Still waiting and money matters.

[Ernie wisner]

Well here we are in building season, after months of getting quotes (or not) tracking down mills and trying to play the game by the rules i am still waiting for my delivery. Well i tend to have other things to do as well so today i fixed my wood lathe, checked out the 2 horse and its live center and am kinda thinking how to make the 60 foot masts and allow my self to simply turn them round on the lathe. Its going to take a few roller blocks and stabilizers but should work out pretty well.

Anything is going to be better than that horrible mess and fight you get with the belt sander. I am looking forward to getting my plans and setting out on this build. Erica and I are going to make most of our gear so the only really pricy part is the electronics for nav and com. We are considering electric motors again since we found so real bright folks at the electric boat show in seattle at the center for wooden boats. Good stuff and these folks are not idiots so they actually understand that money dont grow on trees. Well thats the update. thanks for reading.   

[Budget Boater]

Did you ever consider an electric hand planer instead of a belt sander? It will get you really close, then just finish up with a palm sander.

[Ernie wisner]

Hey Budget.

Yep i in fact use one on a semi regular basis, built a few masts with it as well.

an electric hand planer will surely knock the corners off but i don't think would be very good to make something round. in fact i know it doesn't do round very well. I have a two horse motor a live center, several ways to get inline skate wheels, a bit of wood, base plate wide belts and turning tools. I don't think there will be much problem turning it round after the rough out work. but we shall see. I will also use the bed i make for the mast building for the fabric and epoxy work on the mast anyways. One of those things in a small shop is make sure everything has several uses. down the STB side of the shop i will have a work bench and it will be level and I will be setting up to do the beams. making the lathe for that long of work will simply involve making the support rollers to drop into slots in the bench top and mounting the motor on a hinged board that i can move down the length of the work and put the wide belt on the mast. this should put the power close to my tool and make turning pretty easy (I hope). since i am mostly on crutches I am not all that great at kneeling or laying on the deck (help! I've lofted and i cant get up!), having most things up at waist level will make much of the work fairly easy.