I dunno David, I watched a video where two guys assembled a 8 stave 30' mast in about 9 minutes, they just laid out strips of duct tape sticky side up and put a staple in each end to keep them in place, layed the staves out on the tape and whacked them with a rubber mallet where they crossed the tape, and just rolled them up.
then they readjusted the staves to get them fitting nice and tight, retaped, cut the tape down one joint, and unrolled it again.
from there it's just a matter of three coats of epoxy wet on wet, roll it back up and clamp with zip ties, make sure it's straight and true, and then clamp with hose clamps or electricians tape.
I'll see if I can't find the video.
The real problem is cutting the staves, you could probably cut the staves for an untapered mast with two guys and a lot of cussing on a tablesaw, but if you want to build a tapered or barrel cut mast you need to use a skillsaw and a bench which can be as simple as sawhorses every 2-4 feet, or even just 2x2s laid on the driveway although I'd want some really good knee pads and some pain medication for my back after I was done :), doesn't even need to be perfectly level end to end although it should be level front to back.
to cut the birdsmouth clamp the stave on edge between two planks, screw a guide strip down each plank, run your skillsaw down each guide strip, done.
you can use shims screwed to your bench to position the stave so you cut your taper at the same time you cut the birdsmouth for a straight taper, for a barrel taper you'd have to cut the taper in from both edges of the stave.
buying top grade timber or aluminium here is crazy expensive, a 16' 1 1/2" by 5 1/2" board of sitka spruce would run you $225 after taxes, about $190 usd, if i pick through the piles I can get a decent boards of western spruce or pine in the same length for $22, I'd probably have to get twice as many if I didn't want any scarfs, but it's still a savings of 80% and I doubt it would take much longer than laminating and then planing down a solid or dugout mast, especially if your ok with an octagonal mast, you could use the modified birdsmouth which doesn't need to be planed down.
I'm not saying that the hybrid isn't a great way to make a great mast, just that you can make a birdsmouth mast nearly as good for a fraction of the cost and not much more work.
BillF