Gaff

I took a day's holiday today to work on the Gaff. Last Saturday we bought enough sawn pine to make a full size gaff. Ordinary building pine isn't good enough really, but it is cheap and we sorted enough staves with few knots to be worth a try. I don't feel confidant enough to try it with expensive wood such as Douglas fir without more practice.

I started by using the power planer on groups of three staves to put a taper on one narrow edge. Skene says taper to 93% at the throat and 72% at the peak. Iain Oughtred says 82% and 62%. Neither say where to start the taper. I more or less arbitrarily divided the 4.5 m length in three with the middle kept at 100% and went with about 85% at the throat and 70% at the peak.

Then we put the grooves in. This didn't go too badly but its really hard to get it smooth at the tapers. It would be easier to put the taper in after, but that would risk damaging the edges of the grooves.

I did a trial dry fit of the complete spar. I used the test piece I made last week as a former and assembled one end inside it. This worked a treat. Then Alison was able to put the rest together and I clamped the whole thing losely with cable ties. This proved that narrow cable ties are not enough on their own as clamps, which is what everyone says.

The resultant spar is too thick. I need to trim each stave on the taper side to slim down the whole thing. I also need to improve the groove. Whether I can do this with the router I'm not sure. Its hard with the table but maybe impossible without.

If I can make the pine spar good enough, I might use it for a season. Or I might get the Douglas fir now.