Mast disaster

[paul anderson]

I have been building my mast out of Australian hoop pine and was near  the end of shaping it when to my horror i found that many of the bonds had not glued together properly.The biggest area of bond failure was along the sections of timber that had a slightly blue coloured streak in them.Little did i know but this is a sign that the timber has not been kiln dried properly.Also i had scarfed 8' sections of timber together to make up the mast and was not entirely happy with this,but as i had got the timber at a reasonable price i thought i was in front,anyway to cut a long story short i have placed an order for more timber at longer lengths through a timber yard whose owner was a boat builder in a previous life and assure me he will look after me.i figure that to have doubts about the stick out in the briny is not a game i want to play and shall do it all over again.

lesson learned.

cheers paul.

[kim whitmyre]

A man after my own heart! ;~)  There's a Japanese proverb I learned from practicing Aikido: "Even monkeys fall out of trees."  And, they get right back up in them!  This will be the mast you wanted to build, Paul. . .

"i figure that to have doubts about the stick out in the briny is not a game i want to play"

[boatsmith]

It always hurts but sometimes the best thing is to bite the bullet and move along. It happens to every body.   David

[Ralf]

Paul, forget about that mast right away and build a new one as you plan to do. Its the only way to go. There is no more to say about it. Go for it, you can and will do it. Ralf

[paul anderson]

Well thank you fellas for the kind words.

[Ann and Neville Clement]

We send deepest sympathy with total understanding.  Had to rebuild our two Tiki 46 lower hulls because of poor quality marine ply that was sent to us in place of the highest quality marine ply we had bought.  Nightmare at the time, but we avoided a worse nightmare by obtaining properly manufactured highest quality ply and starting over again and doing it right.  Storms at sea are not the place to take chances with yourself and your family and your boat.  You are definitely doing the right thing.   You have our admiration for doing it too.  My Vietnamese son has a saying "Fall down seven times, get up eight times".    Best wishes,  Ann and Nev

[Geminidawn]

I have a moisture meter and when you're boat building in Ireland it's the best friend you'll have, well worth testing the wood before you glue up, I think you can pick them up on e-bay for as little as $20.

 All resins differ but usually the moisture content has to be below 13%.

Get air dried rather than kiln dried wood if you can as the latter has a lot less flexibility.