building wooden spars

[jolly_roger_4570]

I am a new member to this forum. I have a growing interest in wooden spars. I know there is a search feature, I will check that. I am interested in the gaff rig for smaller boats at present. Pointing me in the right direction would be appreciated!

Do most plans include details good enough for a novice at spar building to work from plans or is separate research necessary?

[TomRobb]

Welcome Roger,
Couldn't say about most, but you'll probably have to do a bit of research on fabricating sticks.
The currently popular "birds' mouth" method has been discussed here more or less exhaustively. Do the search thingy near the upper right corner of the page. Boatbuilding books discuss other methods at some length too.

[cs]

The birds mouth method seems to be a proven design and like Tom says has been discussed here quite a bit.

Me. I prefer the solid spar and it ain't that hard to do. I believe the book "How to Build the Shellback Dinghy", available through Wooden Boat or your local library, details making a solid spar. I will check my notes when I get home to see what book for sure.

But with that said it is real simple Laminate your material untill you get the right thickness. Rip it with your table saw to get a square shape. Than set your saw blade on a 45 and rip the corners. This gives you and 8-sided spar. Now all you have to do is plane it to round. You can also use a belt sander to help with this and others can tell you about the "Red neck lathe." I prefer the relaxing planeing method. Any way you go about it is fun and simple.

Chad

[Dwight]

Instructions for the bird's mouth hollow spar are in WB #149 (July/Aug.99) which your local library may have on file. Can you tell I intend to try this soon?

Some folks say just build a rectangular box section, and who's going to argue with L Francis Herreschoff's details?