Mast, boom and sprits

The mast and other spars (sprit, boom and a topmast) should be long-fibre, light and flexible wood. Typically spruce, which is also what I used. My lumber seller had some nice material which had originally been ordered for window and door-frames. This means no knots and quarter-sawn, straight grain orientation.

Planing the halves for the mast

a table router proofed to be a nice help for "hollowing-out" the mast halves to reduce weight

the narrower (following the taper of the mast) carvings were done with the normal router

the 2 halves of the mast glued together

Cutting the tapers on all four sides on the bandsaw

tapered from top to bottom with the biggest diameter at the level of the mast partner. Then the mast tapers again slightly all the way to the mast foot

this little tool with 2 dowels and to cut-off nails helps establish the lines for planing the mast from 4 edges to 8 edges

8 edges, planed with the electric planer and some fine tuning with the hand plane

then all the way via 16 and 32 edges to a (more or less) round shape

cut-outs at the bottom to fit mast into mast foot and keeping the orientation of the mast "locked"

Test fit...

first time outside the workshop. Looks really nice :-)

Mast foot put in place

after varnishing - cutting out foam rubber to go underneath

I also made this "tunnel" for the mast which will be fitted with screws to the mast foot. I hope this prevents serious damage from the deck in case one fails to mount the mast properly and there is the risk to rip out the mast partner due to the massive leverage that the long mast could expose

the mast foot finally screwed in place with 6 x 5 mm silicon-bronze screws

the construction after applying varnish