Restoring the look of old Lewmar Winches

[PhilaSailor]

Hello,

I'm restoring a Hunter Cutter 37 I've owned for 34 years. Awlgrip on the hull, mast and deck make the boat look new. I've replaced worn aluminum cleats, lazarette hinges and sansom post with new stainless that is incredibly reasonable. These look better than the original. With each upgrade, the remaining items stand out.

I'm looking to improve the winches, toe rail and hatches.

Winches: Options are anodize, paint, powder coat or chrome. If the Lewmar winches have cast drums, online research suggests they will not anodize well due to alloys used in casting. There are many older ebay Lewmar winches that look new. Are the Lewmar winches not cast aluminum ? The winches on the mast are chrome and still look good.

Toe Rail and hatches: The black is a whitish yuck. The hatches are more than 1/2 silver. Awlgrip black paint over a good primer ?

Thanks for any insights !

 

[jviss]

Welcome to the forum. Pictures help.

jv

 

[dmax]

I had my winches rechromed, look like new. I was not able to find anyone that would do small anodization jobs (this was for my cleats, not the winches). I doubt painting the winches would last, powder coating would probably not last long either. Lewmar winch drums are generally made of bronze. For the toe rails/hatches: Awlgrip is great paint but you need to be experienced to apply it (very dangerous to your health if not done correctly). Look into a one-part polyurethane paint (TotalBoat, Pettit, Interlux etc.), not quite as good as Awlgrip but still very good. People have reported that Rustoleum spray paint is cheap, easy and holds up well.

 

[jviss]

Re-chroming has gotten expensive due to environmental regulations, mostly associated with removing the old chrome, chemically, and disposing of the waste. That said, if you have bronze drums, it will still be much cheaper than new winches, in my estimation.

I assume the toe rails are anodized aluminum? Tough to say how you'd 'restore' those in place. And removing them would be a nightmare.

Hatches - what make have you, and what material? I only got a couple of years out of one-part marine paint on my old, aluminum catches on my Catalina 36. Maybe a two-part with the proper, etching primer would have been better, but would certainly have been more work.

 

[PhilaSailor]

Thanks for the insights !

My Lewmar 42's are black, not chrome in the cockpit.

I'm having my deck and mast Awlgriped by a yard that does this often. The result is expensive but makes the boat look new as it appears on other boats in their yard. The yard's process is sand, repair fiberglass cracks, high build primer to fill the smaller cracks, Awlgrip 545 primer, then 2 coats of Awlgrip. The yard, suggests Awlgrip for hatches and toe rails possibly because that's all they know and do well.

I'll look into chroming the winches, even though they were originally black. I'm waiting for Lewmar support to confirm the winch drums are bronze. Searching winches on ebay and old, redone winches pop up and look great. The ebay seller reported the shiney look just using Cameo/steel wool then using Penetrol for 5 minutes.

I'd guess the Cameo - Penetrol would work on the toe rail. I'd also guess this would not stay clean and shiney for long.

There are other posts mentioning the Rustoleum primer and spray paint for the hatches. Reports there mention the hatches look good after 3 years.

Has anyone else out there figured out these issues ?

 

[DianaOfBurlington]

You should not chrome-plate aluminum. Metallurgically the two metals do not get on together. This is why cheap ‘alloy’ hardware such as is used mostly on powerboats looks so bad with the chrome flaking off, etc. The chrome plating begins attacking the ‘zamac’ alloy (zinc, aluminum, magnesium) from the moment it’s applied. I strongly suspect the same would happen to your winch drums.

What about them is so unacceptably unsightly? Your Lewmar winches are made with anodized-aluminum (saltwater-ready marine-grade) drums which will ‘weather’ gradually, going lighter in color and achieving a silverish patina after maybe 25-30 years. It’s how they’re supposed to be. Keep the guts properly lubricsted and they'll last nearly for ever.

 

[PhilaSailor]

Your thoughts on chrome and aluminum match a long ago memory from a materials course back in engineering undergrad. However, this doesn't apply here as the Lewmar 42 winches on Cherubini Hunters are bronze. Lewmar confirmed this. Their customer support is pretty good even for decades old winches.

I getting an Awlgrip deck paint job done to give a near new boat appearance, along with a hull Awlcraft done last year and mast Awlgrip this year. I'm replacing the aluminum cleats and bronze Samson post with stainless as you see most often on new boats. The vintage, weathered winches don't match the new vibe. The stainless 316 cleats from China are shockingly cheap and match the hole patterns of the old anodized aluminum cleats that have nearly no anodizing left.

I've read a bit on the forums of Rustoleum black for the hatches and perhaps the toe rail. This seems to hold up well according to these posts. The hatches and toe rail do not get the same wear as the winches so I'd guess paint would hold up. Any opinions on here of marine Rustoleum over primer versus a more expensive 2 part paint approach ?

I'm thinking of painting the toe rail without removing the toe rail to avoid opening that can of worms.

Seeing pics of some of the refit/upgrades of the Cherubini 37 cutter has been inspiring for what I'm having done.

 

[DianaOfBurlington]

Nice to read a thoughtful response

I read elsewhere in this thread that your winches were ‘black’. The ‘black’ of bronze hardware isn’t truly black - though perhaps that’s what was meant

Sorry about that!

