Plastic Classic Forum

Where can I obtain replacement swing bolts? I'm talking about the rod ends that latch the small opening ports.

Would a container of dessicant be useful for absorbing moisture inside the cabin during storage, or is there just too much?

I think they choose an active ingredient that reacts with the corrosion products to produce a water soluble compound. The silica is probably used as a mild abrasive. Plain ol' baking soda works for silver polishing btw. You could actually use the leftover copper polishing solution as an anti-fungal ...

I've had great results using Wright's copper cream to restore corroded bronze hardware, so I wanted to suggest this product as it's inexpensive and effective. Soaking hardware with siezed mechanisms in a dilute solution of this stuff has worked well in freeing the moving parts. It's sold in my local...

Well it looks like I will be able to use the original motor mounts if I shorten the prop shaft slightly. They seem sufficiently solid that I'm not confident that bedding new ones would be an improvement over using the existing mounts with possibly some reinforcement. The existing metal plates that g...

Agreed on the bottoming tap, and I had already purchased a 10-24 for that purpose. Even after chasing the threads with the bottoming tap, the screws only can be turned two full rotations before bottoming out. I worry that doesn't provide sufficient holding strength, although a quick search turns up ...

The deadlights on my Triton are stripped to the bronze and polished nicely. I'm preparing to bed the new plexi windows into the frames and attach to the boat. Some of the threads are stripped however, and I don't know how successful I'll be in retapping them. Would it be appropriate in this case to ...

Looks like a lot of the original parts are well preserved. Good find!

The motor mounts on the diesel going into my boat are a little off from the stock A4 mounts. The flywheel mount needs to move lower and to port slightly and the front mount will likely need to be adjusted up or down. What are recommended methods for accomplishing this? I was thinking of extending th...

I don't think there is reason to use epoxy unless you are restoring pieces that have significant weathering. On new pieces just use varnish. Using solvent lets you get epoxy into the wood, so it's not a thick layer on the surface. Thinning by heating and employing vacuum infiltration of the epoxy wo...

Thanks for the suggestion Glenn. That looks like a good product to try. I also like the tumbler idea. I've been using brass wire wheels and on some parts first treating with HCl. It's always nice to automate things, especially tedious polishing.

I like the patina as well, and I'll likely let my bronze go green eventually, but I'd like to keep it shiny for awhile since she'll be newly rebuilt. The last thing I want to do is put on a lousy clear coat that fails quickly and then has to be removed. Maybe the best option is make the parts highly...

What products have been found to be effective for protective coatings on polished bronze parts? The window frames and portholes for my boat are polished to 600 so far. I'd like to apply a protective clear coat to keep them shiny after the last few polishing steps. Online I saw a few specialty coatin...

My boat only has the stock water tank. It didn't come with a fuel tank, and I am thinking of adding a holding tank and maybe kerosene tank. I've removed the stock galley and icebox, so it's somewhat of a blank canvas. Sorry to divert the tread off topic.

My boat has a single stringer going in the other direction from those in the photo, from the bow back along the centerline to where the forecabin starts. I used epoxy and cloth to reinforce the wooden beam before building over it with the matting and thickened resin. The top layers of cloth could be...

Oh yeah for the seams, I'm wrapping the wetted matting around the seams so it overlaps around an inch on either side. It's fairly easy to spread around into position with a paint stirrer or spreader. That z-tabbing I guess you could call it is needed to transmit the load along the fibers instead of ...

Anyone have pics of the WC Triton deck cross-section, or know if the thickness is different than EC decks?

Solid is stronger and stiffer than I-beam of same thickness. Now if you took all the material in the solid and made it into an I-beam (which would than be thicker) it would be a stronger I-beam. But if you are just talking about fixed thickness, the extra material in the solid does increase strength...

My main thinking on this was that from what I've read EC Tritons used balsa and have deck core problems, while WC Tritons used all glass and deck repair is uncommon. So it seemed reasonable to emulate that construction method. Core skin construction is stiffer on a weight or material used metric, bu...

Epoxy can be used for bonding/gluing of two pieces, waterproofing things, and filling internal flaws and defects in materials. The methodologies are different depending on what you are trying to accomplish. You don't want to dilute epoxy when it's being used as an adhesive, but if it's being used fo...

Mitiempo, yes it does add some weight. Around 10 gallons of resin, 30lbs of diatoms, and maybe 20lbs of matting. To me the main benefit of an all glass deck is that it's monolithic, with much less potential for interfacial delamination between dissimilar materials over time.

I've used this technique mostly with restoring highly weathered wood pieces that could benefit from internal strengthening. High dilution is to maximize penetration, into the wood. Slow cure epoxy not 5min. The solvent is just to transport the epoxy, and conditions should be so the solvent evaporate...

Diatomite is diatoms or the bio-silica shells from plankton. It's similar to cabosil except the colloidal silica has been assembled into microstructures that are around 50 microns with an aspect ratio of 10:1 or so. I use that because it's a good reinforcing filler for the polyester resin, and the m...

I'm recoring mine with polyester resin mixed with diatomite and fiberglass mat. Most of the top skin is being resused after tapering the edges and embedding them at the top of the mixture. I can do rough fairing while still wet, and then belt sanding for additional smothing, followed by a top layer ...

Dilute epoxy seems to work well if it's used highly diluted at 50:1 or so, and many coats are used, sanding with finer grit paper between each coat (I use 60 through 600 grit). If you let the epoxy really soak in and then evaporate and cure, you end up filling the pores of the wood to create a wood/...

Well I'm not certain that I'll put them back on, but they might go well with the rest of my boat. The windows and ports are all stripped down to the bronze and polished nicely, and I'm using bronze carriage bolts with capnuts for thru-bolting. I painted the cabin and deck navy grey, so copper would ...

Are these copper handrails an original part? My boat came with three of them and there are screw holes in companionway exterior trim that identifies the location of two of them, but I don't know where the third goes and if I'm missing a copper handrail.