Note the Finished mast in background. Sorry there is no shaping pics it is a very detailed and long processed to get all 16' in. Here we are waiting on good weather for varnish. It is the same as the one at the bottom of this set of pics. The aluminum sleeve is fit in the same way as the PVC receptacle.

Here is one of the new top mast with cerf cuts put in by hand.

Hand saw set up = two 1/8 popular strips clamped precisely. I use a pair of dial calipers do care full math let this dept strong and then shave, and sand to EXACT inside diameter size for the PVC in this case. Aluminum in the main mast case. Why do this well after only two years of use I had my original top mast split out in major ways. More pics on that later. There is also a complete engineering solution to this issue that will post in a short while.

PVC for top mast. This to is over size to fit into the aluminum sleeve. The out side diameter is .040 thousands larger than the inside diameter of that aluminum sleeve on the main mast. Simple fix is to CAREFULLY take back side of a chisel and shave that material off. A little sanding in between to keep the circumference accurate.

My bad on the rest of these they are from the winter of 2011. This is my set up for a accurate scarf joint for main mast joints.

Yep with a little math and patience I got it. Note the SMALL brads on the foot of the angle. The door has a line on it that the templates get set on. A clamp on the back side and well the rest is history.

The finish of the scarf joints were good and very accurate. Much better than trying to sand them as Dix makes hint at.

Well here we are in a winter of record snow fall making a extra large epoxy run. First I want to note that the original main mast had some struggles in my original set up of the off sets of the scarf joints. Some of them were week at the end of two years of sailing. So I went with a different set up that ended up much stronger. I ran 12's - 4' opposite of each other, then the opposite side was 11' and 5' opposite of each other, next was 10' and 6' lastly 12' and with a 2' on each end opposite of each other. The last scarf with the 12' with a 2' on each end doubled my scarf joints yet my hope is to gain strength and straightness. Get the drift. No pun intended.

So here we are note the careful lay out I am working by myself running 128' of epoxy and that usually calls for six batches and a whole lot of scrambling even with the below freezing weather to help delay the kick off of the epoxy.

Note the careful lay all the way down to the zip ties and pliers are ready to go because fingers can not handle all that pulling alone!

Here we are back safe and sound in the house. Note the extended popular birds mouth hanging out the end. I give the mast about two hours then make a second run down all zip ties pulling all slack out making sure it adheres well.