There is a widespread misconception that Chinese and SE Asian hardware is of type-316 SS. My brother, an experienced & highly-ranked aerospace engineer and a major party to many design projects that we’re not allowed to talk about, set me right on this. Fact: most SE Asian stainless is naff. They simply do not have adequate ore quality there. For purely economic and political reasons they’ll claim it’s 316; but it won’t come close to American standards for type 316 (such as my brother would know & require). In general, if it’s from China, it’s NOT 316. The Thai and Indian stuff is a little better. Unfortunately if it’s Taiwanese they get their ore from the PRC (due to a contract that makes them like an economic colony of the PRC - witness the current strife there).

I buy, use, and recommend a lot of stuff from Sea-Dog, who are more scrupulous in their metals selection. They are an American company who’ve been making things in SE Asia since the 1930s. Best of all they have a factory website aimed at designers, builders and engineers with full dimensioned drawings and tech specs like load ratings, etc.

I would NOT place Garhauer (‘as you see most often on new boats’) in any category even close to Sea-Dog. The quality and design is just not there. I got 2 Garhauer stanchion braces and found, to my horror, that the California company used METRIC SET SCREWS in some kind of arrogant defiance of the WORLDWIDE STANDARD (like the other two, which are Schaefer’s) for this yacht application which is 1/4-28. WTH? I retapped the Garhauer ones to 1/4-28 and said out loud, ‘You guys can stuff it!’ Now I have only ONE collection of spare set screws aboard.

The winches on little Diana are all ‘70s-‘80s chrome-plated Lewmars as befit a yacht of her reputation (and as testament to the famous Hunter/Warren Luhrs decision to use Lewmar, to which I was a party, that I can tell another time - watch the blog). These old winches may not be beautiful in the way they used to be but what 48-yr-old lady is? - instead she has a more dignified kind of beauty that serves her quite well. Last summer I enquired of a vendor Cherubini Boat used to use about having the early-‘70s Lewmar 5 drum rechromed. The guy told me $160. I could buy four old Lewmar 5s for that. So the all-bronze pole-lift/staysail-halyard winch wears its patina like the rest of the boat’s hardware - a timepiece of 1970s production-boat perfection still going strong through TLC and blood, sweat and tears.

 

[DianaOfBurlington]

BTW my solution for refinishing the black-anodized toerail is to ‘burnish’ it with black 4200 UV. Clean it with acetone (NOT alcohol, which is an Achilles heel to 5200, 4200, 4000, and 3000) and rub a fingerful into the scratches. Looks great when done.

 

[PhilaSailor]

Hello,

An update on redoing the winches etc. Alpha ('83 37 cutter) has 2 Lemwar 43 winches and a Bariant for the mainsheet. Lewmar confirms the 43 is bronze and even offered a chrome version of these. The Bariant appears to be an aluminum drum. I'll be looking for a chrome shop to redo the winches over the winter.

The 4200 UV for the toe rail sounds great. I'll give it a go.

The marina doing the deck paint gave me a deal on doing black Awlgrip on the 4 hatches since lots was taped off to paint the non skid part of the deck anyway.

I have a 3GM30F motor. Has anyone put a 4 cylinder, 40+ hp motor in a 37C ?

Michael ("Alpha")

 

[DianaOfBurlington]

The Barient appears to be an aluminum drum. I'll be looking for a chrome shop to redo the winches over the winter.

You could call Frankford Plating in Phila to redo the (bronze) winch drums; but they are NOT cheap - my guess being at least $180-200 per piece. They wanted $160 to do my no,5.

As I maybe did not make clear, I would NOT recommend chrome-plating an aluminum/alloy winch. The metals are not compatible. You might consider acquiring a new(er) Lewmar chrome winch on eBay - there are plenty to choose from.

Diana came to me with three chrome Lewmars which were not original to the boat in 1974 (Hunter not making the change to Lewmar till that famous meeting in the Cherubini shop in 1977). The no.6 is pretty nicked up but i reused it because it belongs to the boat. I got one early-‘70s no.8 as surplus from a friend and bought a 1980s no.6 and the early-‘70s all-bronze no.5 on eBay.

I still have another early-‘70s no.8 and three early-‘80s no.7s to relist for sale.

 

[PhilaSailor]

For the next step in this thread, I found a local guy who will black powder coat 3 winches (2 parts to each winch) for $150. I'm in. I'll post before and after. Chrome is not recommended on the Barient mainsheet winch as it is aluminum with likely flaking of the chrome at some point. The jib winches are both bronze and could have been chromed at a higher cost. 3 matching black winches seemed best.

 

[Tally Ho]

For the next step in this thread, I found a local guy who will black powder coat 3 winches (2 parts to each winch) for $150. I'm in. I'll post before and after. Chrome is not recommended on the Barient mainsheet winch as it is aluminum with likely flaking of the chrome at some point. The jib winches are both bronze and could have been chromed at a higher cost. 3 matching black winches seemed best.

Sounds like a deal. Let us know how it goes. I rehabbed some very neglected Barlow winches a while back, and they do need to be refinished (I am using them now, hoping use may polish them up some more…).

Greg

 

[PhilaSailor]

Hello,

I'm back to ask another question of the group and want to round out the winches experience.

The black powder coat on the bronze winches worked perfectly even after a full season and a half. The powder coat of chrome on the self tailing part looked great for about 2 weeks. This totally does not work/stick. I'll get these chromed locally.

Extreme Powder Coat in Pennsauken, NJ did 2 winches for $200. Their main business is black powder coat on car rims for show cars. The salt on the road may not be quite as corrosive as sea water. The winches are bronze drums. Aluminum looks like a bad idea.

Michael