The mast is the very last piece of the boat for me to make. It is quite satisfying to see the wood racks empty and each timber item on the cutting list ticked off.
The mast is a tapered hollow box, made from from four staves.
Each stave consists of two or three pieces of Douglas Fir joined together by scarf joints.
The length of a scarf is ten times the thickness of the timber, which results in easily managed joints.
However, I found that that the scarfs on my pieces of stave have been cut edge-to-edge rather than face-to-face.
This means that the joints on the 3" by 3/4" side pieces will be over 30" long, instead of 7 1/2".
This in turn means that one joint will require nearly all my G cramps to hold it in place while it cures.
I set up the first stave for a test fit of the scarf joint. Here it is.
It looked good, but it's going to take a long while to make all four staves if I can only glue one scarf at a time.
I cleaned up the faces of the scarf with the block plane and glued it together.
Sure enough, it took fifteen cramps to secure it properly.
I may have to invest in a lot of new clamps which I may never need again!
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