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Pedestal Refinish

Kenneth K

1985 32-3, Puget Sound
Blogs Author
Yeah, good point. I see zinc and aluminum are right next to each other in the galvanic series. Magnesium might work. I see the boat shops have magnesium anodes for about the same price as zinc.
 

toddster

Curator of Broken Parts
Blogs Author
Yeah, but they melt like butter in salt water. Still, sounds like a fun experiment. (The kind that someone else is paying for :rolleyes: )
 

Hagar2sail

Member III
Blogs Author
Press Fit?

Trying to get the pedistal ready for the sandblasting booth, and it seemed to me like a good idea to take the axel the wheel and sprocket ride on out so the surfaces don’t get damaged by accident. I drove the roll pin out (it wasn’t very hard) and backed out the set screw, and found out it looks like the nylon bearings are the end are press fit on?? Any suggestions or others who have been here? I am leery of trying to remove the nylon, and the replacement that might entail, but the sprocket will not leave the shaft with the bearing in place. Suggestions?

214E91F0-5956-4521-8168-080416BB1561.jpg
 
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Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Sandblasting? I used paint remover, Interlux filler, hand sanding, roll and tip with Brightside.

In the end it was overkill and next time I'll just spray the thing with Rustoleum white.
 

Hagar2sail

Member III
Blogs Author
Sandblasting? I used paint remover, Interlux filler, hand sanding, roll and tip with Brightside.

In the end it was overkill and next time I'll just spray the thing with Rustoleum white.

Interesting. I had chatted with a interlux rep and he basically said for any lasting solution I needed to have it sandblasted to get a profile on the aluminum that would allow the primer (and thus epoxy top coat) to stick. How long has your pedistal been painted now?
 

sharonov

Member II
This is what I did:
1. Paint remover. The first one I tried did not work. Then I got something that said "removes ...epoxy..." and that did the trick. Don't recall the brand.
2. Primer: SEM 39683 Grey Self Etching Primer. That worked great. Wear respirator and gloves!
3. Paint: Krylon RTA9200. That worked OK but the paint is too soft. Will try something else next time.
 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Since this is a useful and well-named thread, let me yammer on a bit about my specific experiences.

( to supplement http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/entry.php?119-Pedestal-Rebuild and -- for painting -- http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/entry.php?111-Paint-Boom-Revise-Outhaul )

The pedestal on what is now Bruce's boat, the 32-3 Makana, needed deep re-welding after it broke off Hawaii. It was a redesign, using a flat base plate. Before departure I had prepped and painted with Brightside. Beautiful finish.

ped bare.jpg

The welder on Kauai ground all that paint off. So there I was at midnight in the rain with a bare pedestal ready to be reinstalled. How to paint it? The welder recommended a hardware-store aerosol that "contains its own primer". Hot dog! I spray-painted this shiny aluminum pedestal, barefoot, in a 20-knot harbor wind while hiding behind garbage cans at Nawiliwili. I installed it at dawn while it was still wet. So were my spray-painted tootsies, which stayed white for two more days.

Now there's a repaint job not entirely what you might call professional. You can ask Bruce how it looks four years later, unless he has refinished it. it still looked good to me.

When I got the E38 I took the pedestal out for inspection and decided to have a welder re-weld the connection of tube to base. Paranoia? Yes, and also nitwit engineering analysis. The original design of the YS pedestal base, which is fluted, actually places very little strain on any welds. I now believe rewelding an original pedestal is unnecessary. And it created issues for the welder, because the tube/base union was slightly corroded and full of salt, which is typical of yacht welds exposed to weather. He made a mess of the job. What I got back for $250 looked more like a lightning strike than a NASA-inspected joint on the space shuttle.

However, I rebuilt the re-welded joint with filler and got it looking original again. This time I rolled and tipped with Brightside after a few primer coats of Interlux Pre-Kote, which fills scratch and sanding marks.

It looked spectacular! Interlux Brightside is a very shiny product.

