Top Mast Sheave Slot

Today I worked on the sheave slot for the top mast.

It was pretty straight forward although I must admit the instructions really do not address how to locate the optimum fore/aft location for the sheave.

I off-centered the axle location so that the sheave would be slightly forward in the slot to provide a good alignment with the sail track location. I did notice that I have the sheave slightly higher than what the instruction show, but I don't think it's a huge deal since the aluminum strap will keep the halyard in place.

Next step will be to the mast sleeve.

Progress is going to be non existent over the next few weekends due to booked up weekends :(

Sail Track Part II

Finished up the sail track this weekend!

First step was to epoxy the halves, that I had previously built, together. Prior to doing that I cut two lengths of string for each hole so that I could run through a swab with acetone on it once the halves were clamped together. This was to clean up any excess epoxy that would squeeze out inside the sail track area. The reason for two strings is so that as I pulled one through it would automatically pull another string in so that I could swab it at least a couple of times (I ended up doing it 3 times!).

All Clamps On-board! Notice the strings hanging out of the ends

Once it set up I un-clampled it and ripped the sail track blanks to size and ran it through the table saw in order to add the 3 mm sail track.

I finished up with tilting the saw blade 33 degrees and running the blanks through it to get to the final shape.

Tilting the saw blade tends to leave saw / burn marks on the wood when you pause during the feeding process so I went ahead and sanded the now complete sail tracks with 80, 100 and 220 grit sand paper. I figured it would be a lot easier to do it now versus waiting until I epoxied them onto the mast.

Voila! Sail Tracks!

Next step will most likely be the mast sleeve.

Also - a non related issue. I had previously reported that I had ordered a nickel sheave to replace the sheave that had been discontinued for the top mast. Well guess what - the nickel one I ordered has also been discontinued! Looks like Ronstan did some house cleaning! Turns out I was in San Diego last weekend and visited the Shelter Island West Marine (Huge store!). As luck would have it they had a sheave made by Schaefer that might just work! (part# 62-018, 51mm dia., max rope dia. 1/2") I also was able to buy it in person without spending the same for the shipping as the sheave itself!

Thumbcleats / Sail Track Part I

I have a few loose ends that I need to take care of prior to finishing the spars: Cut out the thumbcleats and build a sail track. Both of these need to be installed on their respective spars prior to applying the epoxy and varnish.

I am also waiting on the sheave for my top mast which I ordered a couple of weeks ago. Interesting to note the sheave specified on the plans has been discontinued! The closest sheave that I was able to find that came close to matching the dimensions is the Ronstan RF580 which is made out of nickel.

As stated in an earlier post I am using plans provided to me by François Marti (http://www.pidgikit.fr). He used a 8 mm dia. router bit for his sail track which I was unable to source here in Arizona. The closest I could come to it was 3/8" (9.5mm) therefore, I modified his width dimensions  by a couple of mm to maintain the same wall thickness.

As with most of these projects the first step was to go to Home Depot and get an 8' long piece of 3/4" Poplar that was 5.5" wide. I ran it through the thickness planer to get it down to 14 mm per the sketch of the sail track. I then proceeded to rip three 36 mm pieces and had just enough left over to rip a 10mm wide piece for the thumbcleats.

First order of business was to get the thumbcleats out of the way. This I accomplished using my sled that I had built to do the scarf joints on the mast.

I ended up making an extra set just in case I mess something up!

Next step was to get the router table set up and to run the three boards through it. On one of the boards I cut a small section off it so that I could use it as a test piece for the router.

Can you say trim moulding anyone?

After I ran it through the router I followed up with a coat of epoxy.

What you cant see in the picture is the smoke coming out of my epoxy cup. As warm as things are right now I have about 5 or 6 minutes before the whole batch goes south!

My goal is to apply 2 more coats of epoxy with a light sanding between each coat. Once I am done with that I will rip the short piece in half so that I can epoxy it together, and I will epoxy the two long pieces together!

Bowsprit / Secret Weapon

Well the bowsprit is not the secret weapon of the title the portable swamp cooler shown below is!

This weekend the temperature got up to 108 degrees F which in short is: HOT!!! So Friday night my wife and I hit the Home Depot / Lowes circuit and purchased the portable swamp cooler. I tried it out this weekend and it made a huge difference - As long as it is blowing directly on you it makes working in the garage bearable!

