A DIY Carbon Fiber Mast

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Alext
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A DIY Carbon Fiber Mast

Post by Alext »

I am building a Quattro 16, of Woods Design. I made cross beams, fore beam and boom out of Carbon fiber/ epoxy with PVC core.

The mast will be 8.6 meters long. The PVC is 4 meter lengths and joined with reinforcement insert pieces I made with my CNC.

Image

The profile fits snuggly inside the oval PVC tube.

I used epoxy with some wood flour to glue the pieces together.

Image
Last edited by Alext on Wed Nov 09, 2022 4:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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fallguy1000
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Re: A DIY Carbon Fiber Mast

Post by fallguy1000 »

Almost every professional will tell you it cannot be done properly.

How did you get a laminate schedule and how will you do the lamination?

Or did you buy a premade carbon profile?
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Alext
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Re: A DIY Carbon Fiber Mast

Post by Alext »

Yes. You are very correct.This will be difficult. It is in an experimental stage. There will be loads of testing and I may fail. Richard Woods recommended buying a mast.

I am following some articles I detailed in my previous post. One from this website and another by Ted Hugger of “Profession Boatbuilder”.Also with what the local market can bear.

I live in Beijing. China is not a DIY culture. Anyone here will tell me that building a boat is the wrong game here, Still I persist.

I’m gleaning information from any and every source that I can. I don’t have a set formula or theory. It would be great to have this experience and back ground.

I first compared aluminum spars, wall thicknesses and profiles. I need my carbon fiber to be as strong or perhaps stronger. I am using 3k 220gm carbon fiber twill fabric. It is 0.28mm thick. So I estimate 4 layers to be 1mm. I’m not calculating epoxy or thickness added to the fabric.

Wall thicknesses of aluminum T6 or T7 extrusion are 1.5 to 2.5mm thick. So to get that strength I calculate that I need 6 to 10 layers of carbon fiber, perhaps more.
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Alext
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Re: A DIY Carbon Fiber Mast

Post by Alext »

Image

Here I laid up 1 meter wide, 3 layers of glass fiber. I think I should have put only one layer. This is to provide something more solid for the carbon fiber to adhere to. Also I wanted to see if I could wrap the whole length without having to cut the fabric into 2 50cm strips. It went well.
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fallguy1000
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Re: A DIY Carbon Fiber Mast

Post by fallguy1000 »

Why didn't you just build a foam core that stays behind?

Most masts are supposed the be a certain weight to balance ship movements. Have you considered?

A lightening strike would shatter the carbon mast. Will you run a lightening rod?
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Re: A DIY Carbon Fiber Mast

Post by Jaysen »

Most masts use internal line/cable routing. Can’t have a solid core. Also you want the upper side of the boat as light as possible. The weight isn’t the critical issue, the material properties related to flex, fracture and torsion are the big deals.
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OrangeQuest
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Re: A DIY Carbon Fiber Mast

Post by OrangeQuest »

Looks good from the picture and hope it works out good for you.
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Alext
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Re: A DIY Carbon Fiber Mast

Post by Alext »

Thanks for the input. All things considered, and I have considered most things, weight, strength, flex etc.
I have considered foam core, and wood core (if I could only get veneer). I would like an anodized
aluminum mast and boom, that would afford me an easier way out, lol.

No replies from spar companies abroad and no one builds them in China. Again I’m in the wrong game,
or so they say. But no complaints either, I’m a stubborn old man.

So we’ll see how it goes. I’ve done preliminary testing with the cross beams and fore beam.
It’s all looking pretty good but there really is no way to be sure, until it all comes together.
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Re: A DIY Carbon Fiber Mast

Post by narfi »

Alext wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 9:54 am Thanks for the input. All things considered, and I have But no complaints either, I’m a stubborn old man.
This approach has worked well for me in my projects so far :)
Research + pure stubbornness usually wins in the end.
Good luck!!

OneWayTraffic
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Re: A DIY Carbon Fiber Mast

Post by OneWayTraffic »

I’m no mast expert but if you could find some aluminium profiles long enough it could serve as reinforcement and a path for lightning both?

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