I sailed that pedestal 5,000 miles to Oahu and back in 2017 and a few months ago noticed a few chips at the base. I sanded the base in place, applied two new coats of Brightside up only to the tube joint, and had a perfect pedestal again in about an hour.

xtouch up.jpg

Conclusion: Pedestals get stepped on, nicked and dinged. Aluminum is soft. Grand schemes such as powder coating, with all that entails, are probably not worth it. Paint the thing. Shiny and smooth is all we need. Touch-ups are easy.
 
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Hagar2sail

Member III
Blogs Author
Thanks Christian for the food for thought. It is true that it is easy to get buried in the details, and you have certainly proved that ideal is far from what is needed. I might expand on my thoughts in the future, but some research suggests that treating the chips on the pedistal with new paint have more to do with longevity then the number of base coats and surface finish attained when painting something like this, which kind of goes hand in hand with what you have said.
 

Hagar2sail

Member III
Blogs Author
Whelp, some interesting developments in this story. I took the pedestal over to my friends who had the blast cabinet, and we started trying to remove paint. Trying was the operative word here, because despite some of it just falling off in big hunks, the rest had a will to live that wouldn't quit. We played for a while trying different things, but the glass bead media he had (it was fairly fine), didn't want to really touch the paint on the pedestal. After that we tried two sanders, two different paint strippers, and another type of blaster with coal slag (which worked but was way too aggressive on the aluminum once it got through).

Disappointed that I still had a trunk of parts that were painted, he suggested I stop at NAPA and get some "aircraft stripper". So I went and bought a quart, and had to laugh at the back of the can which stated "not for removing paint on airplanes". Who names this stuff??

Anyway, back at my house put some of that on and it became clear that parts of the pedestal had one kind of paint on them, and some something different. During blasting we could see several layers, so I would say my pedestal has seen more than one coat of paint. A few pieces the paint just came right off with the stripper (these were some of the pod supports, and I would guess they were different vintage), others it more just barely softened so other mechanical means could be used. I became concerned that it was going to be hard to remove the paint from the places that weren't just nice convenient out in the open flat areas, and so after several hours of struggle ended up with the below results.

IMG_2465.jpg

Pod all the way on the left was blasted (~2 hours) and needs more removal on the inside. Bracket second from the left end was stripped, then blasted (brought it back to my buddies house to see how that method worked) and the rest are in states of completion. My biggest concern was the inside bottom of the pedestal, as I didn't know how I was going to get that clean just mechanically, and it needed it to clear any corrosion.

After driving around with parts in back as shown, I was finally directed to a place who blasts parts professionally. They quoted me $100 over the phone to blast the parts, and then once I drove out there it turns out they powder coat parts as a business, and he said he would powdercoat everything for $100 (turns out the parts were smaller than he thought over the phone). So now he has everything, as we will see how this comes out. I had over $100 in primer alone bought for this project, and if it turns out he can do it for that price, the paint is going back and I will certainly question my sanity over the next metal painting project!
 

debonAir

Member III
Just noticed this weekend my pedestal base is starting to crack and crumble on the fwd part. Yay. I thought of trying to find a used one, but then that would probably be ready to corrode and crack as well. I thought "weld a tube to a plate" and then saw Christian's solution and think that that might be even better than a new replacement piece if one existed. In my mind, I'd cut the ends of the square plate to make 4 triangle gussets to weld between the plate and the tube for more support.

Christian - do you still have the template for the base and the contact for your machinist? If he's already made a program to cut the plate and has tube around that'd be the best route I think.

I read somewhere on this site I thought, where someone had made a casting pattern for the base and had a new one cast. I can't seem to find it though, and, well, I think a gusseted tube would be better than the original cast piece. There has to hundreds of corroded yacht specialties bases ready to crack away out there, maybe someone could make a small run of replacements for sale.
 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
My template was just a drawing showing the diameter and the exact location of the base bolts.

I brought the pedestal bolts to the machinist so he could countersink for them.

