With another day off, I got in about 6 hours of work today not counting cleaning shop and shopping.
The big accomplishment of the day was getting the staves glued up. I managed to do all 8 staves with only 9 scarfs. Without getting a 17' piece of lumber, I was going to have to do 8 anyway. Only one extra.
It took me an hour to make the jig. Then the cutting went pretty easily after I was careful to make sure all of my pieces would make a 17' stave. I also noted if either side of the stave should be inside the mast or out. A few had a "better" side so I marked those.
Here is one scarf joint. I made them about 10:1.
After they were all cut, I had to do some housekeeping. I had let the "shop" go since starting. Here's a bit of the mess with before and after pics.
I checked the fit on each scarf and then I clamped the joint and drilled a 1/8" inch hole on both sided of the clamp. I had bought a piece of 1/8" dowel and I cut it into 18 3/4" inch pieces to use as pins to lock the joint and keep it from slipping. Not sure what others use but I didn't want a problem and that seemed like a workable solution. I'll have little pairs of dots where the scarfs are, but I doubt it will be noticeable except on close inspection. I carefully lined them up on the bench as each one was checked and drilled. After that I glued them up. I brushed on a quick coat of straight epoxy on each member and them brushed on thickened epoxy where I used the finest sawdust from the Douglas Fir that I had from all the cutting. I strained it through a kitchen wire mesh strainer. I had done that with my other builds.
After supper I started on the strongback. Didn't get very far because I needed some things to assemble it. Here is a picture of the OSB board with a straight plank clamped on for a guide. I got four 8" wide lengths cut and two 7 and 3/4" lengths cut for joiners. The strongback will be nearly 16' feet long.
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