Dorade box construction project

I've got a situation on deck where the starboard dorade box is looking a bit tired and dated, and on the port side all I have is a temporarily-patched hole where once there was a califont stack.



Existing dorade.  The spider cracking on the deck is made more noticable by the application of Capt. Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure - a wonderful gift from the gods.  Won't see it under the KiwiGrip and Perfection!

I have decided to use the existing dorade as a pattern to create two new boxes from some teak timber I located locally. 

The first step was to create some patterns from the existing, using a set of dividers to scribe the arc of the fore and aft pieces, which follow the cabin top. 

These three patterns represent the base of the dorade box.  The end piece is interchangeable between fore and aft.  I was surprised to find that the starboard and port faces are almost perfectly-vertical, but the end pieces (fore/aft) are canted inward slightly (perhaps 5 degrees).  This means that the long side pieces are actually parallelograms, not rectangles.

I did not measure the top piece, as this will simply be constructed to fit the base.  I will say however, that I will be using teak, not lexan, for the construction of the lids.  I know why they used lexan originally (there is a solar-powered vent inside the dorade), but it isn't a good look, and I beleive properly-costructed passive ventilation will be better than the current set-up.  The solar powered vent does not function (they ALL breakdown eventually as the rechargeable batteries wear out), and the intake vent itself is far too small.

I am preparing to use a scoop like this one:

 Update 24/8/13 - Construction

The teak timber I am using is probably thicket than required, but it's what I had and it will be extremely-robust.

A very good quality jigsaw makes short work of cutting out the pieces once they have been laid out with the patterns

You may see 5 end pieces instead of 4...there will actually be six when I'm done, 2 of which will be shortened vertically to become baffles.

You pay good money for teak flour at the shops...don't throw it in the bin!

Initial fit-up, lots of sanding and fine-shaping to be done.

What the picture above doesn't capture are the multitude of compound angles and miters involved with building this dorade box.  Because the end slope inward, and because the cabin top is curved, almost all edges needed some form of shaping.

I'm sure there is a tool in the New Yankee Workshop to do this, but I reply on my razor sharp hand plane as I always have:

Did you know that Ron Hickman, the inventor of the WorkMate, also designed the Lotus Elan?  Black & Decker have sold over 30 million of them around the world.  I have owned 3 myself.

For some unknown reason I touched the piece with wet fingers just before taking this photo...I suppose it was to show you the grain...yeah..that's it...

UPDATE: 23/10/13

I've glued one box together and checked the fit on the boat.  It needs some tweaking and a lot of sanding, but given the various compound angles and such, I think it has worked out fairly well so far.  Now I need to buy a dozen teak plugs and devise a method of securing the boxes to the deck.

These halyards and reefing lines will be shifted inboard a bit when I install the new deck
organizer