Multi-Piece Outer Rail

Happy Holidays All,
I finished a restoration about a year ago and had a lot of trouble bending mahogany outer rails due to breakouts. Therefore I built up a multipiece tip for the rail using several jigs. In the attached image the multi-species tip is one laminated piece composed of 12 parts and the solid mahogany part of the rail is another separate piece with the joint being at the end of the hard maple "Fish Tail".

This worked really well and I loved the detail it added.

I also did a bit of an experiment in that 1 laminated tip is epoxied to the solid mahogany main rail. Another has half-profile dowel sitting in a routed channel joining the tip and solid mahogany main piece of the rail. Two are not attached to the main solid rail at all.

After a full year I can't see any difference in the three styles of joining the tips to the main part of the rail. There is no warping or change of hull shape at the joint.

Just thought I would share my findings with this method and see if anyone else uses it,
-Mark

 

I have not used this method in the past but will try it in the future as it is a beautiful accent to finished look of the boat.