Mast and spars by hand?

[Dave_E]

Good Morning Everyone,

 

While I wait for the wire to arrive to make split rings needed for cannon rigging, thought I’d take a crack at the mast or the bow sprit. I have searched many build logs to see lots of lathes. I have yet to see any photos of masts being tapered by hand. Does anyone really do all the tapering required for a ship by hand? I went out last night and bought a dowl, cut it to length (I have enough for 3 practice masts) and will try the drill motor method and the small plane, file and sandpaper method. I obviously don’t have a lathe and am not going to get one, and will therefore readily accept all suggestions and tips for the other two methods. 😀

[barkeater]

I have done all my masts and yards by hand so far. If you taper down to size by squaring it with a file, then make it eight sided this works quicker than sanding alone. Sand when you are done with filing to round it out. Just remember to keep checking with calipers. Even if you use a lathe, there are portions of masts and yards which need to be done by hand. Having said this, I recently acquired a lathe which I hope will speed up the work.

Richard

[Oldsalt1950]

I'm right there with you Dave. Cannot see investing in a lathe. I did purchase the book " The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War " by James Lee, from Discover Books. It gives very good detail on masts and rigging for ships from 1625 to 1860. There is also a good article on making masks from square stock here under the NRG articles. Combine the two and you should be good to go.

 

Jim

[flyer]

Well, I'm doing it the same way as Richard:

 

 I make sure to have an extra length of about 2cm on the foot of the mast or one side of the yard. Then each section is filed first square then octagonal and the necessary taper is worked in at the same time. Some parts e.g. the centre of the yard or a mast top may stay octagonal.

 

For sanding I put it by the extra length into the chuck of a simple hand drilling machine. Taking the sanding paper into my right hand I move it up and down the octagonal wile adjusting the pressure onto the wood, I vary the rpm's with my left. Starting with coarse sanding paper I put on the finish with a fine grain.

Sometimes the dowel provided with the kit may be actually too small to work a required octagon or the square foot of a mast. Then after filing that section square I double it up to the required dimension by gluing wood strips onto the surface. Thereafter I work it into the required form.

 

Peter

[Gregory]

I use a combination of both  filing and  spinning with a drill ( no lathe ) ..  Take care to sand out the circular marks from spinning.

 

I also break what would be one long piece into two or more pieces, because smaller pieces are easier to work with.

 

 

Arrows point to separate parts of main and topmast.

 

This also makes it easier to mount some of the rigging elements before putting it all together.

 

I also like to split up yards into two pieces while finishing.  Makes it easier to taper from the fat end to the skinny end.

 

I turned this:

Into this:

While I cut my blanks with a laser, you can do the same with square stock.

 

Which is not to say the same thing can't be accomplished with round stock, and just as easily IMO..

Edited April 13, 2022 by Gregory

[Roger Pellett]

Starting with a dowel is doing things the hard way.  Start with a straight grained piece of flat stock and lay out the shape of your spar.  Using your favorite method- plane, chisel, saw, cut the material to the correct shape with a square cross section.  Now make your square cross sectioned stick eight sided, then sixteen sided.  Your sixteen sided stick can now be chucked in a lathe or power drill and sanded round.

[Gregory]

31 minutes ago, Roger Pellett said:

Starting with a dowel is doing things the hard way.

Some may think starting with a kit is doing things the hard way, but that is what the majority of our build logs consist of.

 

Unfortunately, dowels are what are provided for masting  in all kits that I am aware of.

Understandably, most kit builders who are just breaking into this hobby are not keen on making the additional investment in suitable square stock.

Many may take this approach if they stay with the hobby long enough, but first, lets help them out with what they are challenged with as beginners.

 

Dowels, while presenting some challenges, are fairly easy to turn into square or other sections as needed.  They are particularly easy to turn into smaller round sections.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Gregory

[mtaylor]

There's been more than few topics on this... here's just one.  There's lot of ways of doing this and most methods seem to buried on build logs.

 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/23725-hand-planing-fixture/

 

[mikiek]

Another problem with dowels is the grain. Look closely. Typically the grain doesn't run from one end to the other like a piece of square stock. It goes all over the place. This can lead to your part warping and loosing straightness over time.

[Nirvana]

I headed over to one of the local hardware store to get new dowels for the masts of Bluenose, I went with round dowels from start.

I had to go through some 26 dowels to find myself 4 usable straight once. I placed them on the floor and if they could roll without any major effort they were fine.

Sighting from one end to another didn't show any warp at all. 
These dowels are larger than what plans says so there was a lot of sanding to get the proper shape.

