Does anyone have a sure fire way of cutting the Fake seam lines in the Transom of a 1950 Riviera?
Hi Warren I am going to respond here. Sure Fire is the scary part of course, and I suppose there are several ways to do this. And sorry I don’t have an answer, hell, I dont even have an opinion. But hopefully someone has done this here. I attached an image of a nice Riviera to illustrate the situation.
We have used a flexible straight edge as a fence and then cut the seam channels using a small router. (The straight edge must be super thin - just enough for the router to ride on - to make the curve.
How do we affix the straightedge, especially over the curved section? That is what fastener holes are for. Long before staining and varnishing, release a couple bungs and the screws beneath them.
Then, and here is the brutally awful piece, screw the straight edge along the flat part of the aft deck - two screws will do it, and bend the straight edge over and down the transom and ask a soon-to-be-former friend to hold it in place.
Rout over the curved section, but not down the face of the transom. As you can see in Matt’s photo, the “vertical” lines are now, well, vertical. Rather they are angled slightly towards the center.
Similarly, position and then fix the straight edge along each vertical and the horizontal seam channel using a single screw and that friend, and rout them.
We’ve only done it twice at Snake Mountain, but succeeded each time, if only by adding a slew of unacceptable language.
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Thank you for the response. I thought about using a small laminate router but that scares me. I need to think about which soon to be former friend I want to use. Another idea I’m kicking around is a Ex-acto Knife against a bendable straight edge. Then chip or dig out the center. UGH.
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You could also just paint the white lines over the varnish and call it good.
The laminate router with a guide is the way to go of you want the real deal, but it takes a steady hand. But it can be done.
Instead of screwing the fence to the transom, lay down painters tape on the hull and apply double sided tape to your fence. You can also lay out your lines and fence lines on the painters tape instead of directly on the wood. The Scotch double sided tape is plenty strong to stay in place.
On the transom I would build the fence so you can do the entire thing in one shot, and do an extremely shallow cut as a practice before you go hogging out the fake seams. You could certainly cut the lines in the covering boards by hand.
Thanks Jimmy - I went ahead and cut the outside lines with an ex-acto knife then hogged out the inside. It turned out ok and didn’t take that long.
Thats cool! Nice.