Little Egret: an Egret-style day sailer

[RFNK]

Zen zere'll be no trobble!

Zeke

[johnno]

I did have a normal electric saw kick back at me, when I was stupidly (as I now understand) trying to rip a very short piece of small timber using a fence. Badly bruised my hand, and gave me a hell of a fright. I approach the table saw always with great nervousness having watched a few Youtube videos of kickback. And for this mast I have to remove the safety guard. So it will be a very nervous few hours.

I think I currently have about 10-12 healing cuts, nicks, bruises and strains from this boat building lark and, touch wood, I'll get through to the end of it with everything I own more or less intact!

[johnno]

Bit of a mixed day. Have been in agony the last four days with a tooth I suspected was going to need the full root canal treatment. Sure enough, first thing Monday morning visit to dentist confirmed same, so that's how I spent the morning.

Wasn't going to let the day get the better of me though so I hauled out the table saw this afternoon to my narrow but long 'shed' and trimmed and birdsmouthed all sixteen 20' staves needed for the two masts.

All went off without a hitch though I did have to stop every now and then just to clean some shavings out of the saw as they would build up a bit inside every three staves or so. I think my shop vac is fairly beefy but there's so many little air gaps around, it's hard to get really good suction out of the extractor.

Sometimes I would get a good run of two passes on six or so staves, other times only one or two if the shavings 'hairballed' a bit. I was getting a little speedier too which I think probably makes for larger shavings which are harder to suck out and clump together easily.

Now I have to figure how how best to taper them out of the many suggestions I have collected.

[RFNK]

Must be nice to have that tooth fixed John! Do you want to saw the tapers or plane them?
Rick

[johnno]

I emailed Ross for some advice, I have Gary's notes..I'm really not sure which way to go. I think I might saw the bulk off and then plane to match one well finished one which I'd use as a sort of pattern.

[PeterSibley]

John ! I'm so glad that tooth is right .... it's a horrible experience.

I'll watch your mast building with interest .

[johnno]

Thanks guys. Tooth isn't quite fixed yet, two more trips, but at least the nerve is out and the infection is going away..have only needed one headache tablet today instead of the eight I needed yesterday!

[RFNK]

I think I'd saw them. I think I'd make up a long strip of plywood or chipboard and set up a way of fastening the stock to it on the angle I wanted, then just run that through the saw. So the strip of ply would be a sled for the stock you want to taper.

Rick

[Ross Lillistone]

I have made dozens of bird's mouth spars over the years, and my standard method for cutting the taper is to mark offsets on one stave, and then run a spline and mark for the cut. The problem here is that you need to be absolutely certain that the whippy stave is straight, or the marked curve will be corrupted.

Given that the curve of the cut is SO gentle, you can easily get by with straight lines drawn from offset to offset, and this really simplifies the whole process. My straight-edge is an eight foot-long aluminium box-section of about 4" x 1" section. I position it securely on the bench top and then use spring clamps to hold the stave bird's mouth side against the straight-edge. Then I simply rule a straight line from each offset to the next, moving the stave along and re-clamping as required. In my plans, I usually provide offsets and cross-sectional dimensions for bird's mouth staves, and typically the offsets are spaced about 600mm so the process is easy. Below is the sheet showing the Little Egret mast dimensions, with the corresponding staves drawn in blue.



After marking one stave, I cut the taper on a bandsaw by eye. I'm so familiar with my old machine that it only takes a minute or so to clean up the cut with a sharp low-angle block plane, and then I use that stave as a template to mark the remaining seven, using the big box-section straight-edge to hold both the master stave and the one being marked. Once again, it is only necessary to have the staves straight where the marking is taking place. After that it is simply a case of making the remaining seven cuts and cleaning them up with the plane.

The process sounds cumbersome the way I've put it into words, but it works extremely well.

Having said all that, rough cuts with a tablesaw or a jigsaw are fine - it just takes a bit longer when finishing off with the plane. There are all sorts of other options I've thought of, such as making a template and then using a router with a following bit, but by the time it was set up, I'd have finished the lot working through the bandsaw by eye.

