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I have seen consoles built with the stainless screws and washers. Read on the board that authentic whalers use rabbet joints and no screws. Is this true and if so, can anyone send or post pictures. Looking to build my interior and would like to build it the "right" way. Thanks,,

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Hey Ken:

If you're trying to replicate a console for a particular model and year Whaler, let us all know so we know what we're trying to show you.

The techniques have been different for different boats, different years.

From a woodworker's perspective, the design of a piece of furniture should be such that the joints don't suffer stress, but that the joints serve merely to line up members which are designed to take up stress.

Example: instead of a 90 degree butt joint with screws into the abutting board, a proper furniture builder would cut a dado, insert the abutting board, with glue, THEN screw. Now the force is from abutting board to the dado "shelf", not all hanging on the screws relying on their sheer strength and the wood's unfailing ability to deal with sun, heat, cold, water, etc. In this example, the screws' purpose is only to hold the abutting board into the dado.

Many furniture techniques relying on great joint design and glue may be frustrated by the extreme conditions onboard a vessel. "Serious Woodworkers" try never to use screws, nails, etc, but only wood joints, wood dowels, etc. It might be belt and suspenders to design great joints AND secure with screws. On a boat ... that's not a bad philosophy. One caveat, however, is that you don't want a joint to fail, but you not know it because the screws are still holding.

Hope this helps, let us know what you're building for, and you'll get all the pics and advice you can stand ... and more ...


Bill

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On smaller Whalers it is a great advantage to be able to take the mahogany interior out and apart when it's time to varnish it. I would be very hesitant to glue anything together.

Whaler originally installed these interiors with "through screws" which leaves the screw heads exposed, and used a finish washer to dress it up. If you go this route and want to stay traditional you'll want to find oval head Phillips screws (rather than flathead) and use a plastic washer under the finish washer to keep it from cutting into the varnish.

My interior is a mix of old and new wood. The older pieces are attached the traditional way but I used stainless steel brackets, screwed in from the back, to hold the new pieces. It makes for a cleaner look, and it is way stronger than the original, which had some of the screws going into endgrain. You may be able to see it in some of the last pics on my personal page - the console top and dash are done the new way.

I think I found stainless L braces online someplace and for some of the odd angles I got some 316 stainless and cut and bent it to fit.

Have fun with it!