What Kind Of Paint Do You Use On A Wooden Sailboat Mast

1. Habitation
2. Ropes and Rigs
3. Sailing Rigs
4. Sail Fabric
5. Mast

Wooden Mast and Spar Building

A mast or spar fabricated from wood non only looks and feels good but it as well takes advantage of the naturally power that trees accept developed over the centuries for creating a tall, strong, flexible pole.

Those tall direct pine and fir trees are able to grow to such heights and survive in wind storms considering their natural elasticity absorbs the shock loads caused by gusting winds.

• Timber
• Structural Considerations
• Solid/Grown Spars
• Tapering
• Rounding the Square
• Built Spars
• Rigging
• Your comments and suggestions

Timber

There are several reasons why soft woods are the called type of timber used in the making of masts and spars.

The first and about obvious is that so whatsoever soft forest trees grow exceedingly alpine and straight.

And because they have grown so tall and direct they take developed the 'elasticity' to withstand all that the elements can throw at them.

Soft woods are also more probable to be lighter in weight.

Sitka Bandbox (Silverish, Tideland or Menzies Bandbox) has long been the superlative pick for mast builders.

However many other spars have been built using whatever light, direct-grained wood was available, such as those shown below.

• Douglas fir (British Columbian, Oregon, Idaho, Red, pine too known as Reddish or Yellow fir)
• Scots pine (European redwood, Northern pine, Red pine, Redwood, Scots fir, Kingdom of norway fir, Swedish fir, Finish fir)
• Port Orford cedar (Oregon cedar, White cedar, Ginger pino, Lawson'due south cypress)
• Larch

When choosing a timber look for one that is as calorie-free and straight grained as possible with, hopefully few knots.

Withal, a few small ones knots can be acceptable.

The timber should ideally be seasoned, especially if you are building a hollow spar.

I have heard of solid masts existence made from green poles.

Merely green timber is more likely to develop shakes and will be less able to absorb any preservative, oil, varnish or any you employ as a finish.

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Structural Considerations

A mast/spar needs both strength and stiffness and exist able to resist fatigue.

Sometimes these characteristics can be conflicting.

Strength or resistance to breaking in woods involves its elasticity which allows the wood to bend to absorb stresses.

Whereas stiffness is the resistance to bending.

All spars demand to exist able to absorb the shock of a gust which the forest absorbs past bending but too much bend will spoil the sail shape so a happy compromise is needed.

And stresses will differ depending on the types of rig and whether the mast keel stepped, deck stepped or in a tabernacle.

Some other consideration is weight aloft.

Keeping weight within reasonable bounds is merely one of the reasons for using soft woods.

It is likewise 1 reason for building a hollow mast.

However, nigh spars taper towards the elevation, every bit the bore becomes smaller so the weight becomes less.

For the average cruising yacht the weight differences betwixt a solid and a hollow spar are hardly significant.

The other advantage of the hollow, built spar is that it can be fabricated from hands available timber sizes, and with a minimum of waste.

Solid/Grown Spars

The simplest, easiest and least wasteful spars are produced from 'grown' timbers.

I theory information technology should exist possible to acquire a trunk which has the length and taper needed for your spar.

In practice you volition have to do some shaping, tapering and rounding.

While traditionally masts and spars were spherical, they don't have to be.

Nevertheless, in my opinion a spherical mast will produce the least turbulence to the air passing over the rig.

It is possible to make a spherical spar from i piece of square cross-department timber.

All the same, it will be much easier to source timers of smaller cross-department so build the spar up from them.

And the reward is that the grain can then be arranged in a radial style.

Building a spar from separate parts does require very careful attending to the gluing surfaces, they must be closely mating and the actual gluing must be precise.

If you are confident in your carpentry and gluing skills, brusk lengths tin can be scarffed  to produce the required length.

Scarf joints are best at to the lowest degree ten times the thickness of the piece and when the diverse pieces are assembled the joints should exist staggered.

And remember to never ever cut a piece of wood to its exact length until you absolutely have to.

Tapering

Offset determine the required diameter of your spar and and so where you desire your it to taper and by how much.

This will depend on the blueprint of you rig.

