Nav Station and Dining Table Fiddles

By Jim West - Sucree

 

 

Proper yachts have fiddles to keep objects from sliding and falling. The P323 has many fiddles in the galley, main salon, head and forward cabin, but none were placed on the chart table at the navigation station or on the dining table in the main salon.  To remedy this I attached fiddles to both tables.  For the chart table only two are needed, whereas the dining table requires four.  I used teak pieces about 1 1/8 inch high by about 5/8 wide.  The ends of each piece were cut at about 75 degrees to soften their corners.  I rounded over the upper edges of each fiddle with a ¼ inch rounding over router bit.  

 

Each piece was attached from below with countersunk flat head stainless screws. By attaching the fiddles from below there are no visible screw holes.   One of the fiddles for the dining table is curved.  To do this I started with a screw from below to the center of the fiddle then bent and clamped the rest of the fiddle to fit the curve while I drilled and attached with screws from below.  The fiddles are set back from the edge about 1/8 inch, which I think look better and are stronger. It is not necessary to glue any of the fiddles down as this will hinder their removal for cleaning or replacement if they ever get broken.

 

                               

 

 

Now my charts don’t slide off the chart table and spilled food and drink is better controlled on the dinning table.  Further the fiddles provide hand holds when moving through the cabin while underway.  Total time for this project took less than a day.