And yes, I put the dowel in my power drill and sanded it by hand. I use a leather glow that holds the sandpaper, this to avoid the heat build up from the turning.

 

[Srodbro]

Just a thought …

If using the dowel-in-drill chuck method, be prudent about your drill RPM. High RPM increases risk of snapping off the spar, perhaps with injurious results ( to the spar and drill operator) especially on thin spars. More so the longer the spar is. 

[Dave_E]

Good Morning MSW,
 

1st attempt with a dowel from the hobby store. Mixed emotions for sure. As hard as this process seems to be, I’m surprised I haven’t read more about the tedious task of mast and spar making. I took my time using mostly 60g paper. Found out that when I put the drill motor in the high speed position with a full trigger pull (am aware of the breakage possibility), material comes off faster. I even tried using a wood carving tool (didn’t really work). What did work… (pretty well actually) was using my dremil while the drill motor is running. Saw that technique from a guy on YouTube. Got all the way to the top and that’s where things stopped. That entire top needs to be taken from 8mm to 6mm. No idea how to make that happen without a lathe kind of setup. Maybe use a longer piece to start with, then cut off the excess? I used a clamp to keep the drill trigger pulled, my left hand to hold the dowel fairly steady and my right hand to use the sandpaper or dremil. This was totally an experimental learning process. Sure made a mess. How the walnut dowels will perform compared to this I don’t know.  Has anyone ever turn 2 pieces of a mast you thought would break and pinned/glued them together? Just thought I’d share.

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Dave_E

[Gregory]

Great start for a first time effort...

 

It's how you find what works for you..

 

 

 

[Nirvana]

The dowels I am working with are oak.

[Gregory]

30 minutes ago, Dave_E said:

 Has anyone ever turn 2 pieces of a mast you thought would break and pinned/glued them together?

The hard part is finding a suitable place where the joint is not obvious.

As I showed above, I did the square part above the cross trees separate.  Not a lot of help with the total length.    I also made the top mast in two pieces.  Again not much help with total length, but helps with the really small part that is easier to break.

 

It's easier doing the yards, as you can hide the joint with battens, rigging or paint.

 

Let me know if I can provide a little more detail.

[Dave_E]

34 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

The dowels I am working with are oak.

Hey Doc,

 

What's your supply depot for the oak dowels?

[David Lester]

Dave, that mast is looking pretty good. I've never tried using a drill, perhaps I'll give it a go next time.

 

I have always scraped my spars to shape them. I use a #22 xacto blade and draw it towards myself, turning the dowel as I go. I've also done this with square stock, but I usually use the kit supplied dowels. I've never really had a problem with them.  You can remove a lot of material surprisingly fast. There is still a fair bit of sanding to do, but the scraping gets the bulk of the work done. The result is never 100% perfectly round as it would be using a lathe, but it's not hard to get very close to perfect and certainly close enough for my eye.

 

David

[Nirvana]

42 minutes ago, Dave_E said:

Hey Doc,

 

What's your supply depot for the oak dowels?

Home depot of all the placed....😀

[Nirvana]

Worked oak mast to the left - untouched to the right

[Nirvana]

My simple solution; drill, dowel sandpaper in hand and half an hour work.

 

And here's a link.

 

[modeller_masa]

Nirvana's method gives me some ideas. I'd like to combine the thickness sander and lathe steady rest. If I replace the tips of the steady rest with sanding paper, I may be able to sand a wood rod without grabbing it for 30 minutes. It should be a safer and faster jig.

 

 

[modeller_masa]

I developed my idea more...

 

I optimized the steady rest. This design has limited coverage but is more simple.

Edited December 28, 2022 by modeller_masa

[modeller_masa]

After lots of optimization, I've come to a very simple conclusion. 

 

- Block sander (5 inch)

- Binder clip as a steady rest

 

That's all.

[GrandpaPhil]

I carve mine with a scalpel and sand smooth.

[Paul Le Wol]

Hi Dave, I’m using a mini block plane and sandpaper. The area of the dowel that I want to remove stock from is darkened with a pencil lead so that you can see where you have planed. Starting at the top of the mast work your way down adding a few more inches each time you finish planing. Once you get to the part of the mast that doesn’t need tapering, go back to the top and start the process over again. I used 120 grit paper every once in a while between planing. If there’s a bit of a wow in the dowel more material can be removed from one side than the other. Took about an hour to do this one so it is kind of time consuming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[modeller_masa]

 

The AL's tutorial video seems to be similar to the method Paul le Wol used.