Steady progress today. Started out by getting the aluminum angles cut and drilled for countertop brackets. Once those were mounted to the walls, I cut the countertop/lower shelf out of 1/2" birch. I cut to the length that I desired for the shelves and counter and the width was based on the interior width of the cabin. I was wondering what the best way to cut the narrower galley portion might be as I was making my initial cuts. My mind gravitated toward the router, so I laid a straight board on top of the counter along penciled cut lines and used it as a guide with a flush trim bit to narrow it down to size.
The counter will be screwed to the brackets from underneath once finish has been applied.
Next, I cut the upper bulkhead. This went fairly quickly since I had a cut off from the lower bulkhead that was tall enough. I cut it down to the proper height and beveled the top edge to match the roof line. It still needs a little finesse work, which I will likely address when I go to glue and screw it. Pocket holes were added on the cabin side.
After that, I cut the upper shelf using 1/2" birch and processed some rough-sawn jatoba for the lips of both shelves. I started out using a Freud rabbeting bit for the router for the shelf/lip joints. Once again, the density of the jatoba was too much for another hand-held tool. The bit struggled to make the 3/8" x 1/2" rabbet and wound up blowing out a large chunk of the wood. Since I didn't want to go through the effort of processing another rough cut piece, I opted to cut out the blowout by making the lip shorter in height than I'd initially planned. (2-1/2" rather than 3-1/2") I then used the table saw to re-cut the rabbets. It worked a lot better. Hopefully things are still kept on the shelves as we're traveling down the bumpy two-tracks.
Somewhere along the line, I found that I made the counter an inch higher than plan. It's no biggie since my wife and I are both relatively tall. The extra inch of storage will be put to good use. I think it may have stemmed from the fact that I used Tony's CAD files to layout my template rather than the book. I must've snapped to an incorrect point when dimensioning. The original intention was to have the walls CNC cut by a local shop. They provided me a pretty reasonable cutting price (in my opinion) of $500 for all of the parts that Tony drew up. Unfortunately, they extended their turnaround time at the last minute and it was going to delay the build by too much. If there is ever a second 'Drop, it'll be CNC cut.
Back to the current build, I'm debating whether I have a practical amount of room for a drawer above the cooler. There is currently 3-5/8" of space, however some of that will be eaten up by the sliding tray for the cooler.
by noseoil » Sun May 30, 2021 8:25 am 
But I think it'll work. 
