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Birdsmouth mast without pictures?


lbrewer

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It dawned on me today why I've never seen any pictures of anyone actually assembling a birdsmouth spar. 

   

It is simply because your hands, arms, legs and chest are covered with epoxy while you wrestle with floppy little staves that are umpteen feet long....all the while knowing that you have to get it together before the epoxy sets up... so you can't hold a camera.  When you do get it together....whew!  then its too dark to take the picture (and it rains).  If you have another person there to take pictures....you would have either enlisted them to help hold the floppy little staves  or they would be laughing uncontrollably at you because you look like you are trying to herd houseflies. :o

Now that I have that out of my system.  I did actually complete the mast and it turned out really well.  I made the initial tries at assembling it much harder than it needed to be, because I wasn't wrapping the staves around anything.  I had the partially assembled mast resting in cradles to support it, but nothing on the inside that would support while I tried to get the last 3 staves into the assembly.  After I figured out that a piece of 1.25" pvc pipe was approximately the inside diameter of the assembled mast, I put a couple of lengths inside (leaving the ends of the pipe sticking out of each end of the mast) and the last 3 went right on like they were supposed to.  I loosely clamped with zip ties then removed the pipe and tightened the ties. 

The next one will be easy! ;D

Larry

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Some folks are supposedly able to put together a birdsmouth mast without a form to hold everything together...they simple get it started at one end, give it a shake, and all the staves fall into place down the length of the mast.... ::) .  These folks also can put one of those springy poled play tents, tents, or screens back into the original bag without a problem.  I found putting together those flippy floppy stavs to be like herding cats so a form was extremely necessary.  Now, I tapered both ends of my mast so any PVC would have remained inside permanently so I just had to make those last three stavs work without. 

BTW, I absolutely love the results and know you will to.  My warped solid laminated mast is on the right and my birdsmouth mast is on the left in this picture which also shows the taper.  The birdsmouth mast is bigger in diameter but weighs a tiny bit less.  More important, it is straight and 10 times a stiff even though it is out of the same wood.

mast2.JPG

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I've posted this before, but maybe it'll help someone.

I cut a ring from a PVC pipe, using the appropriate size pipe. 4 inch works for a 3 1/2 inch mast. Then I assemble the mast butt end inside that ring. THEN just give the staves a shake and they mostly pop into place. Try it first without glue.

I also like using old bicycle inner tubes to clamp , wrapping them tightly in a spiral.

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    I tried the PVC ring also Charlie.  In my case I wasn't having much success completing the circle till I stuck something on the inside.  I think it may be one of those things that gets easier the next time...  I hope.

    I figure if I was putting in the inside blocking at critical points, as you suggested in your other posts, that would have helped too.  I think I would do that with a double tapered mast like Scott's for sure.  In this case I just wanted to try it because it looked like a nifty thing to learn how to do.    Now I'm so pleased with how it turned out.....I guess I have to build a boat around it!  Maybe a quick little dory type hull. 

    I don't want to get too involved because I just ordered Bluejacket plans from Tom Lathrop.  I'm itching to get started on that.

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I tried Charlies method and it didn't work for me  :'( .  However, building the form did work and I also did PAR's suggestion of gluing the mast in two halves (not putting epoxy in two of the joints across from eachother) which then allowed me to go back later and put the reinforcing blocks in.  I did have a bunch of shock cord and used it like Charlie uses inner tubes.  It worked real well.  Overall, a lot of fun!

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