Phil, thank you for the reply, looks like you have a very nice mast from the pictures. What is the weight of your homebuildt tube compared with a similar alu extrusion?
It seems to me like homebuilding is much more widespread "down under" than it is in Europe or the US. Perhaps there is something in your mentality or society that makes it so.
I like the tought of building a wooden core in strip cedar over a male mould, but need to watch weight compared to a foam core (foam will have less compression strength, so there is a tradeoff) or 'dissolving foam mould'. Ply is a poor choice in my uneducated opinion, too many fibers in the wrong direction and lots of heavy glue. Cold moulding would be better perhaps.
As for doing both halves on the same male mould, what about taper? I know the Superwing section is untapered, but I would like a certain amount of taper at the top. If I build a mast, I want it to have as many aerodynamically advantages as possible within budget and time.
I also wonder about how much the extra carbon/epoxy for joining and the sailtrack+glue affects stiffness.
The Schionning designs website was nice. I especially liked the A-cat page. Lots of innovation there.. Ref:
http://www.schionningdesigns.com.au/www/page.cfm?pageID=263I think he is on to something with his spreaderless carbon mast. This is also what I have in mind, but I was thinking about adding "pre-bend" out of the mould to make it easier to trim and more responsive.
