Mast and Rudder Work

Here is the sitka spruce mast under clamps. It's a hollow box construction, but all sides taper both in width and thickness, so getting them to the right dimensions was a bit tedious. For spar building, I found a straight 2x12 and leveled that on horses with shims and a tight string to make sure it was straight. The string was also used to create straight lines on the bench. The mast was dry fit, to the lines, then realigned once glued and clamped. The copper tubing in the masthead are the lightning conductor and the wiring lead for the all round light. Both get cut off flush. The lightning protection will have a brass rod fitted to extend above the mast. The tubing gets flattened at the butt of the mast to press against a tab of the copper plate that extends through the bottom onto the bottom of the mast step.


Rudder core is getting 2 layers of 10 oz glass each side, plus more along the bottom and leading edge.