Ross Lillistone

[jim_cricket]

Hi Johnno,
Ross's method sounds good to me, but I've used a router and template to good effect. On my crab skiff Cricket, I screwed a stop down to a long piece of ply on the bench. The bottom piece of ply has the taper cut (and I use a slightly curved taper) and the backstop holds the stave in the proper relationship to the template edge. Then a bottom bearing router bit cuts the taper. It may be necessary to rough cut the stave before routing, depending on how splintery the material is. Like Ross's method, it sounds more laborious than it actually is. But there's no plane work as the router cut is square and clean.



I didn't take any photos of the staves, unfortunately.

Nice boat, by the way, and nice design Ross. I'll be looking forward to the performance reports from this one!

[Ross Lillistone]

Jim,

Thanks for the comment.

For those who are interested in seeing photos of what I have described, here are links to a series of illustrated articles from my blog showing various elements on bird's mouth mast construction. This is just my method, and there are many other ways of doing the job.

http://rosslillistonewoodenboat.blog...proach-to.html

http://rosslillistonewoodenboat.blog...n-shaping.html

http://rosslillistonewoodenboat.blog...llow-mast.html

http://rosslillistonewoodenboat.blog...uth-spars.html

http://rosslillistonewoodenboat.blog...aditional.html

I hope these may help to de-mystify the process - it is easier than it sounds in print!

Ross Lillistone

[johnno]

Thanks Ross and Jim, that's got me to step two in my head, and I'll have a crack at setting one up before today's second trip to the dentist. I searched all over your site Ross but couldn't find those pics. They're terrific.

[johnno]

There's a recurring theme in the birdsmouth mast ... be well prepared and organised. Indeed, another difference I have noticed between my previous experience doing carpentry on houses and boat building is the amount of preparation, building of jigs, etc, that characterizes boatbuilding.

House carpentry is a bit more like..'cut it off the right length, nail or bolt it on..next piece, same again...'

So we come to the mast building, stave-tapering bench. No undercover space 24' long in my neck of the woods, no large benches hanging around the corners of the house, no 24' pieces of straight scrap timber lying around, no spare sheets of plywood. But there is the neighbour's and my fence. Herewith, the minimalist modernist mast bench. At the moment it's just set up (with the laser level, and with string lines) to do the tapering. So I have a level surface, and I have some little blocks screwed to the shelves which are in a dead straight line, so I can back my staves up against the blocks, clamp them there, and mark out and cut the taper.

Once that's done, I will make the octagonal ply forms for the mast lay-up and they will be screwed to the shelves and set up again with the laser.

Next up though will be the cutting. I have a great jigsaw and that might be the tool, but this set up would also let me rout them, so we'll see. I've got 16 staves to mark out the tapers on first, but before that...the dentist

[WX]

I also will watch with interest Johnno, good luck with it.

[RFNK]

Not meaning to harp on it but, given that all you have is a table saw, I'd certainly recommend using Ross' approach to marking the taper etc. but, since you have eight pieces to cut, I'd make a sled. All you need is a length of chipboard or plywood. Fasten the stock to the sled so that the bit you want to cut off is sitting off the edge of the sled. Run the other side of the sled along the fence. Position accordingly and cut. Fasten each stave in the same position and cut. No freehand cutting, no planing and you only have to measure and mark the first stave.

Rick

[timo4352]

... Herewith, the minimalist modernist mast bench.

Clever solution, Johnno. I'm a new student of the "do with what you have" school of boatbuilding too, so I can appreciate it.
It's nice you have the mast offsets from Ross - that should help a lot. Best of luck here, and no pressure, you've just got a zillion people watching.
Tim

[johnno]

Haha, thanks Timo, that makes me nice and nervous!

So today I made up what I'd call a jig-to-half-convert-a-jigsaw-to-a-bandsaw. That is, I wanted a way to keep my jigsaw still, and flat, and move the timber, just like a bandsaw, instead of trying to wobble along a 30mm wide surface with a jigsaw on a bench which has no rigid top.

I fixed two pieces of timber, the same thickness as my staves, on either side of the stave I wanted to cut.