Well enough about that! This weekend my goal was to shape the bowsprit. So first step was to figure out how I was going to plane in the additional faces. As with the boom I took the bowsprit in the house and my wife and I sat down and marked up the centers of all eight faces followed by the other eight faces for the initial non tapering part of the bowsprit (the aft end). Once I got to the tapered part things where not quite cut and dried since even though the tapered end had eight faces it is closer to square than an octagon.  So I before finalizing my "planing" lines I decided to get the end closer to an octagon so out came the hand plane!

Bowsprit Ready for Shaping

Tapered End Planed to an Octagonal Shape

Once that was done it was pretty easy to figure out my "planing" lines and cut in the additional 8 faces using my trusty No. 5 plane.

Well it turns out that it took a little bit more effort to do the shaping on this spar than what I initially anticipated. The main reason behind this is that you build the spar using the same dimensional pieces as the mast with the exception that it is actually a couple of millimeters narrower in diameter. So after I used the box sander to get it to the initial round shape I used my electronic micrometer to check the diameter. As expected it was 63 mm vs 61 mm. So out came the hand plane to take off the extra material! I alternated between the hand plane and micrometer to make sure I did not take off to much material and also to make sure it was round. This particular spar has to fit through a hole in the bow transom so it's a little bit more critical that it is perfectly  round!

Finished Product!

Next step for this particular spar is to wrap both ends with fiberglass followed by a good sanding/epoxying/varnishing!

Next Steps will be either the fiberglassing this spar, the connector tube between the top/bottom mast or the sail track - We will see!

Shaping the Boom

After taking a weekend off to go to California I decided to tackle the boom next.

During the weekday my daughter was kind enough to help me scribe the lines on the boom to locate the center of each face and to also add the planing lines to go from eight faces to 16. This effort definitely took some time and it was nice to have someone help me! It was also something I ended up doing on the living room floor which was also nice!

Additional Faces Scribed In

Once again I brought out my trusty number 5 plane and planed in the extra eight faces. I decided to forgo the power planer on this exercise since there really was not a whole lot of wood to take off and I wanted to have better control over what was happening.

Once the additional eight faces where planed in I decided to build a couple of supports from scrap pieces of wood so that I could clamp the boom to the saw horses and have it spin freely for the sanding process.

Again I used the boxed sander to get it to a round shape. It's pretty close to round right now. My plan is to finish it up with 100, 150 and 220 grit sand paper and hopefully get any imperfections out at that point.

I need to build the cleats for the boom which I think I may make out of some spare mahogany that I have left over.

Things are heating up in Arizona so I am getting relegated to working in the mornings before it gets to obnoxiously hot. Still on the agenda is shaping the bowsprit and building the sail track from plans provided by François Marti who funnily enough built hull #39! I also have to build the fiberglass tube that connects the lower mast with the top mast - still thinking on that one!

Top Mast

I decided to tackle the top mast section next. I figured it that it would be a logical progression that way I can get one of the spars somewhat done!

As with the mast I started out by using the power planer to remove all the excess epoxy and to smooth out all of the faces.

Top Mast ready for shaping

I then followed up by figuring out the additional faces that I wanted to plane into the top mast to get it closer to round. Unlike the lower mast it was a little trickier since the majority of it is tapering. I then followed up with the #5 plane and cut in the additional faces and finished by using the boxed sander to round it off. It's interesting to note that although the power plane works great to clean up all of the epoxy mess, it is still better, and for that matter more satisfying to use the hand plane to do some of the detail work. All in all the two make a great combination!

Once I got the desired shape I got the mitre saw out and cut the excess material from both the top and bottom masts.

I then butted up the lower mast to the top mast to compare their shape and get them ready to cut the recess for the fiberglass connector tube. I used a small hand plane to even them up.

Since I had quite the saw dust mess going on I decided to make a bigger mess and clean up the boom and bowsprit. Even though the power planer works great it definitely makes a giant mess and I figured it would be good to get it over and done with! To make things even more messier the "flakes" of epoxy that it creates seem to be electrostatically charged and clings to everything!

Bowsprit cleaned up and ready for shaping

Boom cleaned up Also!

I am now ready to shape the boom and bowsprit!

Finished Shaping The Mast

Finished shaping the mast after work today. All that was left to do was make the bottom 300 mm round so that it would fit the mast step.

Similar to the rest of the mast I marked out the additional faces and proceeded with a small hand plan to get it closer to round.

As you can see it worked out pretty good. I finished up with 80 grit sand paper in the boxed sander -it definitely does a great job!

My plan is to move either to the boom or the top mast next. I'll worry about doing the finish sanding on the mast once I have the mast sleeve built and the sail track epoxied on.