Wow That Was a Long Break!

Well after not working on the boat for almost 7 weeks I am finally back at it. I have never had so many back to back weekends where I was not in town!

So back to the spars. I finally decided to cut in the spigots at both ends of the mast/top mast. I had been mulling over the best way to do this for some time. I had noticed that another builder decided to do it on a table saw, but after much deliberating I decided to use a backsaw with guides just as Dudley had suggested.

First step was to line up both portions of the mast to make sure that they where both the same size/shape. After I verified that this was the case I went ahead and marked the cut line on both pieces using a hose clamp.

I started the rabbeting process by using my small backsaw to add a small shallow kerf mark around the "cut" line. The backsaw I was using was tough to use for this since I already had the guides mounted to it. After that it was a simple matter of cutting the 2mm deep kerfs at regular intervals.

Once the kerfs where in place out came my wood chisel to remove the excess material and I finished it up with some sand paper

I had a couple of spots where the chisel dug a little deep (The cedar is SUPER soft!) so I decided to add some filleting material to level it out. I want to make sure nothing causes the sleeve to bind.

As you can see it turned out pretty good.

My plan for next steps is to go ahead and sand smooth the areas I added the filleting material and to once again align both portions of the mast to check that the spigots line up correctly. Once that is done it will be time to figure out the whole sleeve building process! That is the one part that I am a little apprehensive about mainly from keeping both pieces perfectly aligned while maintaining enough room to wrap the wetted out fiberglass material. Also the fiberglass tends to fray when cut so I'm also trying to figure that part out. Should be fun!