[alberg30] Re: mast step/plate ?

[Sutherland]

From: tomsu at uky.campus.mci.net (Sutherland)

>From: Steve Weingart <shw at gate.net>
>
>To,
>
>>Fellow A-30 maintenance wizards ,
>>        I feel a need to remove and rebed the mast step/plate while my mast
>>is off. The deck seems quite sound and I am real interested in keeping it
>>that way. My question..............On hull # 412 the plate is mounted on a
>>raised portion of deck with six large flat head SS machine screws (corase
>>thread). These screws are 5/16 dia. and one inch long (from the top of flat
>>head). I only know this because one came out without a great deal of
>>resistance. I am soaking the other five with a bit of liquid wrench but
>>have had a great deal of difficulty in the past when I have found stainless
>>steel threaded into aluminum. Can anyone offer me some sage advice. Thanks
>>in advance for any suggestions !
>>
>>Tom Sutherland
>>A-30   #412
>
>When I removed the step plate I had to drill out the heads, which were
>quite frozen to the plate.  I just drilled the center of each head with a
>5/16" drill until the head snapped off.  The plate came off of the six
>'studs' easily (the old bedding was pretty crumbly).  After that there was
>about 3/8" of each screw sticking up out of the deck.  I grabbed the screws
>with a pair of vice grips and they backed out easily (since there was no
>more SS frozen to AL).  The trick it to drill carefully so that you break
>off just the head and leave the solid shank of the screw to grab later.  If
>you are careful you will not even touch the plate, just the heads.
>
>That job took about 30 min.
>
>When you put it back together, you might want to consider the mods that I
>made to the mast step to get rid of the SS threaded into AL for the deck
>plate to the mast base.  The article is in the new maint manual (THANKS!
>George D.), but if you don't have it, I can send you the article.  The step
>plate is still attached to the deck in the same way, but I made sure that
>there was a good coat of bedding on the bottom of the screw heads to
>minimize corrosion.
>
>Also Wyvern is an older boat with a wooden mast beam in the cabin.  Two of
>the deck plate screws go all the way through the beam and have washers and
>nuts on the inside.
>
>Hope that this helps,
>
>Steve


Steve ,
         Thank you very much for the info. I have let the above project set
over nite with a liquid wrench type product on it and I am going to resume
my efforts in early afternoon..............I will report back and let know
what happaned !

Tom S
A 30 # 412



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