Boom Gallows

 To keep the weight down I will laminate western red cedar (which is very light timber) with hoop pine for the boom gallows. The red colored cedar will look nice laminated next to the light-colored hoop pine.

There will be a total of 11 laminations each measuring 8mm in thickness which will make the gallows strong.

I will also drill vertical holes through the laminations to further reduce weight.

An outline of the boom gallows is drawn onto a piece of scrap board and timber blocks screwed along the bottom edge to clamp the laminations in place.

Time to make some dust.

I milled this........

Into this.......

Ten of the eleven lamination strips are glued and clamped to the plastic covered clamping board.

The 11th, top strip will be glued on later after I drill the vertical holes to reduce the gallows weight. 

After removing the clamps and plastic I cleaned the epoxy squeeze with a large disc sander before running the section through a thicknesser. 

And here is the cleaned-up and shaped section. I rough shaped the ends with a jig saw and cleaned them up with a belt sander.

Time to drill the 25mm diam. holes for the boom gallows support tubes. I used a Forstner bit in a bench drill.

I spent time setting the gallows into position to ensure the holes are centered and at the correct angle.

The Gallow poles are set up in the boat and several test fits with minor adjustments were required for the gallows to sit squarely on the poles.

As I mentioned earlier to reduce weight, I drilled twenty-six 20mm diam. holes vertically into the gallows from the top. 

 

I didn't weigh the section prior to drilling the holes but the section feels quite light without compromising strength. (I hope)

 The top laminate is glued in place covering up the holes.

The top laminate is cleaned up, trimmed and the edges routed. Holes are drilled for rope to secure the mast. The first coat of epoxy is applied.