Painting masts to look like wood

[JonnyBoats]

I have a friend who saw one of the new Hinkley's that has a mast that is made to look like wood. He has an aluminum spar that he intends to repaint and would like to make his look like that as well.

I rather suspect that the Hinkley masts on the new daysailor may be a composit rather than aluminum, so it may not be possible to do this the way Hinkley does.

Anyway has anyone done this on an aluminum mast and how did it turn out? What products did you use?

[JonnyBoats]

As a follup:

My friend called Hinkley who suggested he contact Hall Spars, which he did.

Hall said they would be happy to paint his mast just like the ones on the Hinkley 42 Daysailor. All he needed to do was send them the mast and they would paint it for $18,000 and send it back to him (at his expense).

When I llast saw my friend he was painting his mast white with a roller.

[Case]

Funny!

It does take a real artist to paint a mast to look like wood. Thats the real reason why it costs so much... not the paint itself but the artistry. Its a real fine line from looking like real wood and looking like fake wood.

- Case

[Quetzalsailor]

I saw one of the Hinckley daysailors with the mast and boom painted to look like wood. I thought it was perfectly dreadful! Masts are usually arrow-straight-grained, quartered Spruce on anything newer than a Gloucester fisherman. The Hinckley's was painted to look like slab sawn cheap pine. I made such a remark, suitably detuned, to the salesman who told me I could have mine painted to my expectations.

I once did marbleizing on a wood floor. It took a week and multiple tries before I had something that looked right. Then I did the whole floor. Point is, you can indeed learn this skill; there are books on decorative painting and special tools for the purpose. Painting a mast to look like Spruce would be easier than, say, painting cabinet doors to look like burled Mahogany. One difficulty, I think, would be using marine urethanes rather than conventional paints: multiple and correct colors, mixing, time and thinning would be the issues. A clear topcoat would be easy.

I had often thought that a Hall carbon spar with an 1/8" varnished Spruce veneer overlay would be just the thing for a Concordia or similar boat. Then, I found that it's been done. Veneering is a learnable skill, too.

[Case]

Veneering a carbon fiber mast? Now that I didn't think of before!

That would definitely be the best route instead of painting a faux wood finish...


- Case

[bcooke]

They make masts out of real wood too.

[Rachel]

I feel like I've posted this before, and I don't have time right now to look up the specific issue, but there was an article in Good Old Boat (2003?) wherein a father/son team fixed up a Venture of Newport 23'.

They went to paint the mast (the father does auto painting work, if I remember correctly), and were just going to paint it brown, then, kind of on the spur of the moment, experimented with some air-brushing to make it look like wood. It looked good enough that they left it.

It was an interesting project. I mean, no one would argue that a basic VofN is a work of fine boat-building, but they treated it something like a theatre set, and had good results. By that I don't mean that they did bad work, but that they allowed themselves a certain amount of "out of the box" thinking. As an example, they faux-painted plywood to make "patinaed" bronze trim rings for the ports (real bronze was in the works as budget allowed). For what it was -- a father/son project to get an aging trailer sailer back on the water -- I thought they made a good job of it.

There were photos of the mast in the article, so if you found it you could see how the project turned out.

I've also seen some Falmouth Cutters (Morse-built) that had gold Awlgripped masts (USA egg-yolk gold, not jewelry-gold), which I thought looked quite pleasant. As an earlier poster pointed out, wooden masts don't really look "wood-grained" anyway much of the time. The gold looked nice without really trying too hard to be "faux," in my opinion.

Rachel

[Quetzalsailor]

Seems to me that years ago I read an article by (or about) Jon Wilson's (of WoodenBoat) Concordia. He ended up with a beige painted carbon mast. I think the boats were born with wood, then some would have been changed to aluminum. I recall that you can save enough weight aloft to be able to increase the height of the stick or you can end up with a stiffer boat. Thus my thought about Spruce veneer.

Certainly the homemade hollow wood stick for my old FD weighs more than the aluminum stick for a 60s FD and lots more than the Needle Spar current FD use.

[triton #227]

How about a polished aluminum mast with a clearcoat to protect it.

Now that would look good!

[keelbolts]

I remember that article about Wilson's Concordia. Now that I have an aluminum mast, I also think about painting it. I think the worst thing about a metal mast is that they usually don't taper. They remind me of a woman with heavy ankles. A friend if mine owns a Gieger designed wooden boat with the only tapered aluminum mast I've sailed with.

