Oars

I decided to finally tackle the oars. They've been setting unfinished for weeks. I set up on the trailer as my outdoor workbench again. I tried the drill contraption but the 1/2" rod is just too big for the chuck on my drill. I'm not going to make another one.

So it was off to the old method of planing some and sanding a lot. I spent about 2 and 1/2 hours on the oars. I used the power planer and belt sander. The looms are a bit rough just like the spars. The blades turned out pretty well. The oars weigh about 4 and 1/2 lbs now. One is a few ounces heavier than the other. I may try to take it down those few ounces and round off the looms a bit more, but for today I'm done.

 

Sharpening Bench Plane

With my spars about done (all except the boom for the main sail which will come later), it's time to get back to the oars. The looms need rounding and the blades need planing and shaping. I must admit that I'm a little unsure how to best do this. I know just as sure as I'm sitting here, they will be a bit rough when done, but try I must. 

I worked downstairs about 3 hours tonight and have little to show for it. I routed the sprit which gives me a basically round sprit. I could have just bought a dowel and been done with it. The plans show the sprit somewhat tapered, but I'm not too good at that. I'll settle for a straight one.

I figured I would use my jig to help round the oars. Of course, I used one earlier and it turns out there was not much more to be done with that technique. I've got to plane it down some. I gave a shot at the power planer and I may go back to it. I decided I need to get my bench plane up to speed, so I worked on it for a while.

I had bought a $10 diamond plate to try on the iron. It just doesn't seem to be flat. I'd tried the wetstones and didn't seem to be making much progress. Not much with the diamond plate either. After working on flattening it, I tried to sharpen the bevel. I used the wetstones and the honing guide. Then I tried it out on the oars. It just isn't very sharp. 

I'll give it another try. 

Anyway, here are my 5 spars to date. They will need some finishing, but I'm probably done all I'm going to do for right now. 

Planing/Sanding Yard

I took a couple hours this morning to work on the yard. The repair is decent. I will have a small gap to fill. 

                                      

I ran it through the band saw on the jig and then went out front to plane and sand. It's a little rough at present but with a little more sanding it will have to do. It ain't perfectly round (did we know this?) but once it's finished, no one but me will know (unless they go feeling all over it). 

I've yet to round off the sprit. I may just take the router to it like the boomkin. 

Glue-up Successful

Well, the epoxy hardened! I left some in the mixing bowl to check this morning. Was a little worried there.

Here are the spars ready for shaping. That's the yard on the left, the boomkin in the middle (with the dado - not sure but that's what Clint calls it), and the sprit boom on the right. 

I got up early and set everything up for trimming the yard on the same jig I used for the mizzen mast. After breakfast I went to it. 

Things went pretty well. It was a little easier after my "practice" on the mizzen mast. I 8-sided the blank. However, there were 3 "minor" glitches. On two of the sides, I must have fed the blank into the saw crooked, because it sliced too far into the wood. We're talking 1/4" too deep. I actually had to stop the saw each time and cut off what I had trimmed with my pull saw and start again but not as deep. So I was left with 3 shallow spots, two on one side and one on the  other. I decided it was too important to leave the yard in a possibly weakened condition and I epoxied some patches, each taken from the material trimmed off, onto the 3 spots. Here is the fix gluing up. The 3 fixes will be "proud" but I'll shave them down. Remember: the epoxy is stronger than the wood, so all should be well.

That's all I'll get done this week. Next week I'll try to finish shaping up the 3 spars.

 

Glue-up Remaining Spars

 I got up this morning thinking I had an easy task on my hands. I had prepared everything for glue-up last night. As I'm mixing my epoxy, the resin pump stop pumping. What?!!!! Practically brand new! 

I fidgeted, fumed and fussed for a while. Went up to the kitchen and "borrowed" a couple of my wife's measuring cups/spoons. She made sure they weren't coming back to the kitchen.

After all the rigmarole, and my hopefully successful mix, it turns out there are no extensions on the pumps! Bummer!! Whose fault is that? Did I fail to see them in the packaging? Did the seller forget to include them? I don't know. Only thing to do is get a couple. 

Another small snafu: I laid the string and small rag in the routed boomkin, ready to pull through when the two halves were clamped together. When I pulled it through, the added weight of the alcohol soaked rag pulled the other half of the line into the boomkin! I was going to pull it back and forth several times to get a smooth interior surface. I wound up ripping a thin piece of wood long enough to push the rag back through and recover the string. Then I was able to pull it back and forth several times. Should do the trick. Should be a fairly smooth track for the mizzen sheet.

Well, here they are all glued up. Morning will tell whether I botched the mix.

More Spars

I did a little work on the boomkin this morning. I routed dado (the groove) and rounded the edges using some of the pieces for the yard as a jig. Fortunately, the box of bits that came with the router had exactly what I needed. And they were brand new in the package!

Here are a few pics.

Oops! That's my comma. You did know that a dado was supposed to have a comma didn't you?

