#4 Beam Pt. II
22 June 2013 | Bodking Inlet/Chesapeake Bay
Capn Andy/80, sunny

After the temporary support was located under the engine box and tensioned up with the running backstay winches, the bolts in the mainsheet traveler were backed out using a big screwdriver with vise grips on its shaft, an impact drive with a screwdriver bit, and a ½ “ drill with a screwdriver bit. The traveler is 18 feet long in two sections, one 8 and the longer 10. The short section came out with a bit of difficulty. The traveler track is Harken and mounted with flathead machine screws into epoxy with graphite additive. Normally the graphite allows the epoxy to release and the screw can be removed. The flathead is recessed into the track and because the track is aluminum and the screw stainless steel, the predictable corrosion bonding occurs.
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The longer section of track was much more difficult to remove. Some of the screws came out eventually