Over the last two weekends, I helped my brother in law make a mast for his Barnegat Bay Sneakbox, a beautiful little wooden boat, built in 1922, in Barnegat, NJ. The original mast is in fine shape as is the rigging, but it has to be taken out of the hole to move the boat on a trailer, a tough job for a couple of people. He designed a steel tabernacle that my son Sam is building from 1/4 steel that will allow the new mast, which is shorter by the distance from the deck to the bottom of the step hole ( about 16” ) … but it’s still a long thing, about 15’ by 3.5” square at the base. We had a book we referenced for the steps and when i was done, I realized I’d made a 15’ Windsor chair spindle, or a 15’ bed post. Same process, same order of operations, fun thing to do. I enjoyed a break from my precision furniture building and just enjoyed the process of hand planing, carving and spokeshaving a long piece of spruce by eye and hand … More pictures and references on my blog at http://dorsetcustomfurniture.blogspot.com/2009/05/making-sailboat-mast.html  scroll down on the blog for the original post …. click the photos to enlarge them

— dan