installing new rod rigging
 

It's time for me to change the rod on our 40 ft sailboat. The difficulty is that we are in Central America, where there are no places that do rod or really any riggers that I trust.

I have a quote from a company in the USA that says they can make the stays and ship them down to me. They will put new k200 tangs on the stays, since they are captive. I will measure the lengths and spreader bend locations and angles for them.

I plan on installing the new stays with the rig up. It is keel stepped, so I think this is reasonable using some lines as temporary stays. Obviously, you do one at a time. As I understand it, I just need to use a blowtorch to melt the loctite, remove the old tang and put the new tang in with some new loctite and fasteners.

The new forestay will be wire, as I don't want to disasssemble my furler foil (Harken MK1 unit 2). I will drop it and run the new wire on the dock, using a norseman stud at the bottom. The rod locking collar from the old forestay should work with the norseman fitting, I believe. It looks to be a 5/8 stud.

Does this sound crazy, or does it sound within reason? Are the any other considerations I am overlooking?

Thanks for the advice.

Dear Infinitysail,

First of all, why is it time to change your rods? Do you really need to do it now, and in such a place!

Second, changing oldish rods is an intricate job, not to be undertaken lightly, especialy with the mast up.

If the time has really come, then you should probably take the mast out and do the job thoroughly, there may be hidden horrors to discover!

And, if you remove the mast, you can send the whole set of rods, complete with tangs etc to be sorted in the States. Whoever does it can re-use tangs and/or turnbuckles where appropriate, and you will probably get a better and more accurate job.

Regards,

Joe.

The rigging is 23 yrs old and shows a little rust at the bottom terminals. I think it is time to change it. I want to take the boat back to the US, but I am nervous about doing it on the original rigging.

I would agree that it would be nice to remove the mast and send the rigging back to the states to get it more accurately replaced. That would cost me about $2k or more here, which makes me want to try to do it in place. Reusing tangs or turnbuckles will not save me much, either. It seems to me that removing and putting in new K200 tangs is a pretty easy job, but I just wanted to be sure.

One followup question: Navtec sells a C550 rod turnbuckle and the N690 rod turnbuckle for half the price. Is there any reason to go with the C550 for ~$600 more on the job?

Mate,

Yes it's time!

Good luck with the change over. Temporary stays and halyards out to strong points on the sheer will suffice if you really don't want to take the mast out.

Make sure you ask a LOT of questions on here as you go along. Someone will always have the answer.

Do you have discontinuous rods or tip cups?

I would go with the N690s, much cheaper.

Joe.

Thanks for the quick responses, Joe.

Rod is all continuous with spreader bends. I measured from the middle of the bend to the bearing surface of the stemball adapter cup inside the k200 tangs. I also measured overall length. I finally measured the bend angle with a t square and some rusty high school math. I will probably remeasure one more time on the other side of the rig to double check everything.

One more question: Navtec has aluminum and stainless spreader bends. Are the stainless ones significantly better?

Thanks,
Frank

Frank,

The stainless bends are not significantly better. It's just that the alloy ones are cheaper and lighter.

I would go with stainless bends and get the rigger to just leave them loose on the rod, then you can bend them inplace and match the old rods and get the pre-existing rod curve in the right plane.


Joe.

Mast out?
 

Hi,
Okay, maybe not worth freight back and forth, but the mast could come out just because, if the rod is weary, other things likely are, too. This is a great opportunity to deal with corrosion, fatigue, dents, fasteners, wiring, and all the other likely culprits, with the mast nice and safe at waist level. Yes, it is possible to do the whole thing in place, but I wouldn't even consider it, if I were doing the job.
Sounds like you are getting good measurements, but as Joe notes, you might want to wait to locate those noodles. For instance, are the lower spreaders angled up higher than the upper spreaders? If not, you would be cloning a mistake. Got pictures?
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

PS,
Joe, you coming to Sydney on the 13th?

Sydney Amateurs Sailing club talk.
 

Brion,

I will be there with balls on!

Joe.

Here is a shot from behind. The spreaders mount on heavy stainless bars that pass through the mast and have the angle already built into them. I think adjusting the angle would be difficult.

Rig is built by sparcraft. Boat is a J/40 built by TPI. I measured both sides. Spreader bends were in the same location side to side. Port side shrouds were about 3/4" longer than starboard. I calculated the bends to be 6.4 degrees for upper spreader and 13.2 degrees for lower. What is the method for putting in your own bend?

Boat is a 1990, but spent 15 years in fresh water, so the mast is in great shape. We can pull the mast in the US, but down here it is expensive, difficult and possibly risky. I want to avoid doing this unless absolutely necessary.

Good
 

Hi again,
Angles are adequate. Put in the bend by putting the shroud in the spreader tip, and tightening. The time in fresh water and mild climate is something of a clock-stopper. I understand the difficulty of pulling the stick there, but note that switching in place is also risky. Why am I writing this like a telegram?
Have you disassembled any turnbuckles to examine rod ends? You will need a scrubby pad, and ideally some form of magnification and/or a camera capable of extreme close-ups, so you can send pictures. Where I am going here is we might be able to give a long-distance, heavily-qualified blessing to the rig for the trip home. There are microscopes that clip onto iPhones now...
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

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.

I removed the chainplates last spring to check them. One had some pitting, but I didn't think it was too bad. What is your opinion? The chainplates seem pretty oversized. They are 3/8" thick X 20" X 4.5" with 10 1/2" bolts holding them. There is one plate per side for the lowers and intermediates and one plate for the uppers. I filed into some of the pitting and it disappeared pretty quickly.

What do you think?
https://picasaweb.google.com/fflanne...WWw&feat=email

Also, did I understand you correctly that the best way to put in the spreader bend is to not prebend the shroud, but to put the bend fitting on the spreader end and simply tighten down the shroud while ensuring the spreader doesn't move up or down?

Frank,

You need to ask yourself the following question -

Assuming that a suitable frame and gear was available that loaded each chainplate equally, would I be happy to lift my boat on the athwartships chainplates?

If there is any doubt- replace your chainplates and bolts, easy to do at the dock...bloody hard to do halfway across an ocean.

They may have been sized correctly and installed right when the boat was built, but time and salt water take their tolls.

I think that pitting is a reason to replace.

Like-for-like will be fine, just make sure it IS like-for-like, see multiple threads re chainplates on here.


Spreader bends on Navtec rod need to be pre-bent in the correct position and plane and to the correct angle prior to installing. Otherwise you just get a thick walled tube loose around the rod and ready to slip.

Joe.

It depends
 

Hi again,
Pitting is a relative term, and a little would not be a major worry. But what looks like a little to you might actually be a lot. Go to this page: http://marinesurvey.com/yacht/corrosion_1.htm, and scroll to the bottom to see intraganular corrosion radiating out from small surface pits. From your photo, I'd have to say that your chainplate is more like this than you would like. You have classic, hidden-in-the-deck crevice corrosion.
At least you know how to get them out. For that matter, you actually cared enough about the rig to take them out. We just need to calibrate your eyes.
As for the rod noodles, I've bent them in place with no problems, but it is a finicky process. Get precise measurements, and you can get the bends done for you.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss