Next we are going to need the mast rail. The mast rail is not a bought part made out of plastic, like you see it in every other board.
The mast rail is made out of Paulownia. As we want our boards to be as natural as it possibly can be. And we use Paulownia because the mast rail needs to bear water. And as mentioned poplar is not doing well with water.
The mast rail is milled on the router. Cause when I built my first by hand, I was absolutely not satisfied with the result and the router is making the process not only faster but also with the accuracy we need.
After having produced the mast rail, we also need a fin box. And I decided to try out a Power box. Since this is the first time I am making a power box, I need the shape. Luckily I have two old power box fins in my cellar and bevor I could even think of starting I made myself a sketch.
Took me some while to get all the measuremnts and hopefully they are correct. But the prototype will show – that is what a prototype is for, isn’t it
Yes, the fin box is done by hand. It has to much angels within and I do not have a CNC router. And on the other hand, it is more fun anyways to do it by hand at least as long as the chisels are sharp. So my prototyp was done a little to big in the opening. I made a slight mistake couse I took the measurement from the end of the head of the power box fin. I need it 6mm below, because the last 6mm will be the bottom layer of Paulownia on the board- hope that points coming clear, if not I hope it clears out in a future post.
Except this point I am very satisfied with all the other measurements and the fit of the fin. So let’s produce the power box that is actually being used in the board.
The block for the fin box is more solid. The reason for this is, that the screw inserts need als be in this block. Could have done it in two seperate pieces but I felt it would end up being to filigree.
After drawing the outer shape on the fin box I cut it out with my japanese handsaw. Always a pleasure working with it. So sharp and fast, pure fun.
Planing it down to the final shape. And taking a critical look if everything is even
Then I cut the fin box lengthwise in half and repeated the steps like I did it with the prototype. I fit in the power box fin.
Enough done for today.
Stay tuned, it will be continued
