demonboy
Well-Known Member
After doing my research and taking a punt this week we bedded down our stay-sail track with butyl tape and not polyurethane. I didn't take any photos of this little project but there's some extensive video footage in this week's clip. I haven't tested it yet so I've no idea if I did the right thing, but I followed the general principle and am fairly confident it's the right way to go. I have some white butyl tape on order to continue the bedding.
I did find a bit of corrosion in my aluminium hatch frames. Perhaps Vyv can confirm whether this is also crevice corrosion, I'm not sure if it works in the same way as it does s/s. I filled the corrosion with epoxy and micro-balloons and sanded it back. Not sure if this was the best thing to do but I'm hoping with the butyl tape this should be ok for the next ten years.
Mey, our Burmese cleaner, was back this week. We set her up with my cheap angle-grinder attached to a block of wood. A couple of polishing disks later and our grotty stanchions were looking like new once more.
We're also making teak beds for our cleats and fairleads. This adds a little strength to these fittings since we've lost 15mm of teak, and we're fibreglassing them over and will spray them Snow White to match the deck. Here's one of our new fairleads sitting on a not-quite finished bed.
There's a few other pics on the blog post but do check out the video clip for the bedding of the stay-sail track using the butyl tape. If anyone's used this before for the same type of fitting I'd be interested in hearing from you. I'm waiting for a consignment of white tape from the States as it's less obtrusive than the black stuff on a white deck.
Video clip here: http://followtheboat.com/2014/10/02/esper-refit-week-34/
I did find a bit of corrosion in my aluminium hatch frames. Perhaps Vyv can confirm whether this is also crevice corrosion, I'm not sure if it works in the same way as it does s/s. I filled the corrosion with epoxy and micro-balloons and sanded it back. Not sure if this was the best thing to do but I'm hoping with the butyl tape this should be ok for the next ten years.
Mey, our Burmese cleaner, was back this week. We set her up with my cheap angle-grinder attached to a block of wood. A couple of polishing disks later and our grotty stanchions were looking like new once more.
We're also making teak beds for our cleats and fairleads. This adds a little strength to these fittings since we've lost 15mm of teak, and we're fibreglassing them over and will spray them Snow White to match the deck. Here's one of our new fairleads sitting on a not-quite finished bed.
There's a few other pics on the blog post but do check out the video clip for the bedding of the stay-sail track using the butyl tape. If anyone's used this before for the same type of fitting I'd be interested in hearing from you. I'm waiting for a consignment of white tape from the States as it's less obtrusive than the black stuff on a white deck.
Video clip here: http://followtheboat.com/2014/10/02/esper-refit-week-34/
