Graham is hosting a Mess-a-bout in Vandemere, North Carolina on October 28, 2011. I would really like to be able to take Skorpa. I am not sure if I can have the boat finished. Time seems to be slipping away. I am putting in a lot of hours but progress though steady is still slow.
A few things like the forward deadlight, oar locks, compass, bow sprit, things that can easily added later I am leaving for now. I am still trying to do good quality work.
My mother told me to stop being so fuddy duddy and just finish the boat. She would like to see my work while she is still around.
The top sections of Skorpas masts are hollow wooden spars covered with carbon fiber braid.
Never having done a birdsmouth spar before I thought I would practice on a mast crutch that sits in the mizzen mast step during transport and holds the aft end of the two masts.
That is a view of the top of the mast crutch. It is two inches across. To make those cuts accurately I did a little work on my table saw.
The old metal insert is all bent and banged up and the opening is two large. I tried to straighten it. Then decided to make a new out of some plywood.
I put on a new blade and ran it up through the plywood insert making the cutout no larger than necessary.
When I bought my plywood I also bought some sitka spruce. It is light and strong.
The board on the left is the rough sawn wood I started with. After a lot of work I was down to some staves 9 feet long, 7/16 of an inch thick and tapering from 1 and 3/8 to 7/8 of an inch. All to make a tapered hollow wooden spar.
One of the staves is running through the saw. Two passes one on either side of the fence makes the birdsmouth cut.
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