You may want the spar to have no taper for some of its length/height, to but above the partners, then have a slight taper, perhaps as far as the spreaders,  then a bit more than of a taper up to the truck.

Always all-time to showtime with the wood a little wider, thicker, and longer than the finished dimensions.

Airplane one surface flat and level with your longest plane, preferably a jointer.

Then marking the center line on this planed face up.

Use a string stretched between tacks in the middle of each end, apply this to make several center marks on the timber.

Then join the marks using a long, direct batten.

Repeat on the reverse face.

Now use the centreline equally the datum from which to marker the width of your mast at intervals along its length.

Then back to the crossbar to connect these marks.

You lot can now cut the outline of your mast to this drawn profile but cutting it oversized equally you even so need to airplane the timer foursquare.

Now airplane these two sawn, tapered faces flat and square to the original planed surface.

Repeat the steps for marking the center line and contour on these two new faces.

Cutting this outline and plane these sides flat and square to their next sides.

Y'all now have a spar tapered to your requirement just information technology is still square in cross-section.

Now you demand to offset rounding the square.

Rounding the Foursquare

Then now you've got a nicely tapered, planed but square, four sided spar.

Next chore is to plane off the four corners to give you an viii sided spar.

Then plane off those eight corners to give you a sixteen sided spar, which can so hands exist rounded using sandpaper.

Only earlier you lot start taking off the corners yous demand to marker the depth of the bevels.

The simple style is to describe a circumvolve on the face of the timber with a compass.

The center of the circumvolve volition exist on the centreline and the edge of the circle right on the edge of the face.

Then draw a line from the center of the circle, at 45 degree to the centreline and mark where it crosses the circle.

This mark is the border of the bevel.

Do this for every transition indicate and equally many points in betwixt as possible, the more than the merrier and exercise it foe both sides of the circumvolve.

These marks can then be joined using your batten.

Ane you accept planed the spar down to eight sides you can use the same method to mark it up for reducing it to 16 sides.

But now the line from the middle of the circle to the circumference needs to be 67 ½ degrees.

At present unless you are building a massive spar getting from 16 sides to 32 sides using the above measuring technique is going to get fiddly.

At this stage it is quicker to utilise your middle and your judgment to plane off the remaining corners.

Then the concluding rounding can exist done by sanding.

Outset with 60 or 80 grit paper for the initial shaping, then piece of work the grits for finishing.

Use long strips of sandpaper wrapped effectually the spar and pull information technology backwards and frontwards in a long, spiralling motion.

Occasionally sand forth the length of the mast to help fair out any uneven spots.

Here is an easy way to mark out a tapered octagon using just one setting of your compass.

Congenital Mast

Building a spar is obviously much more difficult than simply shaping a solid pole.

However, if a pole of the required dimensions is not available building the spar might be the only option.

Built spars can be either solid or hollow.

But if you are building i it is relatively simple to arrive hollow and thus save weight aloft and create a central channel for masthead wiring.

Edifice a simple cylindrical spar as those shown above from 'square' timbers does require wasting quite a lot of that expensive wood when 'rounding the square'.

1 can build an almost waste free hollow spar which would conform a conventional bermudan rig.

However, a 'square' section with rounded corners such as this would be unsuitable for whatsoever rig which uses mast hoops or parrel chaplet or a lug rig where the spar turns confronting the mast.

The next trouble when creating a hollow spar is that unlike the solid mast the taper cannot be created afterwards.

Whatsoever taper to the finished spar needs to exist cut from the staves before they are assembled.

There accept been several configurations used to increment the gluing areas across the width of congenital staves.

And several configurations which attempt to reduce wastage and at the same time produce large gluing surfaces.

Unfortunately while they will produce superb, stiff spars they phone call for increasingly complex carpentry.

The 'Birdsmouth' technique developed by Nobles of Bristol UK is perhaps one of the most successful of these techniques.

Even so, information technology is a technique which really requires access to woodworking machinery, such as profiling and planing machines.

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Rigging

Setting up your standing rigging tin can exist profoundly simplified by using 'Spectra'.

'Spectra' is almost stretch free and can be tied off without much weakening.

It offers a real alternative to expensive swaged fittings, can be easily maintained and it is corrosion-complimentary.

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