Spar gauge
With epoxy long cured I finally found the evening to clean spar blanks. The mast was laminated from two pieces, leaving 10mm wide margin for screws which were holding both halves in place during gluing. It is there where most ugly knots reside so now it was time to cut that out.
My table-saw does not have the blade wide enough to cut through 90mm wood and I didn’t want to handle so big timber myself anyway so I planed the excess down with a power plane. To a great joy of my neighbors.
I finished off with my hand-plane - the mother of all planes. To my neighbors relieve.
With blanks ready I rushed to make spar gauge.
Here comes a bit of primary school geometry: the ratio at which we should cut a square to form an octagon is 7:10:7. Knowing that we can easily make the gauge for marking our spars, even if they are tapered.
For those who do not accept such facts without proof there it goes:
(I was explaining this to my daughter and she was willing to listen so I made a drawing).
My spars are at most 90mm in diameter so I halved all dimensions and made 120mm gauge.
Cheeks which will ride on blank’s edges are made from beech wood, the rest is pine.
Next step will be to mark all stations and taper both spars before I mark them with the gauge.