Forty-five Hours Later...

Lobie II's mast had a final sanding this morning prior to the start of an intensive period of sealing and varnishing, which I will leave to the owners.

The top 10ft of the mast was scarphed and glued a few days ago, followed by a long day of shaping and fairing first with an electric planer (I warmed to it, after having been so rude once) and a variety of planes, both block, No 5, Jack and Jointers.  And finally the miraculous Veritas block plane, given to me by my American friends Turner and Nancy Matthews. Like holding a Bentley in your hand (or more to the point the wheel of a Lotus Elise).

Then came a spate of electric sanding, a great deal opf squinting and constant checking the taper with a straight edge. The old and new are now as seamlessly bonded and blended together as I can make them. Once varnished to within an inch of its life, it should stand for a good few years.

Thanks are due to Jeremy Freeland at Collars for providing a flawless and extraordinarily close-grained 20ft x 7.5in x 4in lump of Douglas Fir, which was so close to the original spruce as to be almost identical. The dimensions, by pure chance, were almost to the millimetre the same as those of the old section. Maybe Moody's made the mast to match a standard piece of timber. Whatever, the wastage was minimal.