Hello Ronald

Depending upon the diameter of the masts you could try wooden curtain rings.

I once heard of a chap in model boats mag who made them this way….

He took a sharp try or Jack plane ( the ones with the longer sole), and a piece of nice straight oregon pine ( redwood) about 20mm thick. he set the plane to a nice even cut so that he could get a shaving the full length of the piece of timber about 300mm long. he shaved it off the thickness edge, not the face. Once he had taken the shaving off in one full stroke of the plain, the shaving being naturally curly, he put a plastic film around the same diameter dowel as his mast.think he used cling film……..he then glued the shaving of pine into a nice laminated ring with a waterproof glue (similar to aliphatic resin) and left it to harden for a few days….making sure that there was a nice gap between the ring and the mast.

The laminated ring then came out at around 3-4mm thick and he cut it to the deapth he wanted and sanded it nicely.

I thought at the time what a fiddly way of doing it, and so tried the same technique…….I was amazed how easy it was, and although I only made one ring as a trial, it went together very easily, quickly and was incredibly strong in the end……………and when I come to build my lifeboat with sails, it'll be the method I use.

neil.

Edited By neil howard-pritchard on 22/09/2012 09:47:40

Edited By neil howard-pritchard on 22/09/2012 09:49:56

Hi all,

this method is very good in that a range of different sized rings can be made at the same time. All you need are the wood shavings – luckily for me there's a wood working shop just down the road (60 yards) so I have a ready supply.

This method is mentioned in my copy of Hobbs, making a model sail boat, published 1923, and he refers to it then as an"old and tried method"!

Kim.