Porthandbuoy
Well-known member
Went round to Sheolin yesterday morning to remove two knackered echo sounders and their fairing blocks from the hull. I've always thought them a bit vulnerable if clobbered by a floating log or similar.
Fairing blocks were wood, so my plan was to pare them off using a large chisel and mallet as I could see no screw or bolt heads.
Fairing block #1: Chipped and splintered away a sliver at a time to reveal two 8mm st/st machine screws suffering from, I presume, anaerobic crevice corrosion. Not much strength left in them. They snapped when I tried to remove them using molegrips. Nuts on the inside were glassed over so this was probably the original echo sounder, so around 48 years old.
Fairing block #2: Placed chisel on fairing block and hit it with mallet. The fairing block parted from the hull! Left protruding from the hull were approx 1/4" of two wood screws and the broken plastic thread of the echo sounder. Two 50mm woodscrews had been countersunk into the grp under a piece of wood being used as a backing pad on the inside, this being 'secured' by the plastic nuts on the echo sounder. Seems one of the previous owners didn't take into account the grp is 45mm thick at that point.
That's two near misses in my book. Just got 6 small holes in the hull to plug.
Fairing blocks were wood, so my plan was to pare them off using a large chisel and mallet as I could see no screw or bolt heads.
Fairing block #1: Chipped and splintered away a sliver at a time to reveal two 8mm st/st machine screws suffering from, I presume, anaerobic crevice corrosion. Not much strength left in them. They snapped when I tried to remove them using molegrips. Nuts on the inside were glassed over so this was probably the original echo sounder, so around 48 years old.
Fairing block #2: Placed chisel on fairing block and hit it with mallet. The fairing block parted from the hull! Left protruding from the hull were approx 1/4" of two wood screws and the broken plastic thread of the echo sounder. Two 50mm woodscrews had been countersunk into the grp under a piece of wood being used as a backing pad on the inside, this being 'secured' by the plastic nuts on the echo sounder. Seems one of the previous owners didn't take into account the grp is 45mm thick at that point.
That's two near misses in my book. Just got 6 small holes in the hull to plug.