C&C 35-1 Taffrail

After a long period of procrastination, I removed the taffrail from Touche’ to replace it. To remove the two corners, I drilled out the brass screws. It was easier than trying to hold a wrench and a square driver at the same time. A third hand is recommended.

Here are pictures of the hull/deck joint at the transom and vaious shots of the pieces that comprise the taffrail. Note that the taffrail has a lip which overhangs the deck down to the hull.

Hull/Deck joint at transom. There are small screws that hold the joint together here.

Hull/Deck joint at transom

Taffrail after removal.

Detail under stanchion. Note the cutout to accept the round piece. There was a screw in the center of the round. You can just make out the bung for it. It just popped up.

Taffrail corners (from bottom). These must be cut at a 45 to prevent cracking along the grain. Note the overhanging lip.

Notes: To make replacement, a piece of teak about 5 inches wide is required for the curvature of the taffrail.

The existing taffrail, including lip measured ½ inch thick. The screwheads were showing due to sanding wear. I will make replacement ¾ thick to allow for bungs.

My plan is to duplicate the pieces from the ¾ thick piece then use a router to create the lip overhang. The lip measures about ¼ inch wide and is 1 ¾ inch from the forward edge.

Teak with taffrail center clamped in place. Technically, it should run parallel to the grain. I cocked it a bit to reduce scrap. Strength shouldn’t be terribly affected.

Corners laid out on scrap inside curvature of center piece.

These kind of pieces should really be cut on a band saw. Closest one I have access to is 40 miles away. I elected to use a jigsaw. Do not attempt to cut fine curves with a cheap jigsaw. I have a Bosch 1587VS jigsaw which makes very smooth cuts.

Used vacuum to remove sawdust so I could see the cut line.

Made sure I finished all cuts towards thin edges.

Rough cut center piece in large vise for sanding the outside curvature on the aft edge. I’m sanding it with a flexible long board sander with 80 grit sandpaper. This eliminated the small variations from the jigsaw.

In vise for sanding the inside curvature. The board is flexible enough but required a bit of pressure in the middle. This edge needs to be smooth because I’m going to use it in the next step.

Now the tricky part. I needed to create the ¼ inch lip overhang on the aft edge. I planned to use a router. However, using a guide with the ¼ inch gap that you push the piece against is risky. There is a chance that the bit make catch and the piece would kick away from the guide and the router bit would then exit through the lip. Piece ruined, go back to square one. The width of the center piece is fairly uniform along the entire length (~2 inches). So the answer is to make a jig that creates a gap equal to the distance from the forward edge to the forward edge of the lip (about 1 ¾ inches). This way, if the wood kicks, the router bit will dig into wood that will be removed anyway.

Above is the jig. Note the nail above the router bit. The distance from nail to the outer edge of the router bit is about 1 ¾ inches. After a test and a slight relocation of the nail. We’re ready to go. The piece was placed on the router table downside down with the forward edge (inside curvature) towards the nail. It was then pushed toward the nail until contact was made. Then the piece was moved lengthwise to create the ¼ inch lip. The picture above shows the piece just after the cut was started.

Next I placed more nails closer and closer to the router bit to move the cut across the piece. After several passes most of the material was removed. However, there is a trick. See next step.

Now here’s the trick. If you remove all the material, the piece will tilt and you will gouge the wood. So leave a strip towards the outer edge to hold the wood at the right height for removing all the material. I made a pass on the edge to get a nice clean edge but left a ridge of material to set the height. After all the router passes were made, I removed this thin ridge with a utility knife. A chisel would also work.

Underside of finished center piece. Hope you can see the lip.

Underside of finished corner piece. Width of corner piece was not uniform. I routed it out holding the outer curvature against guide. Note gouge in top left. It almost cut through the lip.

All three finished pieces except for the two cuts in the center piece for the stanchion rounds. The stanchion rounds are 3 inch diameter. I’ll cut them with a 3 inch hole saw then cut them in half. The forward edge of each will need to be shaped a bit to match the curvature of the cockpit coaming.

Here’s the pieces from the underside.

I haven’t decided whether to reuse the old bolt holes. I think not. I think it’s safer to drill new holes and plug the old ones rather than risk misalignment. The holes are countersunk for flat head machine screws. I’ll use a Forstner bit to create nice round holes for the bungs.

I suspect I’ll have to remake at least one of the corner pieces. The fit is needs to be fairly exact to match the width and angle of the center piece and match up to the end of the toerail. I’ll make a matte board pattern if so.