[alberg30] Re: mast step/plate ?

[Steve Weingart]

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


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