Dutch Barge Wheelhouse

I was commissioned to design and make this bespoke hardwood wheelhouse for a Dutch built motor cruiser. The construction is solid sapelle hardwood, and was mostly worked and assembled by hand. I incorporated stream bending, epoxy work and CNC routing for this project as well as typical joinery skills.

The initial templates were drawn using a traditional boat building technique called "flagging off" using a spile and flag. Breifly, this involves drawing around a notched stick of plywood (spile) on to a fixed piece of paper, card or plywood (flag) to record the complex shape of the opening or hull. I drew this out full size in the workshop and then reproduced the opening in CAD software. Using the full sized template I was able to double check all of the measurements as often a I wanted. From here, several DXF templates were produced to be CNC cut, the templates were then used to pattern the individual components.