[Show slideshow]

I now have my building board. As you can see in the pictures I purchased a 24 inch by 80 inch flush door. I ended up getting it at Home Depot after Lowes didn’t have ANY 24 inch in stock. No problem, they are close to each other.

It cost $24.00 and with tax it ended up two cents shy of $26.00. That’s not a bad investment for a flat place to build a large model boat.

The floor clerk cut 20” off the door. He volunteered to do it for me after I told him I was building a large model boat. I said, “That would be great as you’ll do a straighter cut with your panel saw than I could do at home.”  Also the door in two pieces would fit into my VW GTI much easier. It probably took him less than two minutes to safely make the single cut.

Now I have two flat surface building boards. The large one is 60 inches by 24 inches and the smaller board is 20 inches by 24 inches. I won’t count the saw kerf as missing OAL.

As you can see I made and glued in new end supports in both door pieces. I had to dig the mighty Powermatic out of its hiding place to do the sawing. The thickness of the end wood is 1 and 1/8 inch. The insert width can be anything. The large piece I was able to make 1 and 1/4 inch wide. The small piece I could only scrounge up a 3/4 inch piece. Both will do the job just fine. Overall length of both pieces was 22 and 1/4 inches. That makes the stock wood sides only 7/8 deep each.

That material seen inside the door shell is just cardboard. With the sharp wood chisel seen in the photo it took all of 3 minutes to prepare space for the new end wood piece. For the primeval forest tree huggers, that is not real Lauan wood. It is a pressed fiber like paper with somehow receiving a super thin coating on the outside to make it look like wood. I am sure it is an ecologically sound material.

I choose Type III Titebond glue but I do have an equal amount of Type II here in the shop. Either would work fine. I coated both surfaces before making the joint. Now I am pealing Titebond skin off my fingers just like my model airplane days (or woodworking).

Oh and as usual, one can’t have enough clamps on hand.

A once over with the sandpaper block and the door/boards look like they were always that short. I am thinking I should give the building boards a coat of urethane just as a moisture (humidity) protection. Then on with the project build.