Monday, April 8, 2019

Tiller and Mast work!

As usual work and family have been taking my time away from my build, but all is well and moving ahead. In the time I had, I finished up the tillers and working on the Mast.

I did finish up both Tillers so that they would fit in the rudder. Since I made them slightly thicker than 3/4 inches, I needed to narrow it down in the part that fits into the tiller. I just marked the ends on both and used a belt sander. That did a quick job of the task.

I need to figure out how to keep the tiller from coming out of the rudder. I have seen some pictures of builders using a pin of some type, but there doesn't look like a lot of extra room to drill a hole.
Below is a couple pictures of the tiller in the rudder. You can see there is not much wood coming out.



Now for the mast. I had previously glued up 2 of the 16 ft pieces for the mast and finished gluing up the other 2, so I have all 4 pieces.


 Once these were cured for a few days, I used a hand plane and sander to finish up the joint, so it looked good.


Now the next part was how I was going to cut these 4 - 16 foot long pieces. I purchased a Festool Skill Saw TS 55 Req Track saw for the job and other jobs I plan on doing. After spending a long time marking out the 4 pieces from the plans and double checking things a few times I put saw to wood!

I setup outside with my tent, since it has started to get warm. The track is too wide to sit properly on a small piece of 3" wood, so I just used multiple pieces to give me a good work surface. I lined the track up to my markings and cut away. I think this worked out very well. Moving the track to the next section was no problem and you could barely tell where I started/stopped cutting.




Now for the rabbet that needs to be cut on the 2 side staves. I followed the manual and used my table saw. Unless you have a long in/out feed table, you are going to need some help cutting the 16 ft. pieces. Luckily my son was home and he help me out. Being on the cautious side, I set the saw a little bit too short for the width of the side staves. Since it was getting late and  I was cleaning up, I just decided to cut the 1/16 inch portion off with my router at later time. I set that up yesterday and made the final cut. Now they fit flush as they should. 

Below are a couple shots of the Mast dry clamped together. Thats where I realized that they pieces were not fitting together properly. I did the router trick yesterday and then cleaned up things with a hand plane. I will go over things again before I glue up.  I will probably see if my son can assist with the gluing up as well. Sort of awkward trying to get the 4 pieces together and glue up with just one person. I also realized that I didn't have enough clamps. I picked up some yesterday at the Home Depot.

I also need to finish up the top of the mast piece that fits inside the mast. Or to be clearer. I need to start that project!  The bottom piece of wood doesn't require any adjustment. 





Next post should have a completed mast! But in the time being, headed out of town again! Got to keep the admiral happy!

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