mast mods

[seasolutions]

evening all,

I've just stripped my mast (approx 40' of douglass fir), and amongst other things need to replace the cables for the nav lights and VHF aerial. The existing cables appear to have been fitted when the mast was built and show no inclination to come out. Have read some previous post on this fine forum, and the best approach appears to be to rout a slot in the front of the mast, fit a conduit, and glue a spline over the top.

some questions:

is there a cunning way of setting up guides for the router (or skill saw?) so as to get a vaguely straight slot?

can anyone foresee any problems getting bast the 3 steel mast bands, and attendant steps in the taper where the shrouds / spreaders etc are attached?

presumably the covering spline needs to be fairly deep if the mast is not to be unduly weakened, can anyone suggest how deep?

It's a gaff rig, so the outside of the mast has got to be smooth

thanks in advance for the help

 

[KenMcCulloch]

A common solution is to run the cables up a shroud rather than up the mast itself. I'd be rather wary of starting to cut into a 40 year old spar myself.

 

[paulm299]

Routing a groove

On some routers you can push the pillars through the face plate to enable you to cut a central groove in the wood section by rotating the router until the pillars touch the wood . I have only used this method on new wood so I have no experience on mature wood .
Paul

 

[dur]

On some routers you can push the pillars through the face plate to enable you to cut a central groove in the wood section by rotating the router until the pillars touch the wood.
Paul

This would keep the groove central but not necessarily in a straight line. That is you could actually route a spiral this way if you wished. So you either have to follow a line by eye or set up an additional guide. I was wondering about a tensioned wire or similar...