Making shavings.

Friday short post, end of August 2022.

Good morning everyone, I hope you are all well. I’m calling it the end of my working week outside because both cloud and humidity are building fast and it’s forecast to rain here in a few hours time. It’s been a very productive week though after last one where I hardly got anything useful done ; this week I succeeded in one main goal which to make a large bag of nice shavings – I did that and luckily for me it left something resembling a mast behind.

This morning, as I stop for coffee and a break iv’e just finished filler coating the layer of glass bandage that runs up the aft side of the pole….some degree of abrasion resistance for the gaff I hope. Later on i’ll carry on working on the tabernacle which is mostly made but needs some epoxy fillets, epoxy coating and suchlike.

The mast was the main job of course and it’s that that’s been my main effort – it’s an 8 sided birdsmouth pole mast with filler/blocking pieces at the butt, the sprit point, the first gaff position and the tapered topmast. I think it’s one of the most careful pieces of woodwork that iv’e done on the whole project but most of my ‘success’ (if it turns out well) must go to the straight, true and clean Douglas Fir staves that John Moody supplied.

I’m going to write a full post on the mast construction for my main blog but for now a quick description of the stages I took…..tapered the staves for the topmast in a jig, dry assembled and made the packing pieces, glued the mast in 2 halves, properly fitted the packing and then glued the whole lot together. Since main construction of the pole Iv’e rounded the whole thing except for half a meter at the heel which is going in the tabernacle and so far iv’e made and attached the shroud cleats….still lots of work to do for the various stays and halyard attachment points.

So – the weather is about to break again and that matters a lot less because the mast can go back, fully epoxy coated, under the boat and hopefully next week some nice and hugely expensive Bronze parts will arrive and I can fit the rudder.

Best wishes Y’awl.