Boom Gallows | Marking Up & Cutting Out

I had been looking forward to making the boom gallows because it seemed like an interesting woodwork challenge.

The first task was to mark out the gallows on the balk of timber, which incidentally is not part of the hull package and is purchased separately. A pattern is provided for this.

Here it is.

The manual says to use a piece 1 1/2" thick, but I thought that that would be too skinny - especially when 1" (25mm) holes are drilled for the support poles.

So my gallows is being made from a beautiful piece of Douglas Fir 1 7/8" in thickness.

The jig saw was used to cut out the gallows. In this pic it has been partially cut.

And here it is fully cut out.

Here we are shaping the curved bottom edge.

A fine saw rasp is ideal for this.

And here we are planing the curved top edge to shape.

The ends are shaped in the vice, like this.

Again, the Japanese saw rasp is ideal for this.

Finally a shallow notch is cut in the top of the gallows, to catch the mast and the boom. It looks like this.

The next step is drilling holes for the support poles, which should be fun!