Building a topmast and making a yard

 Well, these two jobs have occupied most of October.  Before I really got into them, however, I finished fitting the hoop.

Gluing it in place was a fiddly business.  Ideally, I would have attached it to the frame 50 mm abaft where it ended up, which, indeed, was my initial intention, but it interfered with the wind vane.  I could have made a new windvane.  I decided it was easier to move the hoop further forward.

And here it is in place, awaiting paint.  It's fairly sturdy, as long as no heavy person decides to swing from it.  One can't legislate for every eventuality.

I bought the Oregon for the mast when I started building the boat.  (In NZ, Oregon is used to discriminate the high-quality, imported wood from the locally-grown, Douglas fir.)  It's beautiful wood, very fine grained and straight.  David had suggested I build a hexagonal mast.  In retrospect, I wish I had bought 8 boards: it would have been easier.

When making a birdsmouth mast with six sides, the angles need to be 30° and 60°.  I puzzled over this for some time before deciding the easiest thing would be to cut up some pallet wood and make a mock-up from this.  That would allow me to work out how to do the second cut.

 

I couldn't get the table saw blade to go down, so in desperation I went to Master Boatbuilder, Noel Barrot, and asked him for some advice.  He very kindly spent the best part of a morning, dismantling the table and splashing oil around with joyous abandon after I had removed the grunge of decades from various orifices.  The blade moved up and down with wonderful ease and precision after this.  I then cut the first angle on the pallet wood and discovered that by turning it on edge, I could then make the second cut of 30°.  It was gratifyingly straightforward.

All the information I needed to work out angles, thickness, strength (a bit of a closed book to me, I have to confess), etc I gleaned from the Duckworks site: Birds Mouth Spars revisited.  This also gave me the dimensions for the tapered top of the spar, which was different from what I had assumed, which saved me from a real blunder. I discovered this site from Gary Pick's excellent article in JRA Magazine no 57.  Gary also very kindly answered several emails from me while I was groping my way forward.

Having cut up the pallet wood, I cut it into 6 pieces and roughly put them together to see how this concept works.  

With my heart in my mouth I prepared myself for the Real Thing.  Fortunately for me, Gordon was passing on his way to Auckland and, yet again, allowed himself to be shanghaied into not only getting the 6 m tube down and onto a bench alongside the shed, but helping me machine the Oregon.  Another reason I was glad that he was there was that the pieces of wood, well over 4 m long, wouldn't fit through the gap in the stairs, when they were on edge.  This meant the removal of one of the stairs, which Marcus had secured with every intention that it should stay in place.  Wielding a hammer to good effect, Gordon not only managed to remove it, but also to replace it once the job was done.  I had paid about $1,000 for this wood, so it was, to say the least, nerve-racking, sending it through the saw.

However, it all went without a hitch and I soon had a stack of nicely-milled timber awaiting the next move.

Here you can clearly see the birdsmouth.  You can also see why the 45° would be easier to work with than the 30° and 60°.  The smaller joint is a bit more fragile than ideal.

Gordon carried on his merry way, and I cleaned up all the grooves.  Noel suggested knocking the back off the part that would adjoin the groove, as well, to ensure a better fit and plenty of glue.

The next stage was to taper the staves.  Ideally, I would have started the taper from 600 mm up, so that the base would have been straight and easy to put into the alloy tube.  However, I didn't see how this could be glued together so with the aid of the invaluable website, worked out what the base should be and marked out a straight taper from top to bottom.  My little battery-powered circular saw did the work.  I cut the 35 mm staves in three stages of increasing depths, but the poor little saw still struggled and it had to have a rest at the halfway point for its battery to be recharged.  As I was still finding the whole business quite stressful, terrified that I would make some irremediable mistake, these enforced breaks were good for me, too.

The next job was to glue up the staves.  I didn't want to do it in one hit, because I wanted to put a wire up for the masthead light and I also wanted to be able to check that (at least half!) the joints had glued together properly.  At first, I planned to do it in two stages and then glue the two halves together, but then I thought that only a little distortion could make this very difficult, so decided to do it in just two stages.