He proposed to sleeve the tube, then weld on a 1" aluminum plate. In my mind this sequence remains a joke, because he asked if I wanted the welds to be "invisible," for appearance. I said yes. He therefore used tack welds on the inside bottom only, as he would for a lamp. A pedestal is not a lamp.

1-IMG_0068.JPG
tack welds

The design of the original base takes strength from its bell curve, but a 90-degree attachment needs external deep-penetration welds all around. Since the aluminum of the sleeve and the base are brand new, such welds are very strong and I don't think gussets are necessary (and wouldn't look good).

1-IMG_0069-001.JPG
Note lack of visible weldments

Any good machine shop can do this job, and will have strong opinion about how to safely accomplish the connection. I think I originally paid $400 for the job, which included truing-up of the sprocket and shaft. The repair, done correctly among farm machinery on Kauai, was $200.

How to finish the raw aluminum? Good primer as described in the thread above and some aviation-grade spray paint is all I would do.

1-ped bare.jpg

Photos above are of an E32-3 pedestal. I stripped it with paint remover and followed up with sanding. The above is ready for paint, the the whitish patches are residual Interlux Pre-Kote, a primer/filler.

My current E38 pedestal is below. I took it off the boat to inspect and paint, and in a fit of caution had a welder weld the sleeve at the arrow. He had a terrible time welding the old, salt encrusted aluminum, and made a mess of it for $250. I had to grind it all pretty again and then rebuild the radius with filler.

And of course, that additional weld was completely unnecessary, as there is no force on it.

1-temp ped.JPG
E38 external weld
 
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debonAir

Member III
Thanks,

Interesting how the front of your base has a flat on it. That is essentially where mine cracked, probably by pushing the pedestal hard forward at some point. I will probably defer this till fall as our season is so short I don't want to risk the boat being not steerable for the week(s).

Of course its also making me think about putting a tiller on the thing instead!
 

Hagar2sail

Member III
Blogs Author
Results..

The powder coat place did a decent job, I think if I had wanted it better, I would have to have done more upfront prep work on the pedestal. The uneven corrosion surface caused the currents to do odd things and caused a little bit of off-gassing during the bake. But overall happy with it, the "holes" are not through the primer and paint, so no worries there.

IMG_2516.jpg

One thing I will note that you can see by the bolt hole, is the powder coating process requires a ground "hook" to hang and hold the piece. If I had been smarter, I would have told them where I wanted it to be hung from (preferably somewhere inside), since that one location does not get painted. Since I was doing the pod (below) and also my anchor locker at the same time, I just touched it up with 2 part interlux.

One pod was not metal, so I had to paint that myself. This worked out ok anyway, since I wanted to add a usb charger to it so I could plug in the ipad which we use for navigation at the pedestal. I first sanded the pod, thenI cut the hole for the back of the charger, but had to build up a surface, using thickened epoxy. I made a temporary mould with hot glue, tongue depressors, and put some wax on the depressors so they wouldn't stick to the epoxy.

IMG_2601.jpg
IMG_2604.jpg

Then it was just the same paint / sand / paint as usual, and put the whole thing back together. Came out awesome. I followed suit of the previous owner and sealed each slice of the pedestal with lifecaulk to try and keep it dry inside, since I think that is why I was able to take it apart so easily, corrosion hadn't had a chance to get to the screws.
IMG_2724.jpg
IMG_2780.jpg
IMG_2781.jpg
 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
This thread is a good example of thumbnail photos. The new software gives us the option of a thumbnail, which can be expanded with one click, or a larger photo to tell the story without squinting. Entirely a matter of choice.

The thumbnail is the default.

1-Slocum-hat-spars.jpg

If "Full Image" is selected, or if the photo is dragged to the pane from the desktop, sizing is made by grabbing a corner of the picture.

1-Slocum-hat-spars.jpg...1-Slocum-hat-spars.jpg...1-Slocum-hat-spars.jpg
 

Hagar2sail

Member III
Blogs Author
Thanks for the info Christian. I really like the new software, seems much more user friendly. I didn’t know you could resize the photos, that is a good little tidbit.
 
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