Spars

Short entry this week. We were on spring break for a little bit, so I got to go home and put some holes in one of our walls. They look nice, but again I have the camera issues, so no pictures. Same issue with the boat. . . not a lot of pictures.

I did get the camera working for this post, however. The mast is all put together. Looks pretty simple, just a long box, but there is internal structure (forever hidden) and a cool glue up jig that has now been taken apart. Oh well. The result is nice.

I took this picture of the bottom of the mast to give you some idea how this thing is put together. The bottom is actually the most complicated part, with internal blocking on all 4 walls as well as a center piece. About 80% of the mast is completely hollow, and only the very top and bottom foot of the mast are completely solid. Ignore the screw, as that is just for hanging the mast while I varnish it.

The 2 side pieces (call them the walls of the box) have a 1/8" rabbet in them which give a good glue surface / alignment aid for the top and bottom pieces. Before I glued up the box, however, I glued pieces onto the inside of the walls at the bottom of the mast, about 15' up (to support the spreader), and about 23' up (to support the jumper). At the very top and bottom I put in a center piece to make the mast solid.

To glue up the mast I built a 30' long bench. I use the term bench loosely as it was only 2" above the floor. That was all we needed to get a clamp under it for the glue up. The bench also gave me a surface to draw out the shape of the mast (it is curved from bottom to top) so as we glued it up we knew we were gluing it up correctly.

Inside the boat, the seats and sole are coming along. There will be little storage shelves behind the seats, underneath the combing.

The Haj is starting to look really good. This is the view from our boat. Pretty nice work environment.

Next post. . . Launch day! No, not for me, but the small boats are getting thrown in the water.