So, the task for today, apart from the varnishing, is to try to get the four bolsters done for the shrouds, forestay and job halyard. The octagonal section I glued up yesterday were taking into the house overnight so that the epoxy was hard before I started work.

I cut out three staves from one of the octagons to start with.

This will form the two shroud bolsters about here on the mast.

The protruding corners were planed off and the piece given a general sanding to remove excess epoxy and high spots.

Then I used the mast as a former to sand the inside of the octagon.

It does the job.

Fairly cylindrical. I'd like to say that I did it all on the mast, but I'm way too lazy for that and I cheated.

I have one of these things. I think it is called a drum or bobbin sander and I used to to remove the bill of the waster from the inside of the wood.

Quite a lot of waste in fact! Then the mast sander was used to finish it off.

The next task was to draw the shape of the bolster on the mast using the soft loop. This was transferred to a piece of paper and cut out and the shape drawn on the inside of the wood. The shapes were cut out using a band saw, sanded a lot to give the correct shape and then dry fit screwed into position.

Notice that the upper edges are sloped so that the loop of rigging naturally falls towards the mast.

They look quite large and bulky when close up.

But not so bad when you stand at the bottom of the mast.

Finally, for today, they were coated with epoxy and glued into place. I will buy a suitable bolt and fit that when it arrives.

The second octagon was cut in two in preparation for constructing the other two bolsters. The almost heart-shaped piece of paper here is the required shape of the previous two bolsters. I'll use the top part of that to shape the tops of the two remaining bolsters, but after lunch.

So here are the roughly cut bolsters...

...and a few hours later shaped, glued and screwed in place.

I also coated the bearing surfaces with neat epoxy to seal the end grain and also to add some strength to the surface of the wood.

So how did I do?

All but two of the items on my list and they are the mast truck and fitting the tabernacle. The tabernacle is ready to fit but I do not have enough of the correctly sized bolts to fix it. All in all I'm pretty happy with the way the long weekend went.

This week I hope to have the tabernacle fixed and once that is done the mast will be raised so that I can position the gooseneck. This means that the gooseneck can be bedded in epoxy like the mast bands and also have some screws put in to prevent it from rotating on the mast. Once the truck is done the mast is ready for varnishing. If the custom metal work does not arrive this week and I get to the point of varnishing the mast and bowsprit, then I'l start on the rigging and sails.