Hollow sprit advice

[Jim Stumpf]

The Cleveland Amateur Boat Building Society  (www.cabbs.org) wanted to put on a hands on clinic on birdsmouth spar building so I offered up my shop and thought we could build the CS sprits as the demo. Any advice on materials or tapering the ends would be greatly appreciated. The member giving the seminar is experienced in this type of construction and uses in paddle construction and is a little fuzzy on the requirements for the sprits. Any and all advice is welcome. I have access to some clear red cedar and yellow pine is readily available. Spruce is probably not a choice due to availability.

Any one that is in the NE Ohio area and wants to attend can be my guest on Feb 28th, just let me know that you are interested in attending so that we can throw an extra rock in the soup for lunch.

Jim

[PeterP]

Hollow sprits? Why bother? You stand to save 2 oz while giving yourself 2 tons of work. Get some nice fat fir closet rod, taper it, make the ends and you're in business. PeterP

[Jim Stumpf]

Hollow sprits? Why bother?

Because we need something to build for the hands on seminar and the mast seemed like a waste of time when we could do the sprits. It isn't always about the destination sometimes it is just about the journey.   :grin:

Jim

[hokeyhydro]

How much taper? And is the taper required for weight reduction or just looks?

Anyhow, I would build the birdsmouth spar/sprit straight - no taper, and then plane the taper in after assembly. I was thinking of tapering every single strip on my 22' birdsmouth mast which would have been a total PITA, and then I had Eureka moment -with tapered strips (mucho jig set up & hours) they would still be 14mm thick at the top and just a rat hair less wide, but if  I plane the assembled mast down I'd probably knock off more weight up top, not to mention way less man hours involved. So rip the strips, rout the edge, slobber glue, assemble using zip tie clamps - done. Wanna pretty taper? Stroke it with a plane - done.