removehtml] have a 1982 34 oday with a cast iron keel with what I believe to be monel bolts and nuts. The keel appears to be moving, albeit a very small amount. The evidence that leads me to this conclusion is the seam between the keel top and the fiberglass stub it is attached to seems to open up enough during the season to permit rusting along the seam. This happens after the seam has been opened up in the spring, cast iron touched up and faired back in with west system. Eight months later, a nice rust ring around the joint. Questions posed are: Retorqueing the keel bolts may help but what is the proper torque? I have seen values suggested up to 300 ft lbs. The seam compound may be beyond it's useful life and hence retorqueing may be futile. Has anyone experienced retorqueing only to break a keel bolt? The dissimiliar metals used concerns me. Finally, has anyone removed a cast iron keel to rebed, refinish etc successfully with out with out spending one's wallet down to the bottom? Any comments related to these topics would be most appreciated as I am taking the boat to maine this summer and like piece of mind where keels are concerned. Thanks! Fred Error: Error: expected [/URL], but found [/removehtml] instead[/removehtml]
cast iron keels/bolts/torque etc
- Thread starter argofre
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fred..
Fred, Many production builders laminated keel stubs with plywood and O'day was not immune from this. Catalina for instance stopped this practice in late 1987/1988. It's much more rare to see a late model Catalina, with a solid glass keel stub, get the "Catalina Smile". You should check for wood by drilling a couple of test bores, from the bilge side, to see if your stub has wood in it. It's easy to do and after you're done you just fill the couple of small 1/8 inch holes with epoxy. Many times this keel flex is caused by the wood core of the keel stub getting wet and soft and until you remove the wet core and re-laminate it with epoxy and fiberglass it will only continue to get worse. If your keel stub does not have wood in it then you can just drop it and re-bed it provided your bolts are ok.
Fred, Many production builders laminated keel stubs with plywood and O'day was not immune from this. Catalina for instance stopped this practice in late 1987/1988. It's much more rare to see a late model Catalina, with a solid glass keel stub, get the "Catalina Smile". You should check for wood by drilling a couple of test bores, from the bilge side, to see if your stub has wood in it. It's easy to do and after you're done you just fill the couple of small 1/8 inch holes with epoxy. Many times this keel flex is caused by the wood core of the keel stub getting wet and soft and until you remove the wet core and re-laminate it with epoxy and fiberglass it will only continue to get worse. If your keel stub does not have wood in it then you can just drop it and re-bed it provided your bolts are ok.
My experience has been this is normal
My Cheoy Lee Clipper had an iron keel and the rust line was there its entire life of 26 years. My keel bolts where fiberglassed over to protect them so could not be checked. This was a full keel boat so it was a long rust line. I think you are always going to get some rust in this area. If it is just a line and no seperation of the keel I would expoxy it and forget about it until the next haul out.
My Cheoy Lee Clipper had an iron keel and the rust line was there its entire life of 26 years. My keel bolts where fiberglassed over to protect them so could not be checked. This was a full keel boat so it was a long rust line. I think you are always going to get some rust in this area. If it is just a line and no seperation of the keel I would expoxy it and forget about it until the next haul out.
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