For some reason, I was under the impression that the fittings couldn't be disassembled. Are they put together with red loctite? If so, I would be happy to disassemble and take some pictures. I will try to find some sort of microscope that can take pictures.

Also, I understand dye can help show cracks. Is there an off the shelf dye I can put on before taking pics? I think I would be happy doing a good inspection before sailing the 1500 miles back to FL or Kemah if I can do a thorough inspection.

Would you worry about the upper end, or are failures statistically far more common at the bottom of shrouds?

Here are the fittings:

Details
 

Hi again,
Those can be disassembled. Heat the terminal. A lot. You need to melt the red loctite that is securing the threads. When it has vaporized, you can unscrew the studs, and slide the rod heads out for inspection. Clean it off and post closeup pictures.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

Frank,

Yes heat the terminals, but not a lot!

You do not want much of the heat to soak into the rod end.

I usually start to heat the threaded end up near the socket first so the heat path is through the threaded end, across the loctite bond and into the fitting with the rod head the last to see any real heat.

The strength of the nitronic rod depends in part on the mechanism of work hardening as it is drawn down to size at the mill. This is fairly carefully calculated and allowed for ( or should be ) by the manufacturers.

Too much heat will bring the rod back to the annealed state, not what you want at all....soft rod ends.

I usually heat gently until I can smell the loctite starting to powder off and then give it a turn, really not a great deal of heat maybe 100 to 125 Celcius.

If you discolour the fitting brown or blue, you have gone too far.

It is more iimportant to grip the rod socket and the threaded rod REALLY securely so you can apply some controlled torque without slipping.

A couple of aluminium ( alright aluminum ) plates in the vice jaws will grip the thread longitudinally with the thread horizontal in the jaws and gripping the long axis of the thread, without damage.

Or you may, as a last resort, have to file a couple of flats on the very end of the thread so you can grip it in a good vice.

I have found that the powdered loctite acts as a pretty good lubricant, go smoothly and carefully, but let the fitting know you mean business!

Joe.

Terms
 

Hi again,
Thanks, Joe, I should have defined what I meant by "a lot." It isn't easy to heat rod ends enough to anneal them, but it can be done. So yes, just enough heat to make the Loctite let go. Which is, um a lot...
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

Thanks for the advice. I am going to try this in the next couple days. I will go easy with the heat. I will try to come up with some way of applying torque to the threads as well. I was going to use a stainless rivet through the pin hoe, but it sounds like this won't be enough. I will try the aluminum plates, or possibly file some flats if necessary.

A couple more questions:

My USB microscope will either do 20X or 200X zoom. Is 20X enough? 200X might be hard to work with, but I will try.

When reassembling, I will use the red loctite again, of course. What about greasing the rod head? Moly grease? T9? nothing?

Thanks,
Frank

Details
 

Hi again,
I vote for nothing. And you might be able to unscrew using the cotter hole. Give it a try first.
As for magnification, let's see what we can see with 20x.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

Okay, here are some albums with high res photos of the rod heads. So far I have done two, but my assistant has fallen asleep....

For both, I cleaned them thoroughly. For the intermediate shroud, I left it bare. For the lower shroud, I colored it with sharpie, then wiped it aggressively with a clean dry cloth. The sharpie does seem to highlight the imperfections and pitting. Let me know if it is helpful or distracting.

The heads have some pitting, but no cracks that I can see. There are some marks that I assume are from the heading process. The screws also have pitting.

I guess the rust I now get is from the pitting. I don't know if this is problematic or simply cosmetic. Let me know what you think.

On reassembly, do I screw the screw in as far as it will go, or measure it to be the same distance as before (about 7/8" on all of them)?

As for the forestay, removing and rescrewing the bronze "nose" doesn't damage it, right?

Screws:
https://picasaweb.google.com/fflanne...6Iw&feat=email

Starboard Lower:
https://picasaweb.google.com/fflanne...-Zg&feat=email

Starboard intermediate:
https://picasaweb.google.com/fflanne...tcQ&feat=email

Frank

Too much
 

Hi again,
Nice pictures. The resolution allows for further magnification without blurring. If you do that, you'll see short transverse cracks. Bad. That, plus the amount of pitting leads me to say that these should indeed be replaced.
Note that I've seen worse that haven't failed yet -- big transverse cracks, at the turn of the head -- but this looks more like the effects of prolonged corrosion, a bit too crumbly.
Joe, what say you?
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

That's a bummer, but better safe than sorry. We will order the new rigging and plan on doing it in the marina in place. If we run into problems, we can arrange to pull the stick without having to go anywhere.

Any interest in seeing the other rod heads? I haven't scoped them, but they look the same with the naked eye. No obvious major flaws, but some micro-pitting.

BTW, in case you are interested, this is what we used to magnify them. I thought it worked really well. It also has a 200x setting but the focal length becomes so short that it is impossible to use for this application:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Frank,

I agree completely with Brion.

Far to many spongey areas and myriad cracks waiting to fly merrily apart despite much polishing - this, I think, is where the bleeding rust was comiing from.

The other horror is my favourite thing about rod heads, the evidence of worn out dies used beyond thier replacement date, Viz the uneven heads, the protruding flashes on the flanks of the heads where the mating faces have chipped and the machining marks on one side of some heads whre the loft probably made thier own replacement die after some clumsy unsupervised apprentice broke one half of the die set.

I know all about breaking dies in Navtec or other heading presses, I was that cocky and arrogant aprentice for about twenty minutes back in the seventies!

A short sharp lesson in my actual worth as opposed to my percieved worth with a side excursion into the market price and availability of dash 60 Navtec dies focussed my attention and helped an awful lot in assisting me in ongoing career decisions.

Talk to the loft doing the replacements, (do not be seduced by the cheapest quote , although it is quite possible that the best IS the cheapest, usually because they are the quickest and most professional about the whole deal, and do not mind investing in new sets of dies occasionally) mention that you expect properly formed heads, they will harrumph a bit and tell you that the ALWAYS form the heads properly, I hope they do, if they dont, squeal like a hog and demand replacements..

Having said that, these deformed and incomplete heads have not fallen off for a scrillion years.. .so what do I know.

Am I right in thinking you are going to replace the complete set, tangs, rod and turnbuckles?

If so, how about looking at the chainplates as well...Oh no! Pandoras box!

Good luck.