The first 2 pieces could be temporarily clamped while I prepared the third.

Holding the three pieces secure was something of a challenge, and this is one of the cases where an 8-sided mast would have been a lot easier.  Clamps simply wouldn't work and, if anything, tended to distort the shape, however carefully wedged.  I had discovered this as soon as I had tried a dry fit, so in the end decided to use cable ties.  I couldn't exert that much pressure - or I ended up back at the clamp situation.  This is one of the situations where epoxy is superior to most other glues: it doesn't require any clamping pressure to speak of.  Anyway, it all went together fine.

Once the epoxy had set, I tried a 'dry run' to check that everything went together well and it did.  The third piece slid in easily and fitted acceptably.  However, the act of sliding it would tend to remove some glue, so I would have to be generous.

I coated the inside of the three pieces that were to be fitted next.

I also coated the inside of the already-glued mast and laid the wire for the tricolour light along it.  With wire being relatively stiff, you might think it would be easy to slide it in after the event.  However, as I have learnt the hard way, it isn't and with the very real chance of lots of glue drips at the next stage, I reckoned that there would probably be too many snags to make it easy to send a mouse down, too.

 

Again, I assembled it all with lavish amounts of glue, but as so often happens, in spite of there being a very good fit the first time, when it came to the final job, the 'shutter plank' was a struggle to get right.  Don't ask me why.  In fact the very bottom of the mast ended up a far from perfect hexagon and there were gaps along a couple of the glue joints.  However, there was nothing that could be done about it, so I just secured it all together as well as I could and hoped I'd be able to sort it all out after the event.

Noel, kindly mentoring this whole business, told me that the next task was to turn the six sides into twelve.  Google was no help at all here: the only reference I could find to a six-sided mast was due to the fact that the fellow writing it didn't know a hexagon from an octagon.  With eight sides, you can use Pythagoras to work it all out, with six you have to be a little more empirical.  Tony from the boat next door, lent me a chalk line and I carefully assessed the mast by eye (not at all my strong point) and marked where I should plane to.

Noel had also suggested that at this stage, instead of going for a straight taper, I should go for a spar taper (which I assume is the same thing as the barrel taper, mentioned in Practical Junk Rig)    Supposedly it is more pleasing to the eye, but quite honestly, I can't see the difference.  Still, the Master was helping and the least I could do was follow his advice.

At the early stages, I could use a power plane, but before long I was using a hand plane.  I'm afraid Noel was somewhat unimpressed at my attempts at sharpening my planes (I can't say I am surprised, it is still a skill I have to perfect) and kindly took them off with him to hone to a scary degree of sharpness that I could only envy.

The object of the exercise was pick several points along the mast, work out what diameter they should be and then keep planing, turning and measuring.  The initial part of the shaping was done by taking a long plane from one end of the mast to the other, in one sweep 5 times.  Then I turned it and did the same on the next face and so on.  Then it was all measured and as time went by, I could take more (or less) off each face until the mast became more even.  

I used a hole saw to make patterns and Noel lent me calipers to check further down the mast.

Finally, I had 12 even sides.  Then came the best bit: Noel lent me one of his treasured wooden planes (found in the Falkland Is), which has a radiused base so that it takes off all the corners and produces a curve.  It was a lovely thing to use.

By putting chalk on the inside of my plywood patterns, I could find the high spots and attack them individually until the whole mast was smooth and even.

The last little high bits took the longest to smooth down, but finally I decided that it was good enough.

Of course, I now had a nicely tapered spar, but the base of it was far too big to fit inside the alloy tube.  So the next job was to shape that.

I carefully marked it, measuring from the top of the mast and then roughly planed the lowest part to within coo-ee of the desired 142 mm.  Noel's suggestion was to use a router to take off the bulk of the excess wood and then finish it off with a plane.  Noel is not a man who lightly recommends the use of power tools, and I find using the router freehand a bit daunting.  However, I gave it a go on the principle that if I did make a big gouge where I shouldn't, I would at least be able to fill it again.

