Making a Dash

Next on the list of things to complete is the dashboard.  Once this is complete and mounted, I can start attaching the steering and electrical connections.
The dash is African mahogany which I decided to dress up with a strip of maple bisecting the gauges and steering post.  I cut a 1/2" wide dado and fit a strip of curly maple into the slot.   I also decided to mount the gauges in a recessed cluster in the center of the dash.   The edges along the bottom and opening are rounded with a 1/2" round-over router bit.

 

The center opening has a 3/8" rabbet in the back to accept the instrument panel.  I shaped and fit the panel from meranti plywood and then cut the holes for the gauges.  I then glued some curly maple to the plywood and used a pattern following bit in my router to trim the maple to the plywood.   

You'll notice that the router bit caught an edge and took a splinter off the bottom of the maple.  Fortunately, this is hidden by the rabbet.   The three smaller holes are for switches:  bilge, horn and lights.  There are also two other switches on the dash located to the right of the steering wheel.  They are for the ignition and choke switches but hadn't been drilled when I took the first picture.

When it all comes together, the dash will look like this:

On Thursday I hope to take it to a shop that does laser etching.  I want to have the switch legends etched into the maple.  I also will make some maple labels for the the ignition and choke which I will inlay into the mahogany.  I found a font called Magneto which has a nice retro look.   The etch makes a shallow depression and the guy says there isn't a lot of contrast on maple so I plan to fill it with brown colored epoxy.

I'll post the results of the etching when I get it done.  I also plan to epoxy the dash into the boat later this week as the weather will be near 60 degrees on Friday.