By placing the jigsaw up against the clamp, I could keep the jigsaw in a rigid and flat position, and draw the stave through towards the jigsaw.



Keeping an eagle eye on the blade and the pencil line, it was fairly easy to get a consistent cut because the saw stood nice and still, and I could vary the pace of the exercise with my draw hand.



After a very quick and light hand plane, it was time to mark out the other staves for cutting.



Slow and steady does it. By the end of the afternoon, I'd cut the eight staves for the mainmast, cut the master for the mizzen mast, and marked up all the mizzen staves for cutting tomorrow.



Then I'll put them all together and do a final hand plane, but they look pretty good.

I had a number of very good suggestions of ways to do this, and thanks for people's inputs. As always, you have to work out what's best for you, your gear, and your skill level. This one was pretty simple and pretty foolproof. These are important ingredients for me.

[Larks]

John I am absolutely amazed that you managed to get straight cuts through that thickness with the jigsaw!!! No matter what I seem to do and how straight a line I can keep, I find the blade wanting to bend away left or right just when you least want it to, so that what looks like a nice straight cut (or a nice cut along a curved line) on top, turns out to be a wild meander along the bottom.

And my apologies too, if I'd realised this was what you had to do I'd have invited you down to use the bandsaw.

[RFNK]

Looks good to me!

Rick

[johnno]

Greg, no worries, thanks for the offer. Would have been hard to cart 21' long unbundled staves down there..it overhangs my car unacceptably and I've already snuck home once from the timber mill.

My jigsaw is a pretty good one I think, and it certainly has a saw guide which tends to mimimize drunken sways, but I find the less movement of the jigsaw (ie, keeping it still like this and moving the timber) puts less pressure on sideways movement. I think in 9 cuts so far (170 feet of cut) I've had one place where it swayed a little, and I think that was when I took my eye off the saw to look at something else momentarily. That has the same effect of looking left or right while you're steering a car. You hands just go with your eyes no matter how much you try to stop them.

[johnno]

I will be calling on whatever help I can get for the glue up though. I think it would be ideal to have two mixerers and two spreaderers to keep things under control!

[PeterSibley]

An innovative method John, I knew you had a good jigsaw and thought you would mount it upside down and then push your staves across the top .Well done !

[WX]

I AM impressed, nicely done. I love innovation.

[Tim Marchetti]

I love it. I have the same kind of band saw. Only mine is upside down in a vice.

[Dan St Gean]

Will those staves be tapered towards the top or left full thickness?

[johnno]

Dan, it's a bit hard to see in those pics unless you know what you're looking for. In the second last photo, you can see the tapered top of one stave sitting on top of an as yet untapered stave, being marked out. Hence the cut I'm making is an angle cut to make the tapers.

The staves are about 30mm at the base and taper down to about 12-14mm at the top depending which mast it is. They both have the same bottom dimension.

If on the other hand, you are asking about the wall thickness, no, that stays constant at 16mm.

[timo4352]

Another great solution. And it went fast and easy for you. Cool. You made it look easy.
Thanks for taking the time to take pics.
Tim

[Oldad]

I am having difficulty understanding how the saw was held in place and how you managed to cut on a curve with it all apparently locked in place. Was the saw affixed somehow to the pieces on either side of your cut? Did someone else push the work through and you guide the saw. I feel stupid not understanding how you did it since it apparently seems obvious to all. You mention having the saw held in a "rigid" position but it must have been able to move to cut the subtle curve in the piece. You mentioned your "draw hand", so you pulled the work through while guiding the saw with your other hand? I think birdsmouth masts are an elegant solution and am wishing there was an excuse to build one but alas, I am a stinkboater.
Oldad

[johnno]

Oldad, sorry I should have explained a little better. By fixed, I meant that I could push the saw forwards against the clamp (hence it stayed in a 'fixed' position) whilst pulling the stave backwards with the other hand. I could still however swing the angle of the saw to the cut laterally as required to get the very subtle curve.

I wish I had a nice well-made and stable portable workbench ( I know, bit of an oxymoron!) and then I'd try the inverted jigsaw trick...might give it a go in my cheap light unstable workbench, gingerly....