I actually found it a bit easier than I had anticipated and the router only ran away with me once.  Much planing followed, both along the mast and, at the top, across the grain, which left a bit of a mess that I cleaned up with my block plane.  I had made another pattern with a 142 mm hole saw, which was invaluable for getting this section shaped.

Finally, the spar was ready to sand.  Noel told me about using a long strip of snanpaper and pulling it back and forth around the masts circumference to remove the excess and again work on any high spots.  It was insanely efficient.  It was also an exceptionally good workout!

With the mast sanded, I could now try it for size.  

To my gratified astonishment, it slid gently into the alloy tube at the first attempt.

I have to say, I did a rather better job with this one than I did on Fantail.  On the other hand, I also had plenty of wood - and Noel!

As I mentioned earlier, some of the joints weren't all they could be.  I had tilted the mast, top down, and run glue down the inside where one joints seemed to be more open than I was comforable with.  Shining a torch down the inside, most of the joints looked OK, but there were still a few places where the glue had blown bubbles, dripped out or generally not done as it should, so I went back and filled them all.  I had been concerned that maybe some of these holes were serious, but they were filled easily, so I think the mast is probably sufficiently well stuck together.  

And as added insurance, I put a 'Band-aid' of glass and epoxy around it.  In fact, the glass and epoxy is to make it nice and hard for the ropes that will pass around it, moving constantly when the boat is under way.

At the very start of this project, my friend, Paul, at All Marine, gave me a roll of fibreglass.  Over the years, several friends have taken advantage of it for covering masts, dinghies, etc and I was hoping that I would still have enough for covering the mast.  When I had finished, here was about 50mm left over.  Thank you, Paul!!

I also put some fillets inside the mast up to the 'partners'.  The Duckworks site reckoned that the walls were thick enough, and equally to the point, so did Noel, but those additional fillets gave me an extra sense of security.

The whole spar was coated again and is now ready for sanding and painting.  

I had always hoped that there would be enough Oregon left over to make my yard.  There is a school of thought that a 'fat oval' is better than the yard suggested in PJR and I debated whether to make one of these (using my newfound skills to produce a barrel taper) or to go for the classic design out of the book.  As it turned out, the wood that I had was only suitable for the latter, but I am actually perfectly happy with going that route.  After all, this is how we made the yards on Badger, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, they are still going strong.

I roughly shaped the boards before gluing them together and then knocked off the majority of the excess with a power planer.  After the initial glue up, I was a bit concerned that I had made a mistake.  The yard weighed a ton.  I like a bit of weight to bring the sail down, but this was ridiculous!  However, I carried on planing and shaping and in the end was delighted at how light it has turned out to be!  Heavy enough to bring the sail down: light enough to hoist without too much effort.  Just what I wanted.

I finished the job by hand, again surprised at how good a finish one can achieve with hand planes, so that the final sanding takes only a few minutes.  I rather enjoy looking at the 'traditional' yard.  It brings back many happy memories.  I wonder if I will be able to resist the temptation to varnish it!

I swept up and filled a large bin bag with the shavings.  There was another half bag in addition to this.  Very expensive wood shavings!

Some shiny paint and rubbing strakes

Covid 19 rumbles on, but this country appears to have got off lightly insofar as illness and deaths are concerned.  The economy, of course, has taken a hit, but then so it has in countries that have done little to curtail the spread of the virus.  We are pretty much 'unlocked' now and lots of Kiwis are taking the chance to go and explore their own country while there's room to move.  Tourism may bring in a lot of income and we enjoy meeting people from overseas, but you can have too much of a good thing.  Sadly, the leadership which was so admirable during the crisis is completely lacking about the future and instead of taking this opportunity to reset the way we do things, to a low-carbon, environmentally-friendly economy, we are back to Business as Usual.  Really, I despair of humanity.

