Had a fun diversion last weekend. My friend Gigi also has a Snipe from the 1930s. Her boat was restored, and the original mast was deck stepped. At some point, someone had converted the mast to a keel stepped mast and had added a section to expend the mast. Unfortunately. the joint that they used to adde the extension was a butt joint, with a small bit of fiberglass cloth to hold it together.
We were supposed to sail in a wooden dinghy regatta on june 5th, but when Gigi went to prep the boat 2 weeks prior, she realized that the mast joint had spontaneously separated while on the rack, since the last time we said it.
So a repair was in order.
We brought the mast back to the man shed and started to work, we realized there was some rot in the original extention. Since we knew that we'd need to scarf in a new section to create, and we didnt' want to mast to have a three piece mast, we decided to just build a new bottom piece from scratch.
Gigi go to some mahogany and western red cedar from the lumber folks, and we set off to building a new mast. Here is a picture book on the work. I'll try to add some before pics, and also some pics after the varnish goes on. Enjoy...
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| blank for the bottom section, including the 8:1 scarf angle and a core through the center that will allow the halyards and then also accept a section of mahogany for the bottom |
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| the other side for the scarf blank |
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| Starting the scarf. did this with hand planes. started with a stanley scrub plane and then finished it off with a #3 |
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| the finished scarf ready for the extension |
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| the glue up of the bottom section |
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| glue up of the mahogany bottom. This section will be planed to dimension, then the top 3 inches will be turned to a round post on the lathe. Then it will be inserted in the core at the bottom of the extension. |
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| The glue up. the piece on the top is a strip the provide a face for the pulleys that will be inserted to turning the halyards. without this piece the pulleys would protrude from the mast. this also alows the pulleys to align with the center of the mast core for the halyards. |
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| The glue up showing the scarf angles |
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| the glue up once the clamps came off |
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| the start of the wittling proces. started by cutting off the protruding sections with a gents saw |
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| started removing the bulk of the mass with the scrub plane |
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| more bulk coming off with the scrub plane |
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| almost there, final form is taking shape |
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| After the final sanding. now on to varnish....... next time |
