Building wooden masts

[sscoville]

Today I bought some "european spruce/white pine" from the local lumber yard to make my masts with.  I am going to laminate two 2x4s to get the 3" diameter I need.  I was hoping to be able to use TItebond glue to do this, but I'm worried that even though the wood is "finished," I may have some gaps in there.  Should I go with thickened epoxy insead, or should the titebond do even though it doesn't have much gap filling property?

[Tom Lathrop]

Titebond is a great glue for many applications and I use it a lot but not very often in boats.  I would not think that a mast is the best use though.  One issue that is reported is creep under stress and the mast will put more stress on a glue joint than just about any other application.   In your case, it's true that the glue joint will be on the neutral axis but I would prefer a glue that does not creep anyway.  

Another issue is repairability because nothing sticks to cured Titebond, not even more Titebond.  It may work ok but I would use epoxy or resorcinol on a mast.  If you do use epoxy, don't clamp so tight that the epoxy is all squeezed out of the joint.  

[PAR]

I'll add to Tom's post in that plastic resin is an option too, but both this and resorcinol need fairly specific environmental conditions to work well, plus lots of clamping pressure.

If your mast staves have perfect fits (they'll have to, for the two glues already mentioned), you could probably use TiteBond III. If your stave fits will be less then perfect, PU or epoxy, with epoxy being preferred would be the choice.

[sscoville]

Thank you both.  Epoxy it is.

[Guest wwbaginski]

I have white pine masts in one piece each , laminatedof two layers. I used regular epoxy - not thickened at all. I tapered them to the design and they do bend nicely (I, posted aphoto not so long ago, and you can check the Doppio flickr gallery (click the planed on the left).

Masts, however solid and iof ione piece, are very light. I was lucky to get that pine lumber after two years long torage in proper conditions.

First I covered them with transparent polyurethane lacquer, but this spring my fried who's living in Sweden has brought me an natural organic fluid mixture called "Batsmorja" so I removed it. Batsmorja smells like a forest, is easy to paint, you just paint the masts twice a year. They are very well protected. Now I want to glue carbon tracks to the masts and will have to remove Batsmoria partially . But after I will use it again.

[sscoville]

I know how to orient the grain if I'm laminating two pieces of wood.  With these masts, however, I first have to scarf about 3 additional feet onto each 16 ft. piece.  I have never paid any attention to the grain orientation when scarfing, which means often the grain changes at the joint. 

Do I need to set up the scarf joints so that the grain is consistent for the entire length and then alternate the grain when laminating?