rs600 mast

[Banshee Ambulance]

Flat Stanley's mast has seen better days and there is an rs600 mast kicking about at the boat yard with my name on it. Has anyone done a 600/cherub conversion? Can I use my existing spreaders or will I have to make a new carbon set?  I'm not going to be on the water for a while anyway and I think it might make him less top heavy.

[roland_trim]

Flat Stanley's mast has seen very few days recently

Before you do the conversion check the RS600 mast really is lighter - a set of scales could cause you a great shock  as some of them are very heavy.

[ross_burkin]

That mast is fine, the last one was 20 years old and wasn't slow. The 600 mast would be pimp though.

[Phil Alderson]

I used an Angell RS600 mast on the Flying Kipper, it is heavier than a C-Tech but probably saved about 2kg compared with the aluminium one I replaced.

I weighed the broken bits of both an Angel and Superspars mast and the Superspars was slightly lighter, but there was not much in it.

Go for it if you can get the bits for free or little cash, I would not spend much on it.

[Banshee Ambulance]

whats the deal with spreaders though?

[ross_burkin]

http://www.sailingsource.com/cherub/test/doku.php/tech/spreaders

http://www.sailingsource.com/cherub/test/doku.php/tech/rigging

Iain put spreaders on a 600 mast for Suicide Blonde, so he's the man you want to speak to.

http://www.sailingsource.com/cherub/test/doku.php/boats/2644ic#the_rig

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=O687PMgI7WM

[Will_Lee]

When Trev Faye came to stay the night but accidentally stayed for three months in 2004 he later sent four very pretty carbon spreaders as rent. They are ours but are free to a good home.

I think they are 450mm long and very strong.

To attach them to the mast you make a jig with the spreader angled up at the angle to bisect the angle of deflection of the shroud, and use a holesaw to cut a shape that matches the mast at the end. Getting the fore and aft angle right is difficult but you can do fine tuning by moving the attachment point for the wire at the end.

I agree with Phil: RS600 mast is better than nothing, but the moment you find yourself spending any significant money on it, you'd be much better off making your own mast: It'll be lighter, have better properties, be easier to set up, and nicer to sail with too.

There is expertise and motivation around at the moment for mast building.

[Banshee Ambulance]

I have secured two short rs600 masts for 50 quid. How do I go about joining them together for the purpose of making one long functioning mast? I'm guessing it involves lots of carbon uni and some weave? I have no idea in what order or quantity!

[Tim Noyce]

What sort of 600 masts are they? Angel or superspars?

[Phil Alderson]

To join two bits of mast together, the first thing you need is a sleeve to go inside the mast.

If you can find a piece of carbon tube that exactly fits inside your mast then that is the best thing, if not then you can make one from a bit of tube that is too big.

You might be able to use a length of the mast if you have enough spare. You just cut a strip along the length of the tube so that when squeezed together it is small enough to fit in the tube. There will still be a couple of mm gap but this is OK. This sleeve should be about 30cm long.

Now clean and sand the inside of the mast as much as you can, mark the middle of the sleave and epoxy it into one part of the mast. The epoxy should have some colloidal sillica in to thicken it up. Once the epoxy has set you can coat the bit of sleave sticking out in epoxy slide the other half of the mast in place, chock it so it is straight and let it set.
(You can do it in one hit by using a screw in the mast to stop the sleave from sliding too far into the mast)

The sleave provides most of the strencth so you just need a couple of layers of Uni and a couple of weave at +-45 around the outside and job is a goodun.

[Tim Noyce]

When we sleaved the 700 mast on 2643 we went down to SuperSpars and they gave us a piece of offcut for a few quid.

I'd recomend chocking it nice and straight though. We though we had but it still came out slightly off-straight! So be warned!

[Banshee Ambulance]

a have two almost complete angel masts and the top half of a superspars. Both the angel ones a shot below the ali sleve thing.