I made a mast like you need for a sailing dinghy I built. Here's how to make it strong. Rip three pine 1" boards with no knots in them to 2.25 inch width. A 1" board is 3/4 thick so three of them will be 2.25 thick. Now mix some epoxy with microfibers and bond the three boards together using bar clamps or c-clamps all along the length to make a good bond. Alternate the grains in the wood for maximum strength. You should end up with a 2.25 square beam.. Now mark each side of the beam into thirds, so there should be two lines along the length of the beam at 3/4 inches from each corner. Now take a block plane and plane each corner until you hit the lines. You will now have an eight sided beam. Now plane each of the eight corners until you have a 16 sided beam. At this point it will look almost round. You can hit each corner again with the plane or what I did was use a belt sanding belt like shining your shoes, and sand along the length to make it round. You now have a strong wooden mast that is 2.25 in diameter. This sounds like a lot of wrk but it is incredibly easy, The time for planing is minimal and it becomes round very fast. You can leave it square at the bottom if that is what you want by stopping the planing at a certain length. Now get a sheave and a stainless rod to fit the sheave, drill two holes and use a jig saw to cut a slot near the top of the mast to fit the sheave. Drill a hole for the pin and install the sheave and pin and bond the pin in with wood plugs. Now you have a sheave at the top of the mast for the halyard. I have a lugsail rig but you could add a track to the mast, or use rings on the sail for a Marconi rig etc. A sprit rig is popular for a small boat also. Coat the outside of the mast with epoxy to seal it and then varnish or cetol or whatever for UV protection. My mast is 15 years old and still working.
