Mast attachment points

A trip to Lowes took care of buying the stainless steel bolts that I will needed for attaching the shrouds to the mast, the mast sleeve retaining bolt and also the mast retaining bolt. I ended up going with a 1/4" bolt which I based on the diameter of the holes of the hardware. I also bought some 3/8" OD / 1/4" ID plastic hose to act as the sleeve.

As luck would have it while I was drilling the holes in the mast I found out that I complete missed the cedar solid core section where the lower shrouds attach. And to add insult to injury I also found out that the solid section where the spinnaker attaches to on the upper mast was installed in the wrong spot since I forgot to account the length of the spigot when I located it and it ended up being 100 mm below where it needed to be!

That's not supposed to be hollow!

So I decided to drop a quick email to Dudley to ask for help. He suggested installing a 1/2" hardwood dowel wrapped with fiberglass to act as a compression post.

So another trip to Lowes to buy a 1/2" poplar dowel. I also needed to figure out how I was going to drill out my 3/8" holes to 1/2" without majorly messing up the wood. After a lot of wandering around in the isle I decided to go with a uni-bit to start the hole and use a forsner bit to finish it. The trick was to find a forsner bit that would drill a 9/16" hole which was the approximate dimension of the dowel once I wrapped a layer of fiberglass on to it (Not a popular dimension to say the least!). That took a special trip to a specialty woodworking supply store!

I had some 2" wide fiberglass tape left over from the construction of the hull so I went ahead and wetted it out.

And wrapped it around the dowel.

Once cut to size I ran it through the drill press and drilled a 1/4 inch hole through it.

Followed by epoxying it into the hole that I drilled in the mast.

While I did that I also installed the thumb cleats on the mast that I somehow missed the 1st time!

Finished Product

Next steps will be to sand both pieces of the mast and apply varnish - I am so looking forward to that!

Varnishing the Boom & Bow Sprit

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working on the final finish on both the boom and the bowsprit. I must admit that historically I have always been a bigger fan of building portion of wood working than the finishing. For whatever reason I always seem to be challenged with the final finishing process whether is runs, brush marks in the finish, or even worse - fisheyes!

My experience with the spar varnish seems to be par for the course. I ended up putting 6 coats of varnish with a fair amount of sanding in between to get the finish to be half way presentable. I came across all kinds of issues of which all boil down to one thing: You must put the correct amount of varnish onto the spar - too little and you get ugly brush marks / too much and you get runs. Good times! I also went with the semi gloss finish. In retrospect I should have gone with the gloss - I'm sure I'll have to re-finish these sometime in the future - I will take care of it then!

Boom & Bowsprit after the final coat of varnish

Next on the list is to tackle the mast pieces. Although before I finish them I will get the holes drilled and lined for both the top mast holder and the pin at the base.