Cool home made bling....

Still working on the bits and pieces to put the mast together.

Saddle to hold the shrouds to the chain plate and the forestay fitting:

These pieces have turned out really sweet.

I am really not set up for metal fabrication.....this is a pretty down home effort. For instance, I cut out 4"x4" squares for the saddles. I then clamped them to the workbench with 1/2 the saddle protruding off the edge of the bench (on a 45 degree angle so I could fold corner to corner) and grabbed the corner that was hanging off w/ some vise grips and began to fold it over. This is 1/8" stainless steel and is really stout material. Fortunately I have a shelf on the bottom of my worbench full of tools or I would have simply lifted the bench off the floor. So I begin to wrestle with the piece and slowly get it to fold to about 90 degrees and then ever so slowly to about 135 degrees.....not quite a taco, but getting close. The problem is the radius of the curve is too large. I need to get a tighter fold. So I stand back, scratch my head and think, "what is the maximum preasure I can bring to bear on this with what I have on hand....". Then it dawns on me, use gravity, and something heavy.....REALLY heavy. The heaviest thing I own is my car. And it is no light weight import. It is a Lincoln Towncar. (And yes, I have heard ALL the jokes about chauffering to the airport and how many bodies fit in the trunk....). So I put the saddle just behind the front tire, with a piece of wood above to spread the load from the tire and below to keep from marring it and SLOWLY back up. I get the car fully on top of the saddle and.........NOTHING!! My little vise grips and wood clamps had folded that metal as far as it was going to go. Fortunately, my neighbor showed up just about that time and I KNOW he has a beefy bench vise. 15 minutes later I have 2 saddles w/ just the right bend!!!

The mast is NOT going to fail because of chain plates or the connection to the shrouds!