planer board mast in place

Bolted on and ready to fish.

Planer board mast

The reels of the planer board mast I made completely in my shop. I used glued up maple for the center of the reel and the ratchet. 1/4" plywood for the outsides. I made a circle cutting jig for the bandsaw to cut all the round pieces. I layed out the notches for the ratchet in AutoCad and traced them. I free handed the cuts for the notches.

The stops against the ratchet are also maple and pushed forward by die springs attached to the metal structure of the mast base. My buddy refers to this as the midevil torture device. You can really hear and feel the clicks as the ratchet goes past the stops and the stops snap back.

I built the reels oppposite hand so I can reel in both lines without any complexity of my hands going opposite directions. Of course the port side is orage dacron and the starboard is green (as close to red and green as I could find).

Planer board mast

This give an overall of the mast in it's finality. I made the base at work with metal that we had laying around. The pulleys are from Lowes and are designed for dog runs. They are rated to 150%. I put a tiny bungee cord towards the bottom of the mast to keep the lines tight.

Rod holder "rocket launcher"

1 1/2" PVC. holes drilled through 2x4 with a circle cutter. I ran the 2x4 through the thickness planer on a fixture that held it tilted. I drilled and ran screws through the 2x4 and pipe to hold in place. The rods bottom out on the screws. I made stainless brackets that fit my Bert's custom tackle track. I sanded the pvc to remove marking and scuff. Sprayed with Kilz primer, good to go. When I'm done for the day the rocket launcher is easy to remove.

Collapsible planer board attempt

In the folded position they measure 34 1/2" (88 cm). Not tiny, but maybe less awkward?

This bottom view shows how the 1/4 x 3/4 aluminum bar will wedge against the boards when open.

When the planer board is fully open the aluminum bar pivots around the bolt and stops against the board on both ends. The action of pulling the planer should keep the boards at full open no problem.

So far I see two problems. In the second pic you may be able to see the board is being dented by the bar, and it has yet to see the lake. The other problem is the hardware is not 100% available like the other planer boards I made. I was trying to keep these easy to build.

The planer boards collapse by moving the outside board forward away from the stop. Second pic is bottom view.

I put several holes in the inside support to give me options when I throw the boards in the water