Cutting Corners

While sanding is easily the most pedestrian task in building a boat, rounding edges is probably next in line. It’s a job that has to be done to give paint and varnish a fighting chance to protect the wood they’re applied to and to give the boat a benign, skin-friendly touch. Sanding edges will do the job, but raises a lot of dust and doesn’t automatically produce uniform results. A router equipped with a corner-rounding bit will work too, but routers are noisy and because they cut in just one direction they  often work against the grain.

My Stanley No. 28 is still working but looking a little the worse after 37 years in workshops both indoors and outdoors.

Many years ago I bought a Stanley No. 28, a bar of steel with question-mark ends and elliptical holes that round corners to a 1/16″ and a 1/8″ radius. There was also a No. 29 that cut 1/4″ and 3/8″ edges. These tools are no longer made by Stanley, but you can find them for sale on the Web as vintage or antique tools, which, at my age, stings a bit because I bought mine new.