Hi Bud,

Bud Taplin wrote:

Bob Meade wrote:Hi Bud,

 I just laminated a new bowsprit for Treasure ( W32 # 810) and am beginning to plane it into shape. I noticed that the old sprit had a 1/2 in.horizontal taper but the drawing I have from your manual has no taper annotated. Is the drawing for a stainless sprit or am I missing something? The wood (VG Douglas Fir) was spendy so I thought I would ask before I carved it up!

Thanks,

Bob 

The standard wooden bowsprit is 5" high at the butt, and 4" high at the forward end.  The stainless bowsprit I make uses a 4" square box tubing, so is not tapered.  I have the drawing of the wood bowsprit and can email it to you if you want.

Bud

Bud, Thanks that would be great, bmeade54@hotmail.com 

Mike McCoy wrote:The drawing I have for the bowsprit shows it to be one piece, not laminated.

Did WestSail switch to laminated bowsprits for cost reasons and/or limited availability of satisfactory wood in a size needed for the bowsprit?  Or is lamination a truly better approach?

Mike, Our boat (one of the last factory finished boats, # 810) had a laminated bowsprit, because our boat was not completely finished before Westsail went out of business, I have no way of knowing if this was factory work or part of the finish work the original owner had done elsewhere. As to your question as to laminate or solid piece and which is stronger  it depends on the quality of the large piece compared to laminating high quality vertical grain kiln dried Douglas fir. I chose to laminate because it has become almost impossible to find such a high quality timber ( vertical tight grain with the grain in the right  direction and completely knot free). Modern laminating glues are very strong and depending on who you ask, stronger than single beams but it does require careful attention to detail as to grain direction and good shop conditions  I chose wood because ours is the last factory boat and I wanted to keep it original. 

Mike McCoy wrote:Reason I ask is I just discovered some dry rot in the center lamination of my bowsprit (my WS32 is factory built as well).  It's my fault really...  I left my Yankee in its bag over the rainy season and unknown to me & despite drain grommets water puddled in the bottom of the bag keeping the bowsprit wet for a few months.  While I'd used epoxy paint on my bowsprit, I guess there was enough 'chipped off' next to the anchor rollers to allow water to get underneath (that's my theory anyway).

Anyway, now I obviously need/plan to replace it.  Unfortunately obtaining "high quality vertical grain kiln dried Douglas fir" is only a fantasy here in Guatemala.  Unless I have it shipped in anyway.

Still, it might be worth checking into. Is there a particular source you might recommend? 

In the interim I'll google it.  For a 3 layer lamination what size lumber would I be looking for (aside from being 10' long)? i.e. 5/4X4 or 5/4X6?

Mike- For my lamination I used 2- 2x6 dimensional VG Douglas fir (actual is 5 1/2 x 1 1/2 for a  total of 3" wide and a 1-  5/4 in between to make the entire laminate just a tad over 4" wide. On the West Sytems web site there is a great "how to"  for laminating wood. I mixed to a consistency between mayonaise and peanut butter. clamping was done at a " Handshake " firmness so as not to squeeze out the glue. After planing and hole drilling multiple coats of penetrating epoxy, then final assembly. With all of this I have about 40 hours into the project and maybe $500.00 in wood, epoxy ect. ect. I don't know how much the bowsprits were over engineered so trying to guess at a replacement wood is difficult at best, I know a lot of other boats, Hans Christian i.e.,  have used Honduran mahogany, In a past life I was a forestry major so I had some old books that listed the relative load strengths of different wood species and mahogany was pretty close and  would be my second choice.( That is Honduran Mahogany and NOT the other species labeled as Philippine Mah. or Luan ect. a different species altogether). Also there is an old story about using tropical woods in tropical conditions and Northern woods in higher lats. Anyhoo, I hope this helps. I keep thinking Bud might chime in here but I'm sure he's drinking a Mai Tai and laughin' at us!

There are at least two ways to measure wood. Finished and rough. The stuff at the lumber yard is finished. The stuff you import, if it is rough will be measured in increments of !/4". I bought teack for the decks and caprails that was 4/4. Rough, but cleaned up to the magic 13/16" or some times 7/8". If I needed something to come out 2" I bought 17/4. When you buy it that way it is usually sold by the board foot.  (Teak is about $40 a bboard foot) A board foot would be 4/4 by a real 12" by a real 12". You will need a planer to clean it up. Hope this helps.