Now to glue up the yard, boomkin and sprit.

 

Mizzen Mast (cont')

I spent a couple more hours on the mizzen mast today. I finished the cuts on the jig. I'm afraid I made one errant cut. I believe I confused my "center" nail for my "holding" nail. I pulled the wrong one and made a cut which took slightly too much off. Fortunately, it did not totally ruined the mast, but it did make it about impossible to get it round. One side will be a little flat. 

This evening I took my power planer to it and my belt sander, just like I did with the main mast. I spent an hour with them. I'm nearly done the rough work except for tapering the lower end of the mast. Once that's done, both masts will be ready for some final hand sanding and coating with spar urethane. Here's the mizzen mast, as it now looks, next to the main mast. Like the main mast, I believe it will look good (from a few feet away that is). 

By the time I was near finishing, it was getting dark. I got out my router which was given to me at the same time as the band saw. I've never used it though I have used routers before. I familiarized myself with this one for a few minutes and then found a suitable bit to make a hole through my boomkin (lengthwise) which will allow the mizzen sheet to pass through. I needed a 1/2" bit for two quarter inch deep cuts in each half of the boomkin (which will give me a round, 1/2" hole when the two halves are glued together). I found the perfect bit and got it set using a scrap piece of wood. This will be much better than running it over the table saw several times which is what I did with the plug on the main mast. In that case, all that was necessary was to create a passage for water to escape should any get inside. In the case of the boomkin, a line will pass through it and it needs to be smooth to reduce wear. 

In the midst of the work on the mizzen mast, I took a few minutes and cut out the pieces I will need for my yard and sprit boom. I am using select pine, which is knot free, from Lowes for the last spars. Cost $60 for 3 pieces 1x4x12. Ouch! But I will get my yard, boomkin and sprit out of them. 

The length of the sprit is a little confusing on the plans. Clint gave 2 measurements. Not quite sure why. I'll have to talk with him before I cut them. 

All three will need gluing up and shaping.

 

Continuing on Mizzen Mast

 I spent about 3 hours last night working on shaping the mizzen mast. My plan was to construct a jig that would allow me to cut multiple faces on the roughly square blank that I had glued up. The jig would allow me cut the tapper as well.

I purchased a #2 1x4x12 to use as a the jig. I cut two short pieces, one off the end of it and another off another 1x4x12 that I had purchased. These formed the end of the jig. I then marked a line that would give me the desired taper based on the centerline of the mast. 

I then drilled holes in the uprights at the desired radius and inserted nails into each end of the blank into predrilled holes in the center of each end of the blank.

I set the fence on the band saw the width of the 1x4 and got ready to make my first cut. I soon realized that the jig needed some support. The mast could provide that with a spacer in the middle.

I went to cutting. I soon realized after the first cut that I would need a second nail in one end of the jig to keep the mast from rotating while cutting it. After I started putting a spacer and extra nail in the jig, cutting went pretty well. I ran out of time before finishing all the cuts, but I believe I got it. Tomorrow night we'll see.

In this last picture you can see the mast taking shape.

Mizzen Mast

I started on the mizzen mast tonight. I was able to get in 2 short work sessions, working around the rain. 

I spent about an hour ripping the last 2 pieces of douglas fir that I had. The 12' piece had a lot of knots which meant I would need several scarfs. The last piece was a 4'9" piece that the guy threw in for good measure but it turns out I needed it. The mizzen mast is 2,1/8" wide at its widest which means I'll need to glue 2 of the 1,1/2" pieces together lengthwise. 

Later, I spent two hours figuring out how to cut out some of the worst knots and scarfing the pieces together. One of the halves wound up with only 1 scarf. The other half has several. Oh, well. Later in the week, hopefully Thursday, I'll glue the two halves together and be ready to make a jig to cut the mast down to the proper diameter.

More Planing and Sanding of Mast

My drill contraption did not work. Ugh! Just couldn't get the belt to turn. I tried gluing strips of an old bicycle inner tube around the spindle to give it some traction with the belts, but it just wouldn't grab it. There are other methods of rounding a mast but I'm going to do it by sight and feel like I did my first mast. 

I spent 3 hours planing and sanding the mast. I planed for a while with the power planer and then I got out the block plane. I set it for as thin of shavings as I could get and tried to take out the little ridges left after rough planing. Then I took my belt sander with an 80 grit belt and went to rounding as best I can by sight. I finished with a good once over with a 120 grit belt. I rounded the top and tried to round the plug at the bottom which had a lot of epoxy on it. 

It has a lot of flat spots in it still. I probably could take off a good bit more wood but I think I'm going to leave it alone. It might be a bit heavy, but the extra bulk might make me feel better as far as strength is concerned. It looks decent (the scarfs are a bit noticeable) and I think the boat will still turn heads at the ramp!

I'm going to fill a couple small cracks with some thickened epoxy, hand sand it with some 220 paper and call it done.