[Oldad]

Got it, you should have been born a Yankee as that is the kind of creative thinking that New Englanders are famous for. It was the rigid thing that had me fooled. Can't wait to see you assemble the mast. The rest of the boat is absolutely fantastic. A good friend of mine built a full size version of Egret a couple of years ago and I enjoyed seeing it go together. He built a birdsmouth mast as well (in a shop with all of the bells and whistles... the prize goes to you however).
Oldad

[Oldad]

John, check this out, the only pictures I could find of Geoff's Egret, Regret. Scroll down for the pics. If I can find any more I will send them on.
http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthre...9234-New-Egret

[johnno]

Thanks Oldad, I have seen those photos whilst scouring the web for sharpies...a lovely boat and looks very well built!

Got the last of the staves cut today, a little bit of planing to check everything was looking okay at that stage, and then managed to get the staves together by moulding them around some aerosol cans of about the right diameter. Ross has a lovely method for this where he screws one set of stave ends to an oversized plywood octagon at one end, but I know me and screws in thin soft timber, and in the end I didn't want to risk splitting a stave or two.

I tried it out, and at the moment the main mast weighs in at 8 kilos or around 16-17lb, so pretty good. You can see it sitting there on the scales on the long photo. Glue and plugs will add a bit but still liftable, even for an old bloke. Might even be able to manage it with the sails on.

It's sure bendy whilst all the staves can slip against each other. I gave it a good work out, so I'l be able to compare the difference once it's glued up.

I wish it was all glued up at this stage, but it's not. I have to make the octagonal plugs for a start, and I have to make the pattern moulds to rest the mast in for glue up. I'll keep trying to go 'slow and steady' because I know Timo is watching like a hawk.

[PeterSibley]

Not just Timo!

[RFNK]

The rest of us are doves though

Rick

[Larks]

I do love the wonderful precision of your work John!!!

[johnno]

Thanks guys, but it ain't over till the fat lady sings..it's the glue up which is giving me the willies...why can't I live in a climate where slow epoxy takes an hour or so to go off! Actually, I take that back...

[Dan St Gean]

If on the other hand, you are asking about the wall thickness, no, that stays constant at 16mm.

That's what I was hitting at. Thanks.

Additionally, you may not need to make octagons depending on your drill bit sizes. Drill a hole, put in a dowel section in there with some thickened epoxy, and you're good to go. The one octagon you'll need to make is the one at the partners.

[timo4352]

I'll keep trying to go 'slow and steady' because I know Timo is watching like a hawk.

Hey! I resemble that remark!

[RFNK]

What brand of epoxy are you using John? I use Bote Cote and in temperatures of around 20 I can still be using the glue for hours. In your case, I think I'd make up two mixes. A neat mix of resin that I'd then brush onto the gluing surfaces. Then I'd make up a glue mix and do the gluing. I've had a lot of trouble with West epoxy - it goes off too quickly and once it starts to gel, it then stiffens up even more quickly. Apparently there are various West hardeners but I couldn't be bothered chasing stuff like that when the locally available product is so much better to work with.

Rick

[Duncan Gibbs]

Ross has a lovely method for this where he screws one set of stave ends to an oversized plywood octagon at one end, but I know me and screws in thin soft timber, and in the end I didn't want to risk splitting a stave or two.

Simply drill the holes slightly oversized and use a small gauge dome head screw with a washer to clamp the stave in place.

Nice work John!

I may be coming up your way toward the end of next week, so I'll drop by if I do... Gluing up party?

West is okay in the current temperature range but I only ever mix up three pumps worth at a time. If you have a bunch of gluers, like Gary did for his mast, all the better.

[johnno]

Thanks Dan, good advice on the plug.

Rick, I'm using West, and have heard some negatives about 'the other' brand. You're right, the temp is about 5 degrees lower now so I should have more time. And yes I agree, I always coat with plain epoxy, and then mix up and apply the thickened. I use the slow hardener anyway, and I like the West thickener. I tried the 'other brand' thickener and I needed to add so much it weakened the mix..almost no glue left, so I abandoned using that one.

Any takers for a bunch of gluers, but any time between Saturday and Tuesday????

