I hate botchers!

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ffiill

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Every once in a while I come across botched jobs-sometimes done by amateurs who clearly havnt a clue and some times by so called professionals who should know better!
I remember when I first got my boat how when I put on the autopilot it used to go any which way.
It turned out that the drive pinion on the electric motor which powered the hydraulic pump had come loose and been refixed with epoxy glue-a new retapped oversize hole and new grub screw was all it took to sort it out!
I have just recently got hold of an old SL Seawolf Windlass luckily at a very reasonable price.
On opening it up and removing the electric motor the first thing I noticed was the drive pinion needle bearing had fallen apart and the motor knowingly put back-a new good quality one has cost me all of £5 yet someone couldnt be bothered to fix it.
Then the electric motor which appears to have been professionally reconned apart from the fact that the wrong carbon brushes have been fitted in a very botched fashion-it only takes a few minutes to resize some brushes on a bit of wet and dry !
I will avoid the temptation to rant about cowboy garages and cowboy builders!
 
ffiill said:
Every once in a while I come across botched jobs-sometimes done by amateurs who clearly havnt a clue and some times by so called professionals who should know better!
I remember when I first got my boat how when I put on the autopilot it used to go any which way.
It turned out that the drive pinion on the electric motor which powered the hydraulic pump had come loose and been refixed with epoxy glue-a new retapped oversize hole and new grub screw was all it took to sort it out!
I have just recently got hold of an old SL Seawolf Windlass luckily at a very reasonable price.
On opening it up and removing the electric motor the first thing I noticed was the drive pinion needle bearing had fallen apart and the motor knowingly put back-a new good quality one has cost me all of £5 yet someone couldnt be bothered to fix it.
Then the electric motor which appears to have been professionally reconned apart from the fact that the wrong carbon brushes have been fitted in a very botched fashion-it only takes a few minutes to resize some brushes on a bit of wet and dry !
I will avoid the temptation to rant about cowboy garages and cowboy builders!
Click to expand...

Did you buy it spares/repair on ebay? If so, I sold it and I can introduce you to some of that owners other delightful botches :rolleyes:
 
When I was doing emergency plumbing, I visited an old lady's house and was intrigued to find the heavy loo cistern above her head was supported propped on a single hanging basket bracket...she wouldn't listen to me as 'it was put in by a professional'...

Had the makings of an interesting accident report.
 
carbon brushes

ffiill said:
Then the electric motor which appears to have been professionally reconned apart from the fact that the wrong carbon brushes have been fitted in a very botched fashion-it only takes a few minutes to resize some brushes on a bit of wet and dry !
I will avoid the temptation to rant about cowboy garages and cowboy builders!
Click to expand...

Just remember that all carbon brushes come in different grades not a big problem with seldom used windlass but in such things as drills to hard and it wrecks the commutator to soft and its down to the pigtail and scored!
 
Whether you bodge a job or not can depend where you are. If you are over 1,000 miles from land and have the right tools and spares then no bodge job is required. If you don't have those then if a bodge job can keep something going I would certainly do it. If the boat is tied up in a marina with a chandler nearby there is no excuse to bodge it.

As seen on TV there are lot's of rogue/bodge traders.
 
When we first got our boat, we couldn't figure out why we kept blowing the cabin light circuit breaker. Then I discovered that the forepeak cabin light switch had been wired in parallel with the bulb...
 
I've always taken my responsibility to bodge a job very seriously. It may have been part of the reason why my last boat was barely splashproof, nevermind waterproof...
 
Got to say that having spent numerous times waiting for the postie to bring me the expensive marine grade part I want to get the job done properly it really p's me off when I find yet another bodged job with wrong spec parts. Like a complete boats worth of seized brass central heating taps instead of DZR.
 
Musn't get semantic but........you can botch a job if it all goes wrong when you are trying to do it properly or you can bodge a job by doing a crummy repair which you know won't last very long (sometimes in an emergency).
I think you are suffering the consequences of a bodger or maybe someone who suffers the worst of both worlds....a botchger
 
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isn't a bodger someone who turns down wooden furniture parts? Traditionally by using a bent willow tree to power an improvised lathe? I think we're doing bodgersb a great diservice here:(
 
petersto said:
Just remember that all carbon brushes come in different grades not a big problem with seldom used windlass but in such things as drills to hard and it wrecks the commutator to soft and its down to the pigtail and scored!
Click to expand...
Bodging (not "botching", for heaven's sake) can extend to punctuation as well. :eek:
 
Botch-to me that means not doing it well-take the replacement grub screw I mentioned.
The one I made up was probably a brass screw out of an old electrical item but it was a screw in a threaded hole pressing against a shaft not areldite liberally coated in the hope that it would stop the gear turning on the shaft.
As for the winch I only placed a max bid which would allow for new bits if required-just suprised as to what I found.
Interesting to note that the bearing which cost me £6 from a bearings factor is being sold by SLS(Simpson Lawrence spares)for almost 3 times the amount.
Being ingeneous in use of repair materials/sourcing bits etc is not what I mean by botching.
 
Bearings factors are often much cheaper. Sometimes they offer Far East or Good Quality as alternatives :D

A good bearing supplier will just measure the old bearing and provide a match which may be just as good but much cheaper.
 
:D

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