We’re back in the boat house with Acorn to Arabella! In this week’s featured video, Steve adds to his growing collection of spars while the bowsprit and main boom are glued and laminated using our High Performance Epoxy.
If you have been following their journey over the past 6 years, you know that Acorn to Arabella is an incredible wooden boat building project. Steve Denette started as an amateur boat builder and is now building this 38’ wooden sailboat in his backyard. The plans are from designer William Atkin’s Ingrid with a Stormy Petrel’s gaff rig. The weekly episodes document the journey all the way from tree felling, to lumber milling, to sharing details of the woodworking, carpentry, metalsmithing, tool building and boat building.
A short while back, Steve and Aaron put some of the remaining spruce stock through the thickness planer in the first step towards making the bowsprit as well as the booms for the main and mizzen. Now, Steve and KP work together pouring thickened High Performance Epoxy with Medium Hardener over the 2” spruce beams. They work in unison pouring the epoxy and using a metal trowel as well as a roller to glue the boards, then clamp everything together to cure.
Once the epoxy has cured, Steve roughs out the bowsprit and works on cutting and shaping the mizzen boom. What started off as square stock has been brought down to a round shape with a taper where it’s thinner at the top, wider in the center, and thinner again at the tip. In the video, Steve covers his method for making a tapered spar.
Never miss an episode! Be sure to like this video and subscribe to their channel as they are getting closer and closer each week to the much anticipated launch of Arabella. Let them know in the comments below what you think of this ultimate DIY boat building project! Thanks for watching!