My life has barely changed at all.  I've had some visitors and got to know some of my neighbours in the boatyard a little better; otherwise I just carry on building my boat.  Somehow I seem to have less and less spare time, which is why writing this blog has been delayed yet again.  We have had some wintry weather: I gave my fan heater to Shirley - it was a waste of time here, the heat just went straight through the plastic roof and sides of the shed - so when I go and visit her I can get warm!  It's also getting dark in the mornings and I have a rooted objection to rising by artificial light.  I manage to get up before 7 most mornings, but was a bit late the other day, when pouring rain delayed the onset of daylight!  It's all more incentive to get the boat finished, and as I'm working with numb toes and sore knuckles, I fantasise about being snug in the saloon, reading Roger Taylor or Hilary Mantel, while the logs crackle in the fire.

In the meantime, I cut wood and mix chemicals.

 Before painting I wanted to apply the Coppercoat.  I had forgotten how difficult it is to apply the first coat.  It smears, goes on almost transparently and is altogether anything but satisfactory.  Fortunately the instructions call for four coats and I decided to put on five, just in case.  Mixing, however, couldn't be easier and because I am using fairly small quantities, a whole batch can be dumped in the roller tray, which means that the copper doesn't settle out too much.

 Once coated, they look OK.  I'm sure they would look a lot better it I'd sprayed the finish, but they're fine.

 The top of the bilgeboards still looks nice and shiny simply because I've decided that they really don't need painting.  The graphite/epoxy will protect them and it's easy enough to paint the area that shows in a few years when they start to get scratched and dull.

The rudders on the other hand, are to be painted so I sanded them down before applying the Coppercoat.  These, too, finished up quite acceptable.  Because of the way I took the Coppercoat up to the chines, on the hull, it was a bit difficult to decide just where to put the 'waterline'.  It would have looked silly at the same level as the chine - the copper would have gone half way up the transom, so I decided instead that I would have to live with a rather weird visual effect from side on.  The boat is so quirky that I expect I can get away with it,  If not, I shall bring the black paint down to a more conventional waterline one day.  I think I will probably learn to live with it!!

 After putting epoxy all over the stern of the boat, I then sanded it all off again.  The joys of boatbuilding.  This was during one of our colder spells and I had to leave the rudders and boards for the moment, while the Coppercoat became hard enough that I dared shift them around.

 The next job on the list was the rubbing strakes, or 'beltings' as the Kiwis call them, because, according to Noel, they are designed to get belted.  Hmm.  Visually, this is one of the most important things to get right on the boat.  Everyone will tell you how to do this: mark them out and then step back and check for a fair curve with no bumps and hollows.  No-one tells you how you can do this in a shed where you can't get farther than a metre or so away from the side of the boat.  Add to this the fact that I don't have the sort of 'eye' that can see these things very well and it has to be said that fitting of them is something of a gamble.  If it's wrong, it's wrong and in truth, there will be nothing I can do about it.  It will turn a pretty (to me) boat into a home-built atrocity, but that's life.

 I'd put a lot of thought into what size the rubbing strakes should be.  Too small and they are a waste of time; too large and they will look clumsy.  Fortunately, having made my decision, I discovered that it was the correct one: I didn't have enough timber left for more!  I decided against using the saligna: it's certainly hard, but it's a brute to work and as I didn't want to screw from the inside, which would mean lots of filling and painting, I could only use relatively small screws from the outside, which would necessitate very thin laminates to start with.  I had two lengths of yellow cedar left and milled up a load of douglas fir left over from the tabernacle.  I plan to finish off with teak left over from the decking.  It's not that hard, but it's easy to work and of appropriate thickness.  And it's a lot lighter than saligna.  The photo shows me cutting the large baulk of douglas fir down to a smaller section, before cutting it again in the other dimension.

 And these are the laminates, thus formed.  There are a few knots, but these can be staggered.  The 'beltings' are not structural, after all, and glued throughout their length.  The softwood was very accommodating when I came to fit it.