[Tim]

There are lots of tapered aluminum masts, but one doesn't tend to see them on cruising boats so much--there just isn't any real benefit for many boats.

Because tapering an aluminum spar requires cutting and then rewelding a stock extrusion to form the taper, they cost correspondingly more. Therefore, their use isn't that widespread. But you see them all the time on racing boats, performance-oriented racer/cruisers, and a lot of fractional rigs on a variety of boats.

They do look nice, but unless one is really looking for a bendier spar, there's little real benefit for most.

The future of spars is carbon, I think. As the price continues to come down, they'll become commonplace just the way aluminum usurped wood once it made financial sense.

[keelbolts]

I haven't noticed that many. I'll have to be more observant. How "bendy" are carbon fiber masts? I know racers and others like to bend their masts for sail control. A wood mast will generally bend far past the point where an aluminum mast folds. How's a CF mast compare?

I still think, if you're building it yourself, that a wooden stick is cheaper. When I was looking for a plastic boat, I saw one w/out her mast and priced the mast, both complete and in pieces, and decided that I either had to get one with a mast or build a wood one.

[bcooke]

How's a CF mast compare?

How much money do you have?... :-)

[Tim]

I haven't noticed that many.

Why, here's one now.

[feetup]

I work in the fabricating industry and welding a tapered tube, and keeping it straight is one of the harder things to do. The weld shrinks as it cools, and pulls the structure toward that side like a banana, and even if both sides are welded the pull will be uneven and it will end up like a straightened out paper clip. With carbon and stainless steel we always allow a genrous amount of time for cold setting after welding to bring it back straight, but aluminum with its high young's modulus is notoriously hard to cold set. It also work hardens badly so the amount of cold setting must be accomplished in one go if at all possible.
I would be curious how they maintain the heat treated condition of the extrusion after welding, or just dont worry about it.
Whatever they do, it obviously works 'cause the mast in Tim's photo appears quite straight even though the angle of view is a bit to the right.

Regarding carbon fiber masts, they still are and will be for some time a toy of the rich. While carbon fiber is wonderfully stiff for its weight it has almost no difference between yield and failure. It dosn't deform and take a set (permanently bend) like aluminum, it simply explodes into a gazillion sharp shards if forced beyond its elastic limit. It suffers dreadfully from stress risers caused by attatchments, holes, or even minor dings like a spnnaker pole could give it. To be successful it needs to be VERY carefully engineered, but as of yet the empirical data for its design is still forming. Like all the ultra exotics used on Formula 1 race cars it does it's job superbly, as long as the designers know exactly what that job is.
With the fabulously wealthy a new mast is only an inconvenience in that they have lost the race, or in the case of the likes of the Vendee globe it could pose a danger if it could not be cut away in time to avoid holing. To the rest of us it probably means the better part of a years wages. And don't forget that such a mast would definately have a lifespan far shorter than any spar on a plastic classic.
I like to refer to all these exotics as " unobtanium"

Feetup

[bcooke]

Carbon fiber might be closer than we think.
A quick search shows Tartan is offering CF spars with their boats.

I was in a shop recently that makes CF spars for production boats - not high end production boats but not low end either. And then there were the large unstayed versions...



Getting a bit off topic I suppose if one wants to replicate a wood-looking mast. Maybe, if one really wanted a wood looking mast, it should be remembered that no one is going to get very close so a vague wood-ish paint job might be just fine from 20+ feet away.

-Britton

-Britton

[gone2ddogs]

What about painting a wood mast to look like Aluminum?

Just a thought.

J

[triton #227]

Somebody say they wanted a wood mast?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SITKA-SP ... dZViewItem

[fusto]

Somebody say they wanted a wood mast?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SITKA-SP ... dZViewItem

Mezanine mast?
Wanish?
Duoble Lender?

Doesnt ebay offer any kind of spell check service for their listings?!

Sure is a neat looking rig though...

[Quetzalsailor]

The LeComtes have lovely tapered aluminum masts, painted from day one with epoxy primers, lots of stainless trim and hardware. The sail track is bronze and screwed to the mast with stainless screws. That track is spaced out from the mast for the lower several feet on Tuffnol.

Despite all the obviously wrong things to have done, mine is not badly corroded. Evidently the bedding and isolation work was meticulous!

The spinnaker pole is less blessed. Its welds at the tapering gores are sloppy.