Tehani's mast refinishing

[CharlieJ]

Posted on TSBB and lifted intact for here ;D

Last Saturday we lowered Tehani's mast for a total refinish. Laura had been noticing some failure in the coating on the west side of the mast, where the sun pounds down on it every day. There were some bad grain places that had cracked, so she decided the mast should be completely redone.

Last week I built a mast raiser modeled after the ones sold by Macgregor Yachts. Saturday AM we removed the mast. Didn't take long and was a relatively simple job-nerve racking, but simple. On Tehani, the mast lowers forward by the way.

The raiser is an old 8 foot long trailer tongue I salvaged some time ago-



Moved the mast to the parking lot at the marina where she had worked on it last year and she began stripping hardware.

On Sunday she stripped the old finish, which we were really impressed with by the way- Bristol Finish, which except for that one corner, had held up extremely well for 2 years. I feel it was well worth the effort and had it not been for the bad grain, she would have just recoated with Bristol.

At any rate, Monday she began sanding, and applied a coat of epoxy. That afternoon as it was curing to a green state, she rolled on a second coat-

and the rains came :-[

So Tuesday AM she sanded it and rolled on a third (and unplanned)coat of epoxy.

Between rains. >:(

Un-predicted, un-forecast rains. All morning rains.

Tuesday afternoon, friends offered us the use of a corner of the warehouse where they live- about a mile up Main street from the marina-

Inside? under cover? no rain? heck yes ;D ;D

Wednesday morning we hit the marina at about 0700 and loaded the mast up onto their pickup, and drove right down Main street to the warehouse, with the wife of the couple riding in the back to keep things from shifting

In the rain.



As we were driving, the rains began and JUST as we got the mast inside, the deluge started- street flooding, 5 to 7 inches of rain, depending on where you were. I mean we unloaded at 0800 and at 0802 it was POURING!!!

But the mast was inside and dry so work could continue- Final coat of epoxy ( of 3 coats) was sanded and then it was ready to spray



Today, Laura shot four coats of automotive acrylic clear coat-



Tomorrow she'll begin reinstalling all the hardware- sail track, rigging stuff, cleats, winches etc. and Saturday morning we plan to restep.

Ah, the joys of having a wooden mast Laura claims she's about ready to order an aluminum one!! :D- I think she's jesting  ;)

Oh- and where have I been?- Working on two customer boats, one out of town, one at the shop.

[Amgine]

Nice! Sorry you had to deal with rain, but the job looks to be getting done the right way! Great report!

[Jeremy]

I'm embarking on refinishing my Meridian's mast - which appears identical to yours.  I stripped off much of the multitude of failing varnish over the weekend.  Heat gun and putty knife were very effective. 

Next up is re-gluing a couple delaminated seams.

I've removed a good deal of the hardware.  Some of the fasteners were in a very sorry state - most of the small bronze wood screws holding in the sail track were broken or corroded (I didn't think bronze corroded . . . ). 

Before taking more of the hardware of, I've a couple questions, for Charlie or anyone else. 

I'm assuming that -- except where a threaded rod or bolt passes all the way through the mast, from one side to the other -- the fasteners are likely to be wood screws - I want to be sure that if I remove the winch for servicing, for example, that nuts inside the glued up box section mast don't simply drop out, negating any hope of reattachment.  Same with the shroud tangs.

[CharlieJ]

Right- all wood screws. Remember you are only dealing with about 3/4 inch of wood, so plan to set screws in epoxy.

The bolt thru the lower shroud tangs SHOULD have a compression tube around it, sized flush with the mast surface each side.

You can move the tracks up or down a half inch and use new holes, after
Filling the old ones.

[sugar magnolia]

Hey hope its not to late

our mast has only two through bolts: on at mast head and one at spreader base/lower shroud tangs
our mast has solid blocking at the spreaders rather than a compression tube

my word of wisdom is if the spreader base through bolt is a hollow tube threaded on both ends with nut on either side be absolutely careful about which nut goes on which side and which side up each nut goes as the cotter pin hole was drilled for a fit in only one direction
I spent an hour taking mine back apart when I realized that although the wrong nut worked on one side it didn't work for the other

Charlie,
you are recomending setting the screws in wet epoxy, correct?

[CharlieJ]

Yes-seals the holes that way.

Forgot about those nuts and hollow tube ;D

[Jeremy]

Thanks for the further words of wisdom and clarification.  I've got all the hardware off - we also have solid blocking at the spreaders, and I reassembled the spreader/tang assembly piece by piece as I removed it so unwittingly managed to avoid the wrong nut problem (I think).

The refinishing project has stalled a bit, but I hope to get back to it this weekend.