Bamboo Mast Completed

I was able to put the finishing touches on the bamboo mast. If you remember, this is part of a stub mast configuration, so the base is made to pivot in a socket; kind of like a universal joint. The eye splice (pink loop) is for threading the downhaul from the boom. The orange wrap is to prevent the boom jaws from wearing into the bamboo. When I lower the sail for reefing, the white collar keeps the boom jaws from dropping below a certain point. In the other pic you see the sheave I installed at the head of the mast so that I can lower the sail for reefing.

Currently working on building the reefing system into the sail and boom. Pix to follow!

The finished crossbeam hinge

Tadaaaa! The hinges are finally finished! Can't wait to get them back to Mibu and make the modifications to mount them.

Special thanks to Jim Ellis at Credence Engineering (http://credenceeinc.com/) for giving so much time and effort and resources to make these for me and consider it a donation. Wow! So extremely grateful!

Crossbeam Hinge Saga continued

Things are coming together nicely on the crossbeam hinges. I'm super thankful for my friend, Jim Ellis, at Credence Engineering for offering to do all this for me at no cost. He's put a lot into this and I just can't appreciate it enough! So I'm doing some of the manual cleanup of these parts with files and a buffing wheel. Also made this wood block (in pic) so that the pieces can be clamped together square and then welded. Still got a few hours of work left before Jim's ready to weld the pieces. Seeing it all come together, I'm certain this is going to be a solid hinge and will be worth it's weight in gold when transporting Shan Skailyn.

Folding iako hinge in the making

My friend emailed me these photos today of the hinge parts having been cut. Awesome! Can you guess what these were cut with? W A T E R ! ! Yeah, these were cut out of 1/8" stainless steel with a water jet!

Folding iakos (crossbeam) hinges

I worked together with a machinist friend of mine to design this hinge for a folding iakos conversion. Obviously the design originated with Gary Dierking's as seen on his Va'a Motu. Thought we'd beef it up a bit and make it a complete box construction. Not sure when they'll be ready, but I'm quite excited to see the real thing and get it installed on Shan Skailyn!

Boom Jaws and Varnish

OK... Whew! I can rest now knowing that Shan Skailyn's bamboo spars have at least one coat of varnish on them before I leave them sitting there for 6 months.
Also, here are the pix of the boom jaws which are now complete other than a few holes for lashing the sail and downhaul, etc.

Bamboo mast / luff spar

Interspersed with some other 'chores' in preparation for our return to the US, I managed to squeeze in a bit of time today on Shan Skailyn's spars. The rig is going to be a stub mast configuration. The stub mast is solid wood, and the other spars are bamboo. I've been hoping to get at least one coat of varnish on the spars before leaving them so the bugs don't eat them while we're away.
Today, I glued up the boom jaws (pix forthcoming - probably after boom jaws completed) and I also put some finishing touches on the luff spar. Since I want to be able to drop the whole thing at a moment's notice if things get hairy, I wanted some kind of quick releasing joint/mast step. I got this idea somewhere online... I think Gary D. mentioned it somewhere on his blog. Here you see the step assembly all together. Gary mentioned that this was the original universal joint that windsurfers used to use. The rope that passes through the step (located at deck level) will be tied off on a cleat (or maybe even a cam cleat for quicker release potential). Then the other side of the rope will have a loop tied in it, both to keep it from pulling through the mast base and also to secure the boom downhaul to. In this setup the mast base pivots freely in it's little socket joint / step. The luff spar is held upright by a halyard running through the top of the stub mast.
Today, besides gluing up the boom jaws, I applied the fiberglass wraps around the ends of the luff spar to help prevent splitting. I also had to doctor up a split about four fifths of the way up. I think it must have split when it was originally cut and fell. The split was there when my friend brought it up. This was such a nice piece of bamboo compared to the others I had available to me that I decided to take a chance and try to fix it. So today I pried the split open a bit, loaded it with thickened epoxy, even used a hypodermic needle to inject epoxy into the narrower parts. I then covered the split with a piece of fiberglass (see pic). I'm sure hoping this will hold up well for me. Anyone out there ever tried repairing a split in bamboo before? Any luck? I'd love to get your input. I'm wondering if I should also put several full wraps of fiberglass on there too, or was what I did enough?