Thursday 19 September 2019

Getting Ready To Fit Floorboards | Spacers & Marking Gauge

While I pondered how to begin actually fitting floorboards into the boat it became clear that accurate positioning of boards and screw fastenings would be critical. Any discrepancy would be very visible and unsightly.

To start with, the boards have to be uniformly 1/8" apart. To achieve this I made some spacers, using nails which are exactly that in diameter fitted into holders made of scrap ply. Here are the spacers.



They look a bit lethal, don't they?

And to ensure that the screw holes are always in the same place on every board, I made a marking gauge. Here is it is.



The idea is to slide it along the edge of the board until the upper and lower pencil lines exactly align with the floor, and then use a bradawl to mark the screw holes through the two holes drilled on the centre line.

Tests show that they both work well.

I can't claim any original thought here. I copied these tools from another builder's blog. Thanks Ron!!!

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