Sequence

Yesterday at the Powell Paint Center, my new favorite place in Portland,  there were 3 guys behind the counter and no other customers in the store. Each of the 3 guys thought the other was helping me, and nobody wanted to poach, so after I wandered around for 10 minutes oohing and ahing as the significance of all the little doodads and professional painters' gizmos came back to me in a dense and sweet nostalgia, I stood at the counter for quite some time as the three men avoided eye contact, busy with small things in their own 3 little worlds.
Finally, trying not to sound as annoyed as I was starting to feel, I asked if somebody could please help me.
They all exploded in embarassment at once, and I immediately saw what had happened and I was able to  help smooth feathers and milk the humor in the situation.

A brush worthy of the work that went into my project. That's all I wanted

 The guy I wound up with was such a helpful nice man, a pro, a working man's resource, old-timer at 45 or 50 ( It breaks my heart that I am so much older than such mature men) , sympathetic and knowledgeable, spent a very agreeable half hour talking the business with me. I had been looking for a 2 inch straight cut hog bristle brush of good quality which I could not find. I suspected I was looking right at it but there's this thing where I'm right on top of shit and it will not break into my notice. Happens a lot. Sure enough there it was, a beautiful brush, well formed, soft, nice stainless ferrule.

This morning I rinsed it in some Penetrol, to prime the bristles and condition them to take and release the material more readily, and with it I applied the second coat of boiled linseed oil to the now finished mast.
Linseed Oil is a surprisingly robust finish for Doug Fir, and you can spend a lot of money and a heck of a lot of time before you surpass its durability and quiet handsome gleam..which is to say the mast is done, done fairly well, looks like the real old-time thing, and it deserves that kind of understated covering material applied with such a brush worthy of its task...

Smells really nice in here now.

Here's a retrospective in photos of the whole project:

Pete Culler says, and I agree,  you should never cut to the exact length until you absolutely have to. There was 4 feet of extra material to remove. It made me nervous, so I left an extra  few inches on the stick, which I never have cut off. The markings for the rip layouts showed up nice on the kerf. This was my first look at the grain of the stock, and I was thrilled.

Measure, mark and remeasure. I almost got in trouble right off.  I couldn't find my straight-edge batten and the board I used was warped like the dickens. I finally calmed down enough to hang a string and go from there, working off a centerline. I don't know why it takes me so long to start doing it right.

And then do it all again on the fresh surface. I learned a lot about tool control. I have a new respect for the craftsmen who built stuff back in thedays of Henry The Navigator before measurements were standardized, and an ell meant from your elbow to your fingertips and an inch was a knucklebone.

This is a rare view of a newly exposed face of the butt taper with no markings on it whatsoever. I have a bad habit of making hasty mistaken marks and ending up with a mishmash of erasures and crosshatchings.

And then I started in with the planing.

Double Taper

The little 6-strand Round Sinnet halyard I made out of hemp will thread up through this pully some day.