true or not I don't know but I found cutting this way made for cleaner cuts with less mill complaining). This meant I had to carry out a cut then return the mill to its start point as I set up the next. 
 
Usually I also pulled the mill away from the wood to set up the next cut with one important exception which was the drop cuts which I tried to setup half on and half off the wood. This is because the drop cuts usually occur after the tiny 'steps' and this way reduced the risk of those steps (some as small as 1.36mm wide) being damaged..
 
Anyway apart from the cut list no nice pictures here and only a technical description. I am almost done with these top cuts then have to think about the best way to do the sides...

Currently cutting the top cuts with the mill and like a lot of ship building things it is proving that old quote of 'think three times, measure twice, cut once' is usually true.
I rapidly hit issues due to having to do maths in my head when cutting. So let's say the horizontal axis was at 0.48 and I needed to make a cut 3.68 then ... anyway the waste of electricity and chance of mistakes were huge so after some thought I decided on a more reasoned approach. I split the stages of cuts into 4 so we have drop cut/cut/release and setup and decided the horizontal axis would be sacrosanct so at least one axis would have minimal risk of backlash. 
 
I then split the cuts into three simplified unique types - Forward to zero, Forward 1 full turn and forward by a specific amount indicated on a cut list in this way F0+0.43 1FT 1FT +0.55 would be forward to zero for 0.43, two separate full turns (so 2.43 cut so far) then forward to 0.55 (so 2.99 for that cut). For the cut and release cuts these would always use the positive axis and move forward. The vertical axis though had the drop cut moving forward and the release cut moving up (so had back to zero 1BT for 1 back turn and -0.44) . That way I could split the cut into recognisable steps that can, more importantly, be tracked.
 
Now that is is also a lot of maths so I wrote a simple program to do the maths and produce the individual steps for me. (screen shot below, that particular cut list is for the fourth rising wood, you will note I also colour the release step in bold red as that's the point an error is more likely to occur). The program not also calculated the individual steps it also printed the end drill point on the sherline axis counters so i could also mentally evaluate the step as I was cutting it. Finally I also added incremental counters so I could show on screen the horizontal and vertical cut list so I could validate that the amounts the program thought it was cutting matched the input I wanted it to cut.
 

 
The nice thing about this approach is that it simplified the methodology. I would start on a piece, go to turbo cad with a handy sheet of A4. Write D/C/R/S and then measure off the plan each cut directly. Once done transfer the totals into the application adding the expected start wood depth and the start height and run the app. Once finished I would validate the horizontal and vertical cuts were as expected then print them off.
Now the actual cutting. I used a 4mm end mill - I tried the 6mm as the largest mill to fit the gaps but found this had a tendency to damage the wood or at least cause excess weird shavings... The 4mm seemed a good compromise between cutting and not being so thin as to be influenced by the wood it was cutting into.
 
When cutting I carried out each step in the cut chart and then crossed it out with a pencil before carrying out another. I also restricted any cut to 2mm max (so a 2.16 cut would be a single cut of 2 followed by a cut of 0.16). This was protection in the larger cuts of wood damage or losing alignment. I also found the end mill mush preferred cutting into the wood from the direction closest to me as opposed to scooping it out from the end closest to the mill base ( logical really when it approaches from 'my' side the drill cuts a relatively even amount of material, when from the other side it starts with a very light cut the gets progressively deeper - whether that's true or not I don't know but I found cutting this way made for cleaner cuts with less mill complaining). This meant I had to carry out a cut then return the mill to its start point as I set up the next. 
 
Usually I also pulled the mill away from the wood to set up the next cut with one important exception which was the drop cuts which I tried to setup half on and half off the wood. This is because the drop cuts usually occur after the tiny 'steps' and this way reduced the risk of those steps (some as small as 1.36mm wide) being damaged..
 
Anyway apart from the cut list no nice pictures here and only a technical description. I am almost done with these top cuts then have to think about the best way to do the sides...

Currently cutting the top cuts with the mill and like a lot of ship building things it is proving that old quote of 'think three times, measure twice, cut once' is usually true.
I rapidly hit issues due to having to do maths in my head when cutting. So let's say the horizontal axis was at 0.48 and I needed to make a cut 3.68 then ... anyway the waste of electricity and chance of mistakes were huge so after some thought I decided on a more reasoned approach. I split the stages of cuts into 4 so we have drop cut/cut/release and setup and decided the horizontal axis would be sacrosanct so at least one axis would have minimal risk of backlash. 
 
I then split the cuts into three simplified unique types - Forward to zero, Forward 1 full turn and forward by a specific amount indicated on a cut list in this way F0+0.43 1FT 1FT +0.55 would be forward to zero for 0.43, two separate full turns (so 2.43 cut so far) then forward to 0.55 (so 2.99 for that cut). For the cut and release cuts these would always use the positive axis and move forward. The vertical axis though had the drop cut moving forward and the release cut moving up (so had back to zero 1BT for 1 back turn and -0.44) . That way I could split the cut into recognisable steps that can, more importantly, be tracked.
 
