[Doug Odgers]

I call it  beading,  but to be more pertinent, I suppose I should call it quarter round wood moulding.

If I bought quarter round moulding,  are the edges that meet up to blister and deck just a straight 90°  or  would I have to do something more complicated to get the two moulding edges snuggly meeting deck and blister ?

 

[Mike Dixon]

Hello Doug,

The closer the fit, the better the joint.  I suspect the join between the blister and deck is not a perfect right angle and to complicate matters, the actual angle will vary along its length.

My wood-working skills are not up to the task of getting a perfect fit.  Planing off the corners of the right angle along the two flat sides would help – anything which avoids a gap either between the blister and the quadrant or the deck and the quadrant will significantly help in eliminating water ingress.

I have no experience of timber steaming, but would reckon the quadrant beading would need some help (steaming?) as the radius is tight.

Good luck!

Mike

[AOA]

Hi Doug.
I replaced the forward part of the ‘beading’ on Helene (see ‘Blister Repairs’ post on A124’s page: https://atalantaowners.org/blister-repairs/).
In practice I found that the blister moulding had been made to be pretty close to a right angle with the deck – you can just make this out in the photos.

However, I do not think you will bend a quarter round moulding around the curve even with steaming, particularly an ‘off-the-shelf’ quadrant. You could have a piece of quality wood machined to the required profile and try steaming or soaking. You may have more success with soaking – make a container and pour boiling water over the wood and leave, perhaps even to the next day. This how Uffa bent the fine ribs on his International 14s with great success – steaming tends to take the ‘goodness’ out of the wood, drying them and they would split.

When I made my replacement beading I actually found it easier to laminate the quadrant in two pieces on a jig. The jig was a piece of MDF with holes for the clamps cut to the curve of the blister at the deck (see photos). I used some oak I already had.

A time consuming job but not too difficult and very satisfying.

Cheers
Nick

[Doug Odgers]

Mike & Nick,  Thanks very much from the both of you.

It’s given me what I wanted, in that I have a perspective now of ‘the possible’.

 

Doug

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