MagicalArmchair
Well-Known Member
Background: (see below for a more concise question)
A few months back, after the recommendations from a number of current (http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?405882-Albin-Ballad-rig-tension, thank you michael_w!) and previous Ballad owners who had experienced full truss failure on their Ballads at sea, I inspected my mild steel mast truss with a Endoscope - what I found was shocking to say the least (http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?424045-Mast-Truss), it had nearly rusted through! The risks of this are twofold, one is that the truss can collapse leading to the foot thrashing around the main saloon and potentially unseating the main bulkhead that is immediately forward of the truss, the second is the truss, which is encapsulated in resin, rusting further, expanding, and splitting the front side of the keel open, leading to water ingress, which will lead to more rust and complete failure.
So, it had to come out, I had spoken to a Swedish owner who had replaced his truss with a 316 5mm SS version not encapsulated and he reported that had been an enduring solution, I had separately been speaking to an American owner who had produced plans for an uprated truss. The mast came down last week, I drilled out the SS machine screws Saturday holding the mast foot to the truss, and got to work extracting the mast truss. The truss itself is encapsulated in Polyester resin, after four hours of pounding with a cold chisel and a club hammer to try and break it up I finished the day here:
The mast truss literally fell apart in my hand, vindicating this rather brutal surgery (bear in mind this had to support 3 tonnes of compressive rig load!):
I had still removed no more that 40% of the polyester resin after four hours of pounding
:
Question:
So, the question for the great beardy, boaty jedi of the forum:
My technique has followed that of previous Ballad owners of chipping out the polyester resin with a cold chisel, sharpened often and a sledge hammer. For one this technique feels a bit brutal, and I am worried of pushing her over the edge and splitting the front of the keel, and for two, its not desperately effective. Four hours of chipping has removed the easiest bit, I reckon another nine of hours will either break my right arm, my will or finish the extraction. Does anyone have any suggestions for removing solid Polyester resin? I tried my Fein multi-tool to cut relief cuts into the polyester with a combination blade (made for steel/wood, that had cut the GRP of the sole like a hot knife through butter) to make chipping easier, but the resin blunted the blade almost immediately.
To give an idea of how much deeper I need to chip see the following from the American owner who had extract his truss:
The full extracted Truss of the other owner.
The hole I am looking to achieve on the other owners Ballad :
So as you can see, I have quite a way to go!
My ideas are as follows:
1 - use a drill to bore holes into the resin using cobalt drill bits to make chipping easier. Think swiss cheese.
2 - use a diamond cutting disc on the Fein to cut relief channels in the resin.
3 - use a diamond cutting disc on a grinder to cut relief channels in the resin.
I am in the water, so I need to be rather careful - that being said the hull thickness at this point is 1 inch, so I'd have to make quite an error to hole her!
A few months back, after the recommendations from a number of current (http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?405882-Albin-Ballad-rig-tension, thank you michael_w!) and previous Ballad owners who had experienced full truss failure on their Ballads at sea, I inspected my mild steel mast truss with a Endoscope - what I found was shocking to say the least (http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?424045-Mast-Truss), it had nearly rusted through! The risks of this are twofold, one is that the truss can collapse leading to the foot thrashing around the main saloon and potentially unseating the main bulkhead that is immediately forward of the truss, the second is the truss, which is encapsulated in resin, rusting further, expanding, and splitting the front side of the keel open, leading to water ingress, which will lead to more rust and complete failure.
So, it had to come out, I had spoken to a Swedish owner who had replaced his truss with a 316 5mm SS version not encapsulated and he reported that had been an enduring solution, I had separately been speaking to an American owner who had produced plans for an uprated truss. The mast came down last week, I drilled out the SS machine screws Saturday holding the mast foot to the truss, and got to work extracting the mast truss. The truss itself is encapsulated in Polyester resin, after four hours of pounding with a cold chisel and a club hammer to try and break it up I finished the day here:
The mast truss literally fell apart in my hand, vindicating this rather brutal surgery (bear in mind this had to support 3 tonnes of compressive rig load!):
I had still removed no more that 40% of the polyester resin after four hours of pounding
:
Question:
So, the question for the great beardy, boaty jedi of the forum:
My technique has followed that of previous Ballad owners of chipping out the polyester resin with a cold chisel, sharpened often and a sledge hammer. For one this technique feels a bit brutal, and I am worried of pushing her over the edge and splitting the front of the keel, and for two, its not desperately effective. Four hours of chipping has removed the easiest bit, I reckon another nine of hours will either break my right arm, my will or finish the extraction. Does anyone have any suggestions for removing solid Polyester resin? I tried my Fein multi-tool to cut relief cuts into the polyester with a combination blade (made for steel/wood, that had cut the GRP of the sole like a hot knife through butter) to make chipping easier, but the resin blunted the blade almost immediately.
To give an idea of how much deeper I need to chip see the following from the American owner who had extract his truss:
The full extracted Truss of the other owner.
The hole I am looking to achieve on the other owners Ballad :
So as you can see, I have quite a way to go!
My ideas are as follows:
1 - use a drill to bore holes into the resin using cobalt drill bits to make chipping easier. Think swiss cheese.
2 - use a diamond cutting disc on the Fein to cut relief channels in the resin.
3 - use a diamond cutting disc on a grinder to cut relief channels in the resin.
I am in the water, so I need to be rather careful - that being said the hull thickness at this point is 1 inch, so I'd have to make quite an error to hole her!
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, I will of course wear lots of PPE (and have said bucket of water and fire extinguishers handy) . 
