BYYB Forums

Hi there,

I'm having a hard time getting anyone to even talk to me on the phone about wood for my mast and boom. The reaction I'm getting from the local stores seems to be that ordering ONE piece of wood for a customer who wants it to be reasonably straight is that i'm more trouble than I'm worth. And I can't really blame them.. one piece of wood isn't terribly profitable.

So.... I figure if I can find a place that actually stocks this type of stuff .... I might have better luck.

Also, Even those who are willing to order.... they are saying there is no such animal as a 2" full round 12 foot long pole. Darn, I really didn't want to have to round that myself.

Question is.... can anyone point me to a lumber yard in east central or north east florida which stocks lumber suitable for weekender rigging?

Thanks in advance

Since the mast is cut from a 4X4 it doesn't need to be perfectly straight. You are going to cut straight lines from it. And finding a straight lenght of 4X4 shouldn't be all that difficult. It just needs to have small, tight knots and it will work fine. You could also laminate three lenghts of smaller lumber together. Two 2X4s and a 1X4 down the middle. Then cut the mast from that. Or there are many other alternatatives gluing up a mast.
The boom can be made from stair railing. Yes it is flat on one side which works out really well. And lumber dealers do stock 12" lenghts of stair rail. Most of them will be pretty darned straight. You can also make the boom out of a piece of 2X3 lumber and the extra weight will help you to maintain good sail shape. Just round over the edges with a router or by hand with the old Sureform and go for it.

My Vacationer mast, gaff and boom, are all made from laminated spruce.
I selected 2x6x16 ft stock with minimal, or tight knots. Planed the lumber in my table top planer. Glued the whole thing up, then trimmed it on the table saw. As Barry recommends, a hand rail for the boom works well. My friend Keith used an oak one on his Weekender, he's quite happy with it.

Greg

Just my 2 cents worth. I built my mast with 1x4's laminated together, alternating the direction of the grain for each layer. Once done, I did the straightening, tapering, and shaping with a circular saw, belt sander, and orbital sander.

for the boom, I used two layers of 1x3, laminated together. and shaped. Don't have any pictures handy unfortunately, but it works quite well, is plenty rigid and manages the rigors of sailing and driving quite well. I plan to do the same to the gaff later this summer, when other repairs and upgrades are finished.

Thanks for the suggestions...

I have more questions.

After many more phone calls, I've got one lumber yard willing to order the mast - clear fir $120 for this one piece of wood.. I may end up going this route depending on the answers to my questions Paying more for the lumber may be a better route as I have a clamps issue, If I go the lamination route I have to buy clamps and this could end up being more expensive than custom ordered stuff. SO far I've made the boat using only 5 cheap spring clamps as a second set of hands from time to time....

Is the plastic resin glue suggested in the plans suitable for laminating multiple pieces of spruce for the mast and boom? Would this also be strong enough for the bowsprit using spruce? My local lumber yard has plenty of good spruce in 1x4x16.

At lowes they had really pretty oak 1-5/8" hand rails. They were nearly round. There was a 3/4" flat spot on them. I noticed these were laminated oak - perhaps 3 pieces of wood. The seams were barely noticable and only the color of the wood gave it away.... Not sure if their glue is good enough for marine use, and they were kind of expensive at $45 for the piece... But price aside... they sure looked nice. Does anyone have any opinions on these? I am weighing the convience of a nearly finished piece versus the time and labor involved with laminating these parts.

They also had what I would consider a regular hand rail which was much thicker and nearly double the price. It had one side flat, it was about 2" wide and 2-1/2" x 16 feet. These were also laminated from multiple pieces of wood. And very heavy... When you are talking about hand rails, is this what you're imagining?


Thanks again

I'd stay away from the laminated oak, most likely they used regular woodworkers glue on it and it will come apart on you. It's also probably red oak which is also not a good boat wood. I glued all my spars up with plastic resin and so far I have had no problems with it. I do have a buttload of clamps though. If clamping is a problem you might try using hose clamps, they're cheap and they work. Another option is to tie pieces of rope around your spar and then take a stick or rod and twist it up tight. You can get a lot of pressure with that, you might want to put a few screws in it just to keep your pieces from moving around with the wet glue, but it will work. Give it a try on a couple of scraps and see what you think.

Also if your gonna be up in the area next month be sure to come by and sail with us during the summer sailstice on Lake Hartwell. You can come with or without your boat. Check the SE Fleet forum for more details. We hope to see you there

Keith

Quote:Also if your gonna be up in the area next month be sure to come by and sail with us during the summer sailstice on Lake Hartwell. You can come with or without your boat. Check the SE Fleet forum for more details. We hope to see you there

Keith

439 mi (about 7 hours 41 mins) from Ormond Beach..

It'll be much closer when I am living in Asheville I just spent the weekend there, we were meeting new friends and looking at places where we might like to live. It'll be a hard choice because everywhere we went was beautiful.

I'll ask the boss and see if I can convince her that it's a good idea to take another trip this spring. OR, someone could just buy her house for a winter home and then we can move to Asheville next week. We were all sad to have to leave Asheville this past Monday, the only thing keeping us in Florida is waiting for her house to sell.

David Here is my 2 cents worth . Get 2 2x6's saw 2 2"strips off each laminate these 4 strips togather turning one the 2" and one 1 1/2" doing the other two the same laminate these 4 peaces togathe and you will have 3 1/2" square with a 1/2" hole up the middle for your running light. I would use epoxy for my glue and you can use an old intube strips of rubber for your clamps. makes a nice mast. (cost will be noticeable less) Bud.

Thanks for the suggestions... It was indeed easy to find lenghts of 2x4x16 in clear fir and this is what I bought for all the spars. It ended up being about $100 for all the wood for all the rigging.

I started with the bowsprit and glued three 1x4s toegther using ropes as clamps. It worked well holding the wood together but no matter what I tried I couldn't get them to line up properly, they slipped about quite a bit. This isn't a problem for the bowsprit because I can trim the edges on this peice, but it will be a problem for the mast.

Here is my eventual bowsprit, done inside on a rainy weekend



since the boards slipped more than I want the mast to slip, I'm going to aquire some clamps.. I've asked around to my friends but they're mostly geeks and more handy with a computer than with wood... so I'm up to 2 clamps I'm going yard saling this weekend and hope to end up with enough to keep the boards where I want them to be. I'm trying to avoid putting any screws in the mast.


Thanks for the suggestions.

If you need a big pile of clamps quickly, try this: get yourself a piece of abs drain pipe and cut into 2-3" lengths. Then take each piece and make a lengthwise cut all the way through. The cross section should now be a "C". Open the gap, slip it over the piece you want clamped and increase the width of the cut if you want to decrease clamping force. Longer pieces give you more clamping force (I usually use 3"dia X3" long). I like clamping epoxy this way because squeeze-out is never a problem. An added bonus is that epoxy doesn't stick to abs very well. You will want a lot of them....