Mast and Boom are finished!

After many long days of work, stripping the spars of their hardware, sanding them down to bare wood, repairing splits and holes, ordering new hardware, and varnishing, I have finally completed the Mast and Boom. It was not an easy task and my hands are bruised from putting many screws into the wood.

One of the things that I noticed, that I thought I would hate, is the contrast between Spark's original stamped aluminum hardware and the new bronze screws and items. Bronze against polished aluminum looks wonderful and I am going to have to rethink about going all bronze in the future.

One thing that did save my behind on several occasions was my habit of ordering more than I needed. a year ago I bought a lot of One Hundred #8 bronze screws and decorative washers. I think I bought them for Flirt, my SeaSprite 12, but I could be wrong. In this regard, I used quite a few in putting all the hardware back on. These screws also use a specialized and very out of fashion screwdriver, the Frearson. While it looks a lot like a Phillips head, but it is much shallower with angled blades for a better "bite" on the screw when driving. I understand why Popeye has such oversized forearms now, he evidently was a boatbuilder before he became a sailor.

If you read the post on the sheaves, you can see here how they look against the lighter wood of the mast..