I took advantage of the nice weather to go to the boat yesterday. Everything was fine, which is great considering the last time I was aboard was December. Last spring I stripped the top of the hand rails, but never got around to applying new varnish. Noting the varnish drips from the last varnish job on the stainless stand offs (the little tubes between the deck and the rail) I opted to pull them entirely off so I could properly apply a nice thick layer of varnish.
For the most part disassembly was easy. Removed the acorn nut, remove the regular nut just to the end to protect the threads then tap them up from below. Repeat as necessary. It was necessary to lever up the ends, which have shorter bolts with no stand offs. Each stand off had a wooden core to center the bolt in the stainless tube. In about 50% of the cases that wood was wet and crumbled upon removal. The wooden core was cut shorter than the tube. Upon removal of the stand offs there were disks of ~1/4 thick silicone adhered to the deck around the holes. From this I guessed that the wood cores were cut short, fit into the tubes, then filled with a healthy dose of silicone before being fit into place. The bolts were obviously inserted through the silicone as there was silicone on the threads in many cases.
While the cores of some were obviously wet, there was also evidence of leakage into the boats interior, as the nuts on the inside had some yuck on them, which I am generally taking to be an indication that the bedding has failed. The good news is that there wasn't evidence of significantly wet core as the holes showed no signs of wetness after bolt removal.
An interesting challenge was transporting the rails home, as they must be twelve feet long. Lucky for me my Tundra's rear window retracts so I had them lying across the bedliner projecting into the cab onto the dash. If I had put them in the bed they would have projected out about four feet. I had visions on some idiot running into them and couldn't imagine what a pain it would be to cut a new pair.
It made for somewhat chilly ride home, but not too bad with the warm weather and the heat cranked.
Anyway, now for the question. I am trying to think of an improvement over the wood core S2 used. Most of them got soaked and it wicked into the interior.
I could use plastic, but it cold flows and could therefore become ineffective as the seals might break.
I could use wood again, but epoxy the wood plugs (apparently just cut from a dowel and untreated, which would be easy and inexpensive). I could also improve things by sealing the tops as well as the bottoms with sealant, which would perhaps eliminate a route of water ingress.
I could have a machine shop make me some out of aluminum, but the combination of aluminum and stainless in close proximity might not be the best for a marine environment.
Your thoughts appreciated, as always.
BobM
For the most part disassembly was easy. Removed the acorn nut, remove the regular nut just to the end to protect the threads then tap them up from below. Repeat as necessary. It was necessary to lever up the ends, which have shorter bolts with no stand offs. Each stand off had a wooden core to center the bolt in the stainless tube. In about 50% of the cases that wood was wet and crumbled upon removal. The wooden core was cut shorter than the tube. Upon removal of the stand offs there were disks of ~1/4 thick silicone adhered to the deck around the holes. From this I guessed that the wood cores were cut short, fit into the tubes, then filled with a healthy dose of silicone before being fit into place. The bolts were obviously inserted through the silicone as there was silicone on the threads in many cases.
While the cores of some were obviously wet, there was also evidence of leakage into the boats interior, as the nuts on the inside had some yuck on them, which I am generally taking to be an indication that the bedding has failed. The good news is that there wasn't evidence of significantly wet core as the holes showed no signs of wetness after bolt removal.
An interesting challenge was transporting the rails home, as they must be twelve feet long. Lucky for me my Tundra's rear window retracts so I had them lying across the bedliner projecting into the cab onto the dash. If I had put them in the bed they would have projected out about four feet. I had visions on some idiot running into them and couldn't imagine what a pain it would be to cut a new pair.
It made for somewhat chilly ride home, but not too bad with the warm weather and the heat cranked.Anyway, now for the question. I am trying to think of an improvement over the wood core S2 used. Most of them got soaked and it wicked into the interior.
I could use plastic, but it cold flows and could therefore become ineffective as the seals might break.
I could use wood again, but epoxy the wood plugs (apparently just cut from a dowel and untreated, which would be easy and inexpensive). I could also improve things by sealing the tops as well as the bottoms with sealant, which would perhaps eliminate a route of water ingress.
I could have a machine shop make me some out of aluminum, but the combination of aluminum and stainless in close proximity might not be the best for a marine environment.
Your thoughts appreciated, as always.
BobM
