I'm somewhere between 'Greatest. Post. Ever.' and 'Pics or it never happened.' Extremely informative and interesting.

The aluminum stock - that's a square tube, right?
The base pieces for the connections to the beam in the last part - can they rotate and put the supports in a bind if the goop lets go? or do they have more than 1 rivet apiece?
Your Hail Mary - compressing the tube - Did you have any way to secure it in the clamp? I'd be concerned about it popping out (or snapping) given too much pressure.
Did you consider welding (or having someone else weld) the extra stock to the curved support instead of using the spreaders?

Thanks!

OK, debate.... Curved or straight?

With the straight traveler, as the pressure increases it sheets the jib, is that a disadvantage?

Straight track dosnt work worth a s#$%! Curved track rules. cANT GET SHEET TENSION WITHOUT CUTTING OFF THE SLOT. I wasnt yelling.
As far as using the 1x1x1/8 SQ stock for supports, I had what I had, so I used it. Worked great, If you come up w a better option, it's your boat.

I have some great pics. if someone tells me how to post them, I will.

As long as the 1x12's are cut square, the sq stock stays in pretty well. I had a plastic mallet to tap it around a little if it started to move up or down.

OH, IT HAPPENED ALL RIGHT!!!

I used 2 rivets for each. Its very important to make sure that the holes are all lined up straight, square, etc. also, remember that you have camber in the main beam. mines not perfect as if it were made at a factory, but its pretty close and works awesome!!

BTW, if someone can tell me how to get this screen to show what i am typing, it would help a lot with the coherancy of my post. I have to scroll down every time I hit a key to see what I just wrote. I guess I could cutand paste from word.

Great write-up AzCat. . .THANKS!!
(putters off to the shop)

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Here are some pictures of the self tacker.

I have the same problem, and have taken to composing my posts with Notepad, and pasting them in.

Regards,
Eric

I have that problem too, is it fixable?

Dave

there is a set of arrows in the upper R.hand corner. Arrow down for additional blank screen. Still a pita, but this will help.

Look at the address bar to the right. If your using IE you'll see a broken page icon. Click on that before you start typing and it will fix the problem. Some times you have to click it twice to get the compatibilty view to work. That solved the problem for me anyway.

Or better: don't use IE at all. I hate IE. You won't believe what a web application developer has to do to get IE to work. IE, all versions of it, should be banned. Get firefox, safari, opera, chrome, anything really and you'll be better off.

And don't believe the hype: IE 8 is just marginally better.

Nice work. I bit the bullet and built my own based on your method. Worked like a charm except I broke the track while bending. Not too bad in the end though, it was a clean break and fit back together nicely. I am within 1/4" of my desired radius. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but am anxiously waiting for my sails to come in. I'll post some pictures soon.

Im glad that worked for you. Did you have a chance to check out the pictures I linked?
I was afraid that I might snap the track, but it bent fine. When I bent it, I made sure that the radius was pretty constant throughout the length of the track. I think I used 5 or 6 clamps.

I just went too small. Note for next time 47" radius is too small for the track, trust me... I had three pipe clamps and my jig was cut from a 2x12.

In hindsight (which is always 20/20) I could have bent the square tube a little small and just clamped the track to it to even out the radius I needed without any work on bending the track.

OK... I am still stuck on whether the staight track might be more "automatic" than a curved track. Think about it for a minute. As the pressure increases, the jib is forced to leeward. If the track is straight, the jib auto flattens. With a curved track, it will retain a belly.(?)
I am knot an engineer but I do seek to understand.

Hey Eric,
My experience with a straight track(Reynolds 21) was that when you sheeted the jib hard to flatten the sail for upwind work, the clew would move towards centerline because the distance between the jib car and the jib's tack is shorter the closer the car gets to the mast. This would close off the slot too much. This is mostly a problem in ligher air, when it's blowing harder there can be enough pressure to force the clew outboard.
With the curved track, you can sheet hard or soft without the tension influencing the clew position relative to centerline, as the distance between jib tack and jib car is always the same. This allows jib shaping with sheet tension without changing the clew location.
That make sense?

Dave

I haven't used the curved track but I love my self tacker with the straight track. All you have to do is sheet out a little in lighter wind which it needs anyway to give it more shape. It also flattens with the gusts and automatically picks up the low pressure and goes wing on wing if dead downwind.

On my N20 I have curved track. How do you adjust how far your traveler can go? I currently have piece of line attached to mast rod under the ball. However it takes some time for me to adjust it.


Thx
Kris

On the Formula 18s there is a jam cleat with an eye on the spinnaker pole. You would tie a line to the traveler car like you do now but on the other side (front) then adjust with the cleat.

Dan

Put a eyestrap centered on the beam right in front of the mast ball. Offset a small cam cleat somewhere on the front beam close to the center - opposite side as where your spin halyard cleat works. Run a line from cam cleat, to center eyestrap to the traveller car. Its a "travel limiter" in much the same way as the main traveller is.