Sorry Dunc, thanks for the offer, but later next week will be too late for me, unless I can't raise any other help. When do you think you'll be up here?

[Duncan Gibbs]

Either Wednesday or Thursday John: I'll drop by anyway, as it'll be good to have a butcher's at your build at any rate.

[RFNK]

Thanks Dan, good advice on the plug.

Rick, I'm using West, and have heard some negatives about 'the other' brand. You're right, the temp is about 5 degrees lower now so I should have more time. And yes I agree, I always coat with plain epoxy, and then mix up and apply the thickened. I use the slow hardener anyway, and I like the West thickener. I tried the 'other brand' thickener and I needed to add so much it weakened the mix..almost no glue left, so I abandoned using that one.

Any takers for a bunch of gluers, but any time between Saturday and Tuesday????

Sorry Dunc, thanks for the offer, but later next week will be too late for me, unless I can't raise any other help. When do you think you'll be up here?

I guessed from your description of the short curing times that you must be using West. I find the West additives are very good but I don't like their resin at all. I've used a lot of Bote Cote and a lot of West. I've never had any problems with Bote Cote but always had issues with West going off very quickly, becoming hot and stinking. I also much prefer a 2:1 mixing regime as it's so much more forgiving and very easy to make small mixes without those stupid pumps. Anyway, good luck with the glue up.

Rick

[Larks]

Thanks Dan, good advice on the plug.

Rick, I'm using West, and have heard some negatives about 'the other' brand. You're right, the temp is about 5 degrees lower now so I should have more time. And yes I agree, I always coat with plain epoxy, and then mix up and apply the thickened. I use the slow hardener anyway, and I like the West thickener. I tried the 'other brand' thickener and I needed to add so much it weakened the mix..almost no glue left, so I abandoned using that one.

Any takers for a bunch of gluers, but any time between Saturday and Tuesday????

Sorry Dunc, thanks for the offer, but later next week will be too late for me, unless I can't raise any other help. When do you think you'll be up here?

Sorry John, I'm out of contention this weekend, I've got a commitment on Saturday and it's looking increasingly likely that I may have to go to Perth for work (and going on past experience it will be a case of " contracts approved, be there to start work tomorrow) so my apologies mate, but the rest of this long weekend is dedicated to Kate time.

[RFNK]

Good luck with that Greg!

Rick

[WX]

Sorry Johnno, you're bit too far away for me otherwise I'd love to help.

[johnw]

John I am absolutely amazed that you managed to get straight cuts through that thickness with the jigsaw!!!

It is clearly impossible. The man's a god. How did he let is slip that he is capable of such things? Now everyone knows that he's more than human.

[johnno]

It is clearly impossible. The man's a god. How did he let is slip that he is capable of such things? Now everyone knows that he's more than human.

John, oh how I wish!

So a little closer..made up the octagonal plugs for each mast today. I needed 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" and had nothing close to that. I found some old timber under the house, the remains of a bed I made when I first bought my house some 30 years ago, and the deposit left me no money for furniture, so I started making it all myself. First priority was the bed, chairs and sofas came later.

I'm often surprised lately when I scour through these old piles that all the timber I bought then was clear hoop pine, and it was very cheap. Nowadays you have to work hard to find it.

So after a bit of a late start to the morning I cut some of this bed up to size and epoxied two 2 1/2" x 1 1/4" pieces together, and put them out in the sun, then set about making some moulds to sit the mast in for glue up, and getting that all aligned. The epoxy was on;y a few hours old when I ripped the square timber into an octagonal profile, but it held okay.

I've talked the neighbour into giving me a hand with the first glue-up tomorrow morning, so tonight I need to string together pairs of cable ties, and we'll be set to go, bar rain.

Fingers crossed!!

[johnno]

Greg, no worries, understood, and Gary, you'd need a passport anyway! Dunc, look forward to seeing you...we could do the mizzen mast if I haven't talked the neighbour into having a crack at the second one. Depends how the first goes, whether he's willing to volunteer for a second round...must remember to stay calm!

[johnw]

At least the plugs look like something I might accomplish.