The biggest problem was supporting 4m lengths of wood while holding them at one end.  A bit of string tied to handy deck cleats or stanchion bases helped with this.  I fitted the first layer and screwed it into place.  I then left it for a few days to get the idea and, sure enough, when I came back, it had taken up the curve.  This made the actual gluing in place a lot more straightforward.

 My original plan had been to run the wood out into a taper at a distance from the bow and stern, as is generally done with Western-style boats.  However, it just didn't look right, so I looked at some illustrations of junks and decided to do as they do, and have a filler piece joining the two sets of strakes.  (Just as they scatter masts with gay abandon and no sense of symmetry, so too do the Chinese add fore and aft timbers which no doubt have a purpose, but which is not always obvious to the Western eye.)

 The forward end had a slightly different shape.  As I mentioned, it's rather hard to stand back and get a proper look.  The photo above was taken by the camera held in my hand as far away as I could from the bow.  I can't get that view!

 They seem to look OK.  Fingers crossed!

 Meanwhile, the Coppercoat had hardened sufficiently to be able to move the rudders and - finally - get the bilgeboards off the big table, so that I could use it again.  Shirley came and gave me a hand with them.

 So I mixed up paint and applied it to the stern, the rudders and the trim tabs.  Because of having to do other jobs and making dust, I could only paint at the end of the day, by which time it was dark.  In spite of the myth of my perfectionism, I am fully of the opinion that life is too short for sanding and fairing a hull.  And too short for going back and reapplying yet another coat of paint if the job isn't up to standard.  A "ten-foot job" is more than good enough and the boat will look fine in the water.  I am not being falsely modest here - the flash from the camera is pretty flattering!

I could now start attaching the rubbing strakes, while trying not to touch the new paint, which took several days to harden off.

 Again, this is the best photo I can manage without hiring a drone.  I used washers just to be absolutely sure the points of the screws didn't penetrate the interior.

 With the paint finally hard enough to allow us to handle the rudders, Shirley and I got them into place on a couple of saw horses.  It was a bit of a business getting them around the lute.  The price we pay for vanity!  I put temporary lashings to keep them in place.

 Before I could fix them permanently, I had to put a capping on the stern.  This had to be carved out so that the rudder doesn't chafe against it and it was easiest to ensure it fitted when the rudder was actually there.

 I decided to go with Dyneema for the lashings, because I was concerned that with braid on braid the core might move in relation to the sheath.  Marlow used to make a wonderful single braid polyester, but I couldn't find it on their website and, anyway, I would have to order it, while I could just pop into All Marine for the Dyneema.  Hanneke and James appear to recommend braid on braid, so I might be making a fuss about nothing, especially as the Dyneema may need replacing in about ten years, due to UV damage. 

 It wasn't the easiest of ropes to work with because unlike polyester, it doesn't melt, so you can't make a nice pointed end with it.  The first length, with a whipping from sewing thread was fine, but after that I had more than a few problems and finally tapered the end and wrapped it with sellotape.

 I pulled it all as tightly as I could, but it's hard to stop it creeping back again once you've tied the final knot.

  I wish I had some Coppercoat left to paint it with.  The final stage is to fill the holes with epoxy.  I spent a lot of time doing this messy job.  I assume the point of this is to stop the rope creeping and/or rotating and chafing.  Anyway, as I'm a neurotic about water getting into the wood, I did a very thorough job.  It didn't end up looking anywhere near as neat as in Wharram's photos!  The Dyneema seemed to wick the epoxy, which is great.

   After it had all hardened off, I removed the supports from under the rudders and to my unbounded relief, they didn't suddenly sag down.  I'd read of a Wharram builder saying this happened to his and wonder if it was my generosity with the epoxy that stopped this from happening.  I am delighted with the finished result.  No friction, no rattling, the rudders close to the stern and all for under $50.  As the saying goes, 'what's not to like?'

It's a long time since I've taken a shot from the top of the stairs.  The idea was to show the rubbing strakes, but to be honest, it's not a great success in that respect.  However, it does show the fact that The End Is In Sight!!