Yards, oars and masts

The sails are now done.  I still need to sew reef points, which involves sewing on square pieces of sailmaker's tape with a buttonhole at the center of each (some people prefer grommets, but I'm good with the machine buttonhole stitch) .  Reefing, for landlubbers, means shortening the sail and rolling up and securing the loose ends by tying loops of line that go through each reef point buttonhole.  Since the leech of the sail is rounded for maximum sail area (this is called roach, again no idea why) I need to use battens to stiffen it, which means sewing in batten pockets made of folded-over sailmaker's tape.  Both these will wait until I order all the chandlery (blocks, cleats, fairleads, rope, anchor, assorted hardware and battens).

Meanwhile I have rounded and sanded the two yards, and have put on one coat of epoxy.  After drilling holes at the ends to tie the corners of the sail's head onto the yard, there will be sanding, a second coat of epoxy, more sanding and a couple of coats of spar varnish.  That will take time, so I started on making the oar shafts, by laminating together two layers of 1X2 poplar, 1 1/2 inch-square (or 37 mm square) in total actual dimensions.  Then I cut and edge-glued the rough oar blades from 1X2 poplar (center) and 1X3 pine (sides).  You can see them in the photo.

While I was tapering the shafts down to the blade's thickness of 3/4 inch (19 mm) with a hand plane, both blades managed to fall to the floor and delaminate into two pieces each.  Better now than later, I think.  Clearly the temperatures, even in the partially heated basement, are too low for reliable epoxy curing.  I think I will take the opportunity to redo the blades.  I originally decided to use pine on the sides for the visual contrast, but pine is probably too soft for an oar blade that could be scraping against sand and stones.  I also realized that the original blades are a little stubby.  So I will make the new ones longer, and will cut them from poplar like the rest of the oar.  I don't mind: remarkably, this is pretty much the first thing I've had to do over in this whole project.  I will have to glue the blades and shafts together with thickened epoxy, and make sure I keep the basement and/or the piece warmer.  Then the blades will have to be tapered to a thinner edge, the corners rounded, etc.  In the meantime I have started rounding the shafts at the hand-grip ends.  Next I will round the shafts where they meet the oar locks, and that part will need leathering and buttons put on--I'll explain later.  All in all there will be even more planing, shaving, sanding and other work before the oars are ready for coating.

In between all this I will also be cutting 14 mast boards and preparing a total of 16 wedge-shaped board ends for eight staggered scarf joints.  Check 176inches for more details and pictures of mast work.

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