New Samson posts and bowsprit preview

I received a call that my new samson posts were ready. So I headed over to H&L to pick them up. I was able to get a sneak peek of my bowsprit too!

Yea I know this picture sucks....looks like a couple of 2x4s just laying there. But honest they have all the holes and are shaped just like the old ones on the left.

Here is Russell at H&L working on the bowsprit. You can see he was working on getting the round stainless fitting (what's that called?) to fit. If all goes well I should have the bowsprit in a day or two! When I get it I will do a bare dry fit on the boat to make sure all the holes line up. If they do I will bring it home, coat it with penetrating epoxy and then paint it before doing the final installation.

Better pictures of the samson posts with two coats of penetrating epoxy.

Bowsprit being built by H&L

After much research on building the bowsprit myself or having it built I went with having it built. I had a couple of places give me bids. The best price for a complete bowsprit built out of a single piece of clear Douglas fir was H&L Marine in Rancho Dominguez, Ca. Yesterday I brought them my bowsprit to reproduce. The estimated time to have it built is 10-20 days. This will give me time to get the bow, chain locker and deck core ready for the new bowsprit.

Here is Cesar. He is very helpful and knowledgeable.

I must say I was impressed with H&L Marine. Their shop is HUGH! They have a ton of wood in many species and can do any custom work that you need done besides the stuff they crank out every day.  They have an area where they sell the seconds, which looked pretty good to me. I might be shopping here a bit!

I got there right at closing so I didn't get the full tour but Deena did as I was taking care of the paperwork. She saw lots of impressive woodworking.





Look at all the tillers on the wall to the left. There are more that you can't see in the picture!

Here is about 1/3 of the shop area. You can see the laminating presses on the right.