I have a local catboat, in the shop, built by Maynard Lowery of Tilghman Island. It’s an interesting boat because it’s hard chine with lapstrake topsides and carvel bottom. It’s also interesting because it doesn’t have a keel rabbet. A keel rabbet is just a small ‘landing’ for the first bottom plank to land on. This gives a place to fasten the edge of the garboard plank to and provides a reliable water tight seal in an area that gets worked pretty hard on a centerboard boat. Anyway, the owner agreed that a new keel with a built in rabbet would be appropriate if we want to keep the water outside the boat. So I laminated up a few pieces of white oak to make an extra thick keel blank so I can add a rabbet. I had to lower the mating surface of the frames, floor timbers, stem, and transom for this extra thickness. With the new keel in place and temporarily bolted down I could start thinking about cutting the rabbet. Here’s a picture of the new keel blank in place:
The garboard plank will fit next to the adjacent plank and the frame, but the keel needs to have a bevel cut to match the angle of the plank to the square keel. The usual way to do this is to chisel out this bevel in equidistant spots, and then connect them together. I don’t mind chiseling all day, but I feel a bit guilty charging customers for such things, so I try to mechanize these types of jobs if I can. Enter the router. I don’t really like routers. They’re noisy, messy, and a bit dangerous, but they’re great for jigging up odd repetitive cuts. Here’s a pic of a jig for cutting this keel rabbet:
It’s kind of hard to tell in the picture, but that is the bottom of the router that I’ve attached a piece of plywood to. Here’s the whole shebang:
So, you can see it just rides on the existing planking (which is pretty straight), and gives me the proper bevel for the keel rabbet. Here’s a pic of the cutter area up close:
I did have to clean the cut up with a rabbet plane, but the jig did it’s job, and I didn’t have to think too much (always a good thing).