Chain Plates - looking for fabrication source

[Polecat]

I've decided to replace my chain plates on my Renegade. they are all 1 1/4 wide by 9 3/4 long by 3/16 thick ---- anyone have a good source to get them made?
thanks
jim

[David]

The only source I know is Schaefer Marine.

[Rachel]

Not quite the same as buying ready-made, but you can purchase bar stock and then bring them to a machine shop. If you use stainless-steel, it's important to polish them well to help stave off crevice corrossion. If you're using bronze, it's not as much of a worry (and easier to machine).

We had a lengthy discussion about bronze/stainless/chainplates not too long ago, which might give you some good info.

Edited to add the link:

http://plasticclassicforum.com/viewtopi ... ate+bronze

Rachel

[Quetzalsailor]

In our neck of the woods, in Bear, Delaware (only 40 miles south of Philly, but on the way to the Chesapeake), Sheet Metal Fabricators will make anything you want. They made lovely chainplates for me in 316 stainless, including the usual strap type, a backup plate for the forestay, and welded brackets required for the Morgan 27 shrouds. I emailed them AutoCAD drawings and picked up the pieces a couple weeks later. Not terribly expensive.

Bet you a buck, not a boat dollar, that you can find a similar craftsman-filled shop in your neck of the woods.

[bhartley]

I am needing to have several chainplates made. The stock Schaefer's won't work for this application. My question is about annealed stainless. Can annealed stainless be used for chainplates? Everything I Google says it is "normally provided in the annealed condition". I have a general understanding of what annealing is. I know they need to be polished, but will annealed 316 stainless be satisfactory. I am having difficulty finding a source of 1/8" bar stock. 3/16" won't work. Suggestions?

OnlineMetals

[Capn_Tom]

Annealing is used to "correct" deficiencies that are produced during the shaping or working of the steel. If the stock is annealed after being machined the process will be beneficial not detrimental. By using 316 you will decrease the likelihood of crevice corrosion but never say never.

[bhartley]

Thanks! Time to check the final dimensions and get the stock ordered then.

Bly

[stone]

Mine are 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 1/4" thick angle stock 316 stainless. I am doing the cutting with a porta-band saw and the rounding with the grinder. I am going to send them off to be electropolished ($75.00 for all eight). Check with your local supplier as mine was actually cheaper than ordering online.

[bhartley]

I actually found a pretty reasonably priced source of 316 stock.

http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cf ... &top_cat=1

Online Metals was very helpful and I got my stock quickly. I got them from the local fabricator this morning and they are set to be polished (going tomorrow).

Each of the six has to be fitted individually to the new backing blocks and the bolts glassed in place. A May launch isn't going to happen, but maybe we'll be sailing on the 4th of July. Hubby is starting to wonder the rationale of selling the fully restored Typhoon -- and keeping the Seasprite 23 that needed some long deferred maintenance. Much easier to do it in our yard in Georgia than the yard in Massachusetts. They're a little less picky about old bottom paint and fiberglass dust.

She'll be pretty as a picture and back to sailing by the time we leave for MA in the fall. Always think positive!

Bly

[Quetzalsailor]

Some of you will recall that I've recently cut through a 1" dia 316 Stainless propeller shaft using a cutoff wheel chucked up into a 4 1/2" angle grinder. These wheels are available at the Home Despot and are about 1/16" thick, so not much metal was being sprayed around. Took about 5 minutes.

I've since made the equivalent of strap chainplates using a scrap of unknown alloy stainless that I picked out of a snowbank in front of the McConnell Engineering Building at McGill in about 1972. The piece was about 18" long, 2 1/8" wide and 1/4" thick. The design I had in mind required cutting the piece in half at an angle and making two identical straps with majorly curved top ends, in other words, quite a bit more shape to them than ordinary chainplates. I tried a sabre saw at low speed and ruined a new sharp blade after about 1/8" progress. I'm much too lazy to pick up a hacksaw. So, I grabbed the angle grinder and the cutoff wheel, zipped the stock in half, bolted the halves together, sketched the curve, and zipped the curve shape with multiple cuts. Cutting the now 1/2" thick stock through with the thin cutoff wheel was a piece of cake and the work of minutes. I then ground the fair curve, etc., with a bench grinder. Cleaned up the grinder marks and eased the corners and edges with a fine disc in the angle grinder. Cleaned up the disc marks with a palm sander. Polished with a cloth wheel in the bench grinder. If the original fabricator of the piece had not used a very rough sander on the flat faces, I'd have been done; I'll have to resand and repolish to get the remaining deep scratches out.

These two pieces will be bolted through the Teak coamings at their aft ends where I've had to repair cracks. The coamings are bolted through the sides of the fiberglass cockpit and extend up past the deck where they are vulnerable to being stepped on when the boat heels. The new straps will be bolted through the Teak and the fiberglass below deck and through the Teak above the deck, basically a batten across the crack. But they will do another task as well; they will provide a place to mount traveller control blocks. The idea is that they will look very like the rest of LeComtes' 'homemade' stainless fittings. Pictures will follow some day.

[JonnyBoats]

These two pieces will be bolted through the Teak coamings at their aft ends where I've had to repair cracks. The coamings are bolted through the sides of the fiberglass cockpit and extend up past the deck where they are vulnerable to being stepped on when the boat heels. The new straps will be bolted through the Teak and the fiberglass below deck and through the Teak above the deck, basically a batten across the crack. But they will do another task as well; they will provide a place to mount traveller control blocks. The idea is that they will look very like the rest of LeComtes' 'homemade' stainless fittings. Pictures will follow some day.

I see your traveller is all the way aft, unlike mine on Altair which is just in front of the pedistal. Would you be willing to share some more about your traveller setup?

[Quetzalsailor]

I said that I'd post some pictures of my coaming-repair-done-like-chainplates. Here they are:

As previously noted, these are made from scrap stainless that was once part of the McConnell Engineering Building at McGill University; it was, I think, part of the original signage over the entry and as such had been outdoors since the late '50s when I picked it up out of the snow in the early '70s. Pretty good stuff, no corrosion, but was deeply sanded when fabricated. I cut the rough shape with the thin 4 1/4" dia cutoff wheels for metal which required a small stack of washers to be chucked up in my angle grinder. The wheel cuts straight lines so multiple nibbles are required for a curve. Very fast! Ground to shape and buffed. Needs more buffing to meet LeComte standards.

The intent, besides 'bandaging' or battening across the cracked coamings, is to mount the traveller control stuff. I will likely replace the functionally awful traveller with a Harken, if I can stand the thought of black anodized metal in place of the LeComte stainless. The eyebolts are cheezy but the necessity is to affix them with acorn nuts which I have not found in metric sizes and all the decent eyebolts I've found are Wichard metric. I windward sheet just a smidge since the angle of the mainsheet is so poor, and the sail is so full, that I cannot sheet home sufficiently to my taste.