A start on the boat woodwork

As the 'build' is running late, I thought it made sense to try and get some of the fiddly joinery work done in advance.

There are a number of reasons for this. First, it's a lot easier to do this kind of work in a workshop, rather than in the confines of a narrowboat; second, at the moment, I can afford to spend a bit of time on this - later, I might feel inclined to rush it a bit; third, it will be a big boost to be able to take finished components straight into the boat for final fitting.

I'm building all of the kitchen units and furniture from scratch, so following a visit to a local sawmill, 25 cu. feet of kiln dried ash arrived.

The timber is mainly 1" thick. The real task is to extract the maximum usable timber from the log wood, whilst keeping waste to a minimum. Fortunately, I don't need many long lengths, so the selection is easier.

Having cut the 2.5m planks into shorter lengths using the cross-cut saw, it could then be sectioned down into widths like 125mm, 80mm and 50mm on the table saw.

As the day went on, the pile of sawn planks got bigger:

So did the pile of offcuts

And the mountain of sawdust got bigger too!

There are a few more planks to be processed, then it will be the long job of planing and thicknessing the timber to working dimensions.