Wooden mast repair

[viva]

My wooden mast is made up of 8 sections and some of these the glue has failed in sections about a metre in length and the sections have separated. V Small gap if any but the sections flex under thumb pressure. A shipwright has advised me to clean out the joints with a hacksaw blade and then inject some West epoxy with a slow hardener. I have puchased some large bore hyperdermic syringes and needles to achieve this. I will then give 6 coats of varnish. (existing varnish is in pretty good cond.) My questions are 1. Should I add any filler to the epoxy and if so how much? 2. Are you happy with this approach?
Many thanks in advance for your feedback

 

[NUTMEG]

Had a similar problem on a Sitka spruce mast on my gaffer. The bottom had rotted and was replaced with a long scarfe joint but higher up some of the glue joints had failed. I was advised to do the same by a master shipwright. He emphasised the importance of really getting the joints clean.

I used no filler in the epoxy mix and it worked a treat. I did use little softwood wedges to open the cracks a bit to make sure I had removed all the old glue and black mould though.

Good luck!

 

[Gone sailing]

Had a similar problem on a Sitka spruce mast on my gaffer. The bottom had rotted and was replaced with a long scarfe joint but higher up some of the glue joints had failed. I was advised to do the same by a master shipwright. He emphasised the importance of really getting the joints clean.

I used no filler in the epoxy mix and it worked a treat. I did use little softwood wedges to open the cracks a bit to make sure I had removed all the old glue and black mould though.

Good luck!

This is on my todo list also.
Good luck

 

[ianc1200]

I put thickened epoxy into the opened up joints in my Cornish Crabber mast back in (ie same as Steve's/Sophie 19 with his Crabber then) March/April 2013. Then found the VHF cable needed replacing, and had the local yard split the mast, re-cable, glue back together, however, they found internal rot at the base of the mast (due to water getting in the open joints?).

 

[ccscott49]

I had exactly the same problem with my douglas fir mizzen mast, glue had failed, I considered the hacksaw blade trick, but in the end put 1/4"splines in the cracks, after routing them out, this way I was sure I was glueing to good clean wood, worked for me and not a lot of work once you had set up a small router and sawed and planed a bunch of fir splines. Epoxied it all in with un thickened glue on firts, to soak wood, then thickened epoxy and drove the splines in, this made sure glue was "pressurized"into the cracks. Worked for me.