Spars
The mast, boom, and gaff yard are all laminated Douglas Fir, glued up from long 1x dimensional lumber. My hardwood supplier had some very nice, straight-grained boards. In all, I found one tight knot! This photos shows the mast blank being glued up on our deck. The deck is flat, straight, etc. and more than long enough for the 17 foot blank. We rolled on the epoxy, and the glue-up was much less stressful than the stems (those were messy!).
Cutting the tapers was fun! That's a 14" Jet bandsaw in the distance. I started with the blank on both roller stands on the infeed end of the saw (the blank we all the way to the far wall). After a third of the cut was complete, I moved one of the roller stands around the outfeed end and continued cutting. After the second third, I moved the second roller, and finished the cut. No drama, no problems - it went very smoothly. This photo was shot after the first cut was complete.
This is the boom on my bench in the process of being rounded. All three spars were marked and made eight sided with a power plane. Then I planed off the corners again to make 16 sided spars. From there I used a spokeshave and a low angle block plane to finish the rounding. I was able to do all three spars on my bench, which is 8.5 feet long, although the mast barely fits in the room!
After much sanding and finishing, the gaff yard and boom are finished and the mast is ready for its finish. There's not much exciting or earth shattering to report, just that seven coats of Schooner Varnish look very nice on the spars. Here's a shot of the gaff yard and the boom awaiting their last coat of varnish.
