"Work" has started on the mast ...
For the last couple of weeks, the mast has been outside at my place covered only with a thin piece of plastic (but by the looks of it, this was better than the way it's been stored for the last several years.) It has almost no varnish left on it and looked to be completely delaminated. When moving it here, I was afraid it would break because there was absolutely no rigidity or strength to it. It made the worst sounds, creaks and cracks. I wasn't sure if it would be salvageable or not and had planned on just using the old mast as a guide/template to build a new one.
So, the other day, we carefully picked it up, put it on a truck rack and because it was so fragile, it needed to be supported by placing it on a staging platform first. It was brought it over to the barn and after hauling it up through the window we just kind of stared at it for a while. It was the first time I had a real chance to look at it closely.
Considering making it into a couple of flyrods instead.
Even before we could think of the repairing/rebuilding process, I think we were first trying to figure out what was holding it together. It wasn't the glue, that was long gone. I had thought that the glue used was something along the lines of resourcinol, from what I could find on the Internet, but after looking at it, I wonder if it was something closer to casein. Something water soluble that failed when the varnish was destroyed. It doesn't really matter at this point because, this adhesive, whatever it was was GONE. We looked at it for about 10-20 minutes, had a drink and planned the attack. How to take this thing apart without ruining it? How to take it apart with out ruining what was really a lucky break. That is, the way this thing was stored and the condition it was in was lousy but, if it was going to be completely rebuilt anyways, then it was lucky that it was as bad as it was. Because there was no adhesive left, the pieces would come apart wholly and cleanly (I hoped). If they were in good shape with no rot or fractures. then we were in business.
No adhesive left, at all.
We picked at it for a while, scraping the last remaining flakes of varnish off and started to toss ideas around for the next couple steps, cleaning it and gluing it back up etc.
No varnish.
First though, it would have to come apart, and that was going to take more time than we had that night.
I went back last night and we were able to take off the hardware in stages. It looked like the hardware, mast band and any through-bolts were the only things keeping the mast from crumbling into it separate pieces onto the floor.
Rigging and hardware in surprisingly great shape.
The spreaders, tangs, instrument ends, sheaves etc from the mast head and other hardware came off easily. Once everything was removed, the mast fell open like an old dry cigar box. We removed the wiring from the inside and it was done. There was now one long piece that runs the length of the aft face of the mast, with the bronze sail track still attached (it runs the full length and there must be 50 screws, so that stayed on).
Bottom of sailtrack.
There was also the Port and Stbd faces which were four pieces all together, two pieces scarfed together to make up each side and lastly, there was two pieces scarfed together making up the leading edge.
Scarf.
On the inside of the mast, about halfway down, was a small 2 ft long board that was water soaked and rotten. It looked like there may have even been some bugs staying in there at some point.
Rotten, wet mystery wood.
This thankfully, was the only real damage to the whole mast. I think that if this had sat there outside for another spring, unprotected, this rot would have likely spread and if it was 6 months earlier, the pieces probably wouldn't have come apart so easily and cleanly. Good timing.
Not a drop of glue.
So for now, the pieces sit there on a shelf in the barn/workshop and wait to be cleaned up and rebuilt. The hardware filled a large recycling box, sits in my workshop at home and is waiting to rejoin the rest.
Spreaders will need replacing, if the kid is ever going to jump off of these.
Beefy Cheoy Lee hardware still in great condition.
For the cost of two Heinekens, we had a "consultant" look at it and suggest some ways to make a frame to hold the pieces of the mast together during the glue up.
Hopefully sometime soon I'll get to it.
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