Now that is is also a lot of maths so I wrote a simple program to do the maths and produce the individual steps for me. (screen shot below, that particular cut list is for the fourth rising wood, you will note I also colour the release step in bold red as that's the point an error is more likely to occur). The program not also calculated the individual steps it also printed the end drill point on the sherline axis counters so i could also mentally evaluate the step as I was cutting it. Finally I also added incremental counters so I could show on screen the horizontal and vertical cut list so I could validate that the amounts the program thought it was cutting matched the input I wanted it to cut.
 

 
The nice thing about this approach is that it simplified the methodology. I would start on a piece, go to turbo cad with a handy sheet of A4. Write D/C/R/S and then measure off the plan each cut directly. Once done transfer the totals into the application adding the expected start wood depth and the start height and run the app. Once finished I would validate the horizontal and vertical cuts were as expected then print them off.
Now the actual cutting. I used a 4mm end mill - I tried the 6mm as the largest mill to fit the gaps but found this had a tendency to damage the wood or at least cause excess weird shavings... The 4mm seemed a good compromise between cutting and not being so thin as to be influenced by the wood it was cutting into.
 
When cutting I carried out each step in the cut chart and then crossed it out with a pencil before carrying out another. I also restricted any cut to 2mm max (so a 2.16 cut would be a single cut of 2 followed by a cut of 0.16). This was protection in the larger cuts of wood damage or losing alignment. I also found the end mill mush preferred cutting into the wood from the direction closest to me as opposed to scooping it out from the end closest to the mill base ( logical really when it approaches from 'my' side the drill cuts a relatively even amount of material, when from the other side it starts with a very light cut the gets progressively deeper - whether that's true or not I don't know but I found cutting this way made for cleaner cuts with less mill complaining). This meant I had to carry out a cut then return the mill to its start point as I set up the next. 
 
Usually I also pulled the mill away from the wood to set up the next cut with one important exception which was the drop cuts which I tried to setup half on and half off the wood. This is because the drop cuts usually occur after the tiny 'steps' and this way reduced the risk of those steps (some as small as 1.36mm wide) being damaged..
 
Anyway apart from the cut list no nice pictures here and only a technical description. I am almost done with these top cuts then have to think about the best way to do the sides...

Currently cutting the top cuts with the mill and like a lot of ship building things it is proving that old quote of 'think three times, measure twice, cut once' is usually true.
I rapidly hit issues due to having to do maths in my head when cutting. So let's say the horizontal axis was at 0.48 and I needed to make a cut 3.68 then ... anyway the waste of electricity and chance of mistakes were huge so after some thought I decided on a more reasoned approach. I split the stages of cuts into 4 so we have drop cut/cut/release and setup and decided the horizontal axis would be sacrosanct so at least one axis would have minimal risk of backlash. 
 
I then split the cuts into three simplified unique types - Forward to zero, Forward 1 full turn and forward by a specific amount indicated on a cut list in this way F0+0.43 1FT 1FT +0.55 would be forward to zero for 0.43, two separate full turns (so 2.43 cut so far) then forward to 0.55 (so 2.99 for that cut). For the cut and release cuts these would always use the positive axis and move forward. The vertical axis though had the drop cut moving forward and the release cut moving up (so had back to zero 1BT for 1 back turn and -0.44) . That way I could split the cut into recognisable steps that can, more importantly, be tracked.
 
Now that is is also a lot of maths so I wrote a simple program to do the maths and produce the individual steps for me. (screen shot below, that particular cut list is for the fourth rising wood, you will note I also colour the release step in bold red as that's the point an error is more likely to occur). The program not also calculated the individual steps it also printed the end drill point on the sherline axis counters so i could also mentally evaluate the step as I was cutting it. Finally I also added incremental counters so I could show on screen the horizontal and vertical cut list so I could validate that the amounts the program thought it was cutting matched the input I wanted it to cut.
 

 
The nice thing about this approach is that it simplified the methodology. I would start on a piece, go to turbo cad with a handy sheet of A4. Write D/C/R/S and then measure off the plan each cut directly. Once done transfer the totals into the application adding the expected start wood depth and the start height and run the app. Once finished I would validate the horizontal and vertical cuts were as expected then print them off.
Now the actual cutting. I used a 4mm end mill - I tried the 6mm as the largest mill to fit the gaps but found this had a tendency to damage the wood or at least cause excess weird shavings... The 4mm seemed a good compromise between cutting and not being so thin as to be influenced by the wood it was cutting into.
 
When cutting I carried out each step in the cut chart and then crossed it out with a pencil before carrying out another. I also restricted any cut to 2mm max (so a 2.16 cut would be a single cut of 2 followed by a cut of 0.16). This was protection in the larger cuts of wood damage or losing alignment. I also found the end mill mush preferred cutting into the wood from the direction closest to me as opposed to scooping it out from the end closest to the mill base ( logical really when it approaches from 'my' side the drill cuts a relatively even amount of material, when from the other side it starts with a very light cut the gets progressively deeper - whether that's true or not I don't know but I found cutting this way made for cleaner cuts with less mill complaining). This meant I had to carry out a cut then return the mill to its start point as I set up the next. 
 
Usually I also pulled the mill away from the wood to set up the next cut with one important exception which was the drop cuts which I tried to setup half on and half off the wood. This is because the drop cuts usually occur after the tiny 'steps' and this way reduced the risk of those steps (some as small as 1.36mm wide) being damaged..
 
Anyway apart from the cut list no nice pictures here and only a technical description. I am almost done with these top cuts then have to think about the best way to do the sides...

Thanks Pat.. 
 
I have to start looking at the rising wood next which will involve validating the plans (and getting some more wood supplies delivered). In the meantime I thought I would move to the rabbet. This I do admit, makes me nervous mainly because it reduces my ability to use power tools and when I start wielding tools be hand the chances of damaging something beyond repair rocket. I did try some experiments with a previous demo keel angling the keel piece and using a mill to cut the joint but that had various issues. I also considered, briefly, using the scrape technique again but that had failed me last time so in the end I went for the hand approach with several refinements to try and reduce the muck up potential.
 
I also considered doing this after the rising wood was done and attached but by adding that I would not be able to lay the keel flat so that introduced complications I wanted to avoid. If cut now I could at least keep it flat and would aim for 'most' of the cut to be done with it being easier to tidy and expand later if I had a decent start now.
 
First up I printed some more paper templates and added them to both sides before using the scalpel to remove the paper from where the rabbet would go. This was firstly to provide a reference for the cut and secondly I had some hopes that the pope might prevent any deep scarring of wood that should not be touched should a cut get away from me. I then pinned the keel very securely to the desk with a nice blank below it and my previous false keel above it. 
 

 
On the other side I had a thin blank that I then used a smaller clamp to keep the 3 pieces together. One nice though was that the rising wood actually provides the upper edge of the rabbet to if I did damage the upper edge at this point (without the rising wood attached in some areas of the keel this would make a very sharp angle which wood normally does not appreciate) then the rising wood would hide that in the completed model. (the two joints were simply because I just wanted the line and didn't care about matching pieces to the relevant keel sections)
 

My approach was to simply sharpen a hobbyist chisel and then push into the lower edge of the rabbet (at an L shape at the ends and slightly more at an upwards angle elsewhere). 
 

 
Then (not near the upper edge) but about half way down I cut an angle towards the first cut which usually generated a sliver of wood that due to the grain was easy to pop out. I could then cut again slightly higher (and near the upper edge) to increase the rabbet size. Once that was done I would have a semi reasonable v ish shape that I could then drag the corner of a chisel along to both clean the cut and enhance.
 

 
It had to be done in sections as I wanted the keel to be firmly supported (especially at the top) to minimize potential damage to the upper side of the keel.
 
 
 
 

Thanks for the comments all.. Now for a brief digression onto rising wood planning. For some reason I am using the turbocad structure better to simplify the plans. As an example looking at my existing rising wood plan I would have previously put the measurements on each section making it somewhat confusing to read. After trying (taking my piece 1 as an example, the rear piece) copied it 5 times and then split the measurements over those  5 colour coding to differentiate better between vertical and horizontal as can be seen below. I then started on my cut plan and realised even that was excessive and I could just concentrate on those measurements which would need cutting. I could then change the print scale to 2.5:1 so it was much bigger and get all the relevant measurements in two copies.
 
Piece 1 is the smallest piece and I have enough wood to start producing some testing pieces to work out how I want to cut it. You can also see I am retaining my plan to simplify the piece by removing the horizontal angle and replacing with a straight edge.
 

Thanks for the comments all.. Now for a brief digression onto rising wood planning. For some reason I am using the turbocad structure better to simplify the plans. As an example looking at my existing rising wood plan I would have previously put the measurements on each section making it somewhat confusing to read. After trying (taking my piece 1 as an example, the rear piece) copied it 5 times and then split the measurements over those  5 colour coding to differentiate better between vertical and horizontal as can be seen below. I then started on my cut plan and realised even that was excessive and I could just concentrate on those measurements which would need cutting. I could then change the print scale to 2.5:1 so it was much bigger and get all the relevant measurements in two copies.
 
Piece 1 is the smallest piece and I have enough wood to start producing some testing pieces to work out how I want to cut it. You can also see I am retaining my plan to simplify the piece by removing the horizontal angle and replacing with a straight edge.