Wooden Ship railings -help

[murphyki]

I’m on my first wood boat build (Amati Chinese junk) and I’m really struggling with the railings.

 

its supposed to be 1x1mm spindles and 1x3mm strips top and bottom. The spindles are all over the place, I can’t get them consistently in the middle.

 

i tried drilling with a pin vise some slot holes, but the strips always end up splitting at some point.

 

please help me!

[RichardG]

Maybe a small jig made from scrap wood or card. By using a little bit of the 3x1mm and 1x1mm you can get the spacing correct. I'm thinking of something like this

 

This would be flexible enough to use with fingers to hold the spindle in place while gluing. If the top and bottom rails are already in place then just have the 2 pieces without the top strip. If you make the width of the jig the right size, it might also help with spacing.

 

 

[Jaager]

 

The core of your problem is due to the species of wood that was supplied,

If your objective is to assemble the craft using the supplied materials, fight on.

If your objective is to develop skills and progress to more complex subjects, use this as an opportunity to slip in a bit of scratch building experience.  Replace the supplied wood with a species that will hold up to what is being asked of it.

[Chazz]

Another lesson to take from this construction exercise is that at small scale, whenever there are many similar small parts in close proximity, a jig or some kind of guide is a great deal of help, almost essential, for good alignment.  At small scale any amount of misalignment stands out like a sore thumb.

 

Chazz