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Stanchion backing plates, technique?

Norwegian Blue

Luan/Bill Burton, E30+ in Sheboygan, WI
I rebedded a gate (1 stanchion, on two legs) and ran into a problem. I filled the old holes with epoxy and redrilled them for the 1/4 inch bolts, using the stanchion feet as a guide, and dropping the bolts through one at a time. The feet take three and four bolts each. The problem is, the total distance drilling through the deck is over an inch, maybe an inch and a half, and I can’t do it precisely enough to get the backing plates to line up on the bolts. I could drill the backing plate holes larger, but they’re pretty beefy 1/8 inch steel. I suppose I could get new ones fabricated, but do I have to do this every time I rebed a stanchion? For now, I put on fender washers. TIA
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
I am presently in the process of re-drilling about a hundred mounting holes all over our deck and housetop. I have epoxy-filled the over-drilled holes recently. Easiest way to drill straight down is to take a piece of hardwood, about 1.5" thick, and about 3 X 4 inches, and using a drill press drill a series of straight holes in the sizes you will need, like #10, 1/4, 5/16, and 3/8. Then slightly start you new hole with a smaller drill or at least the point of the final size, and put your new guide with the proper size drill sticking thru it and start it into the centered divot. Press down on the guide and drill your guaranteed-straight hole down thru.
You might be off a tiny bit due to mis-centering the start, but will be close. Occasional degrees of accuracy might be lost due to fate or the rotation of the earth, also.... :)
(I can hold the drill motor pretty darned straight, but still no way as consistently accurate as when using this simple drilling jig.)
Tedious project, but never ANY threat of moisture getting into the core, going forward.
 

garryh

Member III
Loren's suggestion works well. One modification is to recess the centre of the drill block with several passes lengthways through a table saw or whatever leaving maybe 1/8" shoulders on the outside of the bottom. A perfectly flat block may bobble around a fair bit because the deck surface will not likely be perfectly flat. You still might have to play with it a bit.
Also suggest oversizing all holes in the backing plate by say 1/16" when originally drilling (or at least two adjacent ones) to allow some slop for pushing bolts through. Drilling the exact size of the bolt is optimistic : )
 

garryh

Member III
redrilling the plates is not a huge issue... clamp tightly, cobalt bit, slow speed, lots of cutting oil. When you say 'steel', I assume you mean the stainless type.
 
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