Tiller, decktoads, cleats

The tiller is getting varnished in the cabin of Firefly, hanging from a line. I think it has four coats now, on top of one coat of S1 sealer (thanks, Godfrey!). I might put six coats of varnish on altogether. Or I might lose track and not know just how many coats...

(Notice that Firefly is not level, as the lot is slanted.)

Not seeing the curvature in the length here; that will have to be another day.

I bought a nice piece of fir from the Finishing Store, ½" x 3" for the rub strip, which John Booth sliced for me into two lengths (16') that were 1" on one side, and 2" on the other:

Thanks to John's skill, both pieces are identical. It's a bit tricky to set the saw up so that you get equal pieces on each side of the blade kerf.

A ¾" half-round will bring the total width out. Putting two smaller pieces on such a curvy boat will be easier than one larger piece. Although—even the larger piece of these is much more supple than I thought it would be.

The shape is designed so that when the boat comes down against a dock, there's not much to catch on.

The rub rails won't reach all the way to the stem, but the bow is so high they're useless there anyway. They will be the same chocolate brown as the rudder, the doors and the toe rails.

This is how I set up the half-rounds to make bevels for scarfing, to get the right lengths:

I made the bevel with a grinder, free-hand. It was acceptable. I didn't want to spend too much time on it.

I re-shaped the deck toads, as I'm now calling them. They're bases or sockets for the pipes that will hold up the cockpit tent. Aka decktodes. (Did you see the movie Cane Toads?)

Positioning the stern dock cleat:

That's not where it finally went. I put them close to the aft corners, backed up with a piece of ⅜" ply under the deck, tight fit between stringers, transom, with lots of epoxy goop. There are four ¼" bolts per cleat.