Blakes Outlet: a gusher this morning

Seakindly

Seakindly

Well-Known Member
Joined
12 May 2007
Messages
348
Location
Beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Visit site
Turned on Blakes heads outlet this morning and the handle came off plus the plug had obviously dropped away as sunlit seawater started gushing in. Managed to plug it with rag and hardwood plug (the hole is irregular) to reduce to dribble but will have to stay onboard til I can get a lift Thurs or Fri. So thoughts turned to replacement. I thought Blakes were bulletproof and serviced this one last year, bit of grinding, regreasing etc. obviously didn't spot dezincification. Will need to sort em all now. As to replacement - what's the considered forum opinion (I have searched and found variable info). I was going for another Blakes, then was told the size has changed -so convenience reason crossed off, and also told now simple brass (is this true?) and so will not last so long. Back to square one. When I get over the shock (will I sink, what's the cost of lift-out lift-in and bits for job) what 1.5 inch outlet seacock do others fit in this situation?
 
I changed the mismash of stainless and bronze(?) ball valves and skin fittings that were fitted to my yacht when I bought her. Most of them were seized solid.
After looking at all of the options, including Blakes, I went for replacement bronze ball valves and skinfittings.
Stainless ball valves seemed to have valid arguments for and against......DZR seem to be just a cheaper option to bronze, but will still dezincify, just slower.
I think that your problem will be that the Blakes valves are bolted through the hull and these holes will have to be filled and faired if changing to standard skin fittings?
 
One problem that can occur when replacing Blakes with other designs is that there may not be enough room to fit the alternative. Suggest that you make a few measurements before committing to an alternative design.
 
Perhaps bronze instead of phosphor bronze, whatever that is. I take the point on size - The handle just said BL on the shaft, and I realised (slowly) that it had been sawn off at some point and neatly rounded. Presumably there's an AKES somewhere at the bottom of a creek. If I replace the old Blakes with a new one, does anyone know what the production changes have been in size?
 
Blakes seacocks are now made of DZR brass. [ QUOTE ]
The body and plug are made of DZR1 (BSEN 1982 CC752C). A dezincification resistant brass for die casting

[/ QUOTE ]
They have also "metricated" the sizes. Just been reading in the Owners Association magazine that the new one to replace a 1½" one was 1.37mm larger.

See http://www.blakes-lavac-taylors.co.uk/blakes_seacocks.htm
 
I'm a little surprised with this. My Blakes are tapered and there's no way the valve part could fall out of the outer tube. It has to be lifted INTO boat to remove.

Honest not dis-believing, just surprised.
 
I, too am surprised that the cone disappeared downwards. The cone must have completely disintegrated.

Anyway, I recently went through this exercise replacing a Rowe (similar design to Blakes). Considered all the options and went for a Blakes. In my case the bolt spacings were different so I had to fill and re-drill the holes whatever I did. The dimension of the Blake holes are in the link Vic gave you so you can check these in advance. They are indeed made of DZR now, as are the most popular Ball valves, although Vetus still do valves in bronze but 60% more expensive. Costwise a new DZR ball valve including skin fitting and tail come to around £90, 160 if you use bronze. A Blakes is about £130.

You may well find as I did that a ball valve with fittings ends up too tall to fit the space.

BTW the spigot takes standard hose which needs softening in hot water to get it on.
 
[ QUOTE ]
standard hose which needs softening in hot water to get it on

[/ QUOTE ] Judging from the posts that appear on here it needs boiling water and the spigot warmed with a hot air gun!.
 
Mine went on - new hose - with hot water, boiling when poured into container but probably cooled a bit by the time I got to the job. Knowing the catechism by heart also helps, (which former Stuart Turner owners like me do)
 
[ QUOTE ]
BTW the spigot takes standard hose which needs softening in hot water to get it on.

[/ QUOTE ]Not quite that simple for two reasons. One is that the hose needs to stretch so far that it needs to be really hot. Boiling water will just do it, but within a few seconds of removing the hose from the water its too late. The second problem is that when the hose is that hot it's too soft to push onto a fitting - the hose just buckles.

My solution was to pre-form the hose in the workshop before taking it to the boat, using a wooden plug. These pictures show how far it needed to be stretched ....

IMG_0180Before.jpg

IMG_0177Stretched.jpg
 
Oooh. Just had to explain to partner what I was looking at on the puter. Anyhow, I wrote, twice, being very specific to Blakes today asking about any changes at all to fitting dimensions on new Blakes, compared to old, and this is what she wrote:

'Yes they are the same'
Cheers
Jackie
Engineering Excellence

Jackie Crosby
Manager
 
I've always been impressed by the fibre reinforced nylon ones on my friends US designed boat - Marelon I believe. Tough as old boots, never need servicing, cant corrode. And dont forget that your log and sounder skin fittings are already likely made of the same stuff.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Well she's out, and of course (dim wits here) the plug had not gone, but once the shouldered top had gone, it was no longer a plug but a tube -hence the vision of sunlit sea water- enhanced no doubt by a degree of shock.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah Ha ... Now I'm no longer confused. So where's top and the two bolts ? The top is generally referred to as a Keeper Plate.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I'm orf with me ladder now to get down to it; but I'm sure the plate is still there. It looks like when the lever came away, it pulled up the top of the hollow plug with it and left the shoulder and cylinder in place....

[/ QUOTE ]

?? My handle is a drop fit over the square spigot. It has nothing to do with holding the valve together. The keeper plate on mine has 2 bolts ... 1 either side of spigot. This hardens down to another matching plate that is part of the body. There is no way the this should come away with the handle unless a) the bolts have fallen out or b) the bottom matching plate has become detached from valve body.


Maybe you have different form of valve ?

http://www.blakes-lavac-taylors.co.uk/blakes_seacocks.htm

As can be seen here - the top keeper plate stops the barrel from exiting body - NOT the handle.

?? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
Re: Blakes outlet post mortem

I'd post photo's if I could sort out phot-bucket thingy. I have both complete units in front of me now on the desk. The new unit has a loose fitting handle pegged on and secured with a (copper?) wire/pin. Both units have keeper plates and bolts, the old one without locknuts. The new unit, of course, has the grease nipple. Whereas the handle on the new unit is loosely fitted the old handle appears to be square pegged and is not pinned but welded or otherwise permanently fixed to top of cone. The handle says (or did say!) Blakes so it's original. Still attached to the handle is the top bit of the cone, having corroded where the neck of the top meets the shoulder of the cone. In other words, the handle pulled out the top of the cone, reducing it to cylinder. Looking at it carefully, its peculiar to note that on the old unit, as the channel in the cone goes right up to the top, and is about as wide as the 'neck' part - where the neck meets the shoulder is consequently quite thin-about 2-3mm I make it. Interestingly, when I took off the keeper plate, the cone came out quite easily and was still greased from last year. The old unit is some decades old, so I think a combination of dezincification over time, urine and plain age did for it. Most of all, perhaps on reflection, when I got the boat two years ago, it was siezed. I managed to get the cone out with a drift, first wood, then copper, but it took some bashing, so it may have weakened the top of the cone. Reassuringly, the new unit looks more substantial at the top and should last. A final point - getting the old unit out of the hull was a struggle. But the old cone made a fine drift to knock up and out from the outside once I got the bolts and plate off. Humph. Lavatories, who'd have em?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top