There are two different ways to make a Beam of Destiny.
The first way is by Willi Zarth of the Olson 30 Think Fast: He took a length of 1/8-inch aluminum (U-shaped) channel iron (about 2x2x2) and drilled one hole in each side. He then bolted it to the chain plates and attached the jockstrap to the same bolts. This works very well, and the setup is cheap because he got the aluminum channel from a scrap yard and had no welding done.
However, the beam goes straight across from side to side. This makes crawling forward of the mast somewhat inconvenient.
The second way is the way Running with Scissors and Family Hour made them:
The solution implemented on these two boats is a wood-cored, carbon- reinforced beam that follows the contour of the deck, but does not attach to the deck. It achieves the goal of the straight beam, but only projects down 2 inches from the underside of the deck.
Brett McLarney of Running with Scissors utilized laminated, 3 mm marine plywood.
The entire structure is composed of assembled, off cuts from the laminate that we constructed for the mainsheet traveler. He assembled the pieces together and then spent a crazy amount of time shaping them to fit. He said that if he were to repeat the process, he would utilize a tell stick to construct a jig and then laminate the beam on the jig out of cedar.
Scissors utilized a combination of uni-directional and bi-directional carbon. The wall thickness of the carbon is approximately 3/32 to 1/8 inches. I utilized West Systems epoxy resin.
On Family Hour, we did the same thing. We made a template out of cardboard so we could make a jig. Next, we took a piece of cedar and stripped it down to about 1/16th of an inch. We then laminated it on the jig to a thickness of about 2 inches. The next step was to cover it in carbon fiber and then finally paint it with LPU paint. All said and done, it weighted in at 5 pounds. To install it, we drilled it and bolted it to the chain plates and our jockstrap. We also tied it to the mast step so the center would not flex when we tightened the shrouds.
The pictures below show how it was installed.
Base of mast where rope is tied to keep beam from springing up
Beam bolted to jockstrap and chain
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