11 responses to “Finished planing the ugly mast”

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  Amos June 19th, 2007 at 17:59

  Hi Matti,
  I wouldn’t worry about the checks and knots. After the mast is oiled and is out in the sun a while it will darken and the defects will be hardly visible. As for the crookedness, I guess that is the problem with a tree. No matter how straight a tree looks standing, it really is not that straight once you cut it down. Can you rig it so the strain from the halyard tends to straighten it?

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  Amos June 19th, 2007 at 18:02

  I forgot to add that your neighbors in the marina will probably not like your boat for a lot more reasons than the mast! Just the junk rig will raise eyebrows around here.

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  admin June 19th, 2007 at 19:24

  I don’t really think the halyard will straighten the mast. But I will try to have it crooked to the back or forward. Hopefully it will look more natural that way. I will use Owatrol (tung oil with white spirits or something). I don’t think that will darken like linseed oil.

  I met a junk rigged boat once that had put stays on the mast. I asked him why, and he said he didn’t need them but he got much less comments from others that way.

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  Ricard June 24th, 2007 at 01:41

  Dear Matey,
  What worries me the most about your mast is the awful way you planed it. Consider yourself lucky if the checks, knots and crookedness cover up for your craft skills.
  Seriously- it looks much better than before and I’m sure you’ll be sailing with it for a couple of years at least. Is there any possibility of weighing the mast in a fairly accurate way before treating the surface of it?

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  matti June 24th, 2007 at 08:35

  You are not such a good looking guy yourself!
  We already used about 10 liters (or was it 5…) of clear Cuprinol on it. And today I’ll do some Owatroling.
  We talked about tung oil. You know what Owatrol is made of? Tung and white spirits. Do you think I can use my tung oil to make Owatrol by mixing with thinner? It would be quite a lot cheaper.
  No way I could straighten the mast.
  /m

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  matti June 24th, 2007 at 08:36

  Ricard! Forgot to ask: Are you in Sweden for a sail in August?

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  Ricard June 24th, 2007 at 11:35

  They must have added some kind of catalyst to propagate the drying of the tung oil in ‘Owatrol’. I do not know what that could be. Tung oil does not have great drying (oxidative) properties alone. Tung oil is quite similar to linseed oil that way although the distribution of the fatty acids in the ester are different. The Tung could be prepolymerised for instance. To get to the point- I do think that you could mix it yourself but you wouldn’t be able to write ‘drying time 24hrs’ on your concoction.
  I’ll do my very best to be in Sweden in august. I’m dying to sail the monster!

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  matti June 24th, 2007 at 21:30

  Hi Ricard.
  Thanks for the explanation. It seems like we have ennough Owatrol not to try this out right now. Maybe I’ll use it on the interior somewhare instead.
  About painting the mast top white, what would you say about plain zinc white linseed paint? We have some left from the house, I believe.
  /m

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  Ricard June 25th, 2007 at 12:13

  If it weren’t for environmental and H&S reasons I would recommend a lead white pigment with linseed oil thinned with turpentine.
  Zincoxide or titaniumdioxide pigments do not interact with linseed oil the way lead does (lead pigments saponify with the oil and become extremely durable). Only difference between zinc and titanium- apart from cost- is that zinc have a refractive index that is closer the oils’. Which means that zinc is slightly more transparent than titanium. Zinc is on the other hand a more neutral white while titanium has a slight blue tinge. Geeky difference though!

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  Ricard June 25th, 2007 at 12:29

  Forgot to say that in some historic houses they used to burn/blacken the ends of large wooden beams to protect them from rot. You could do that before painting it.
  Haven’t heard of anyone doing that to their mast though!

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  matti June 25th, 2007 at 17:15

  Hm, I guess I’ll use the zink white then. Thanks R. If I use the mast as fire wood, I suppose it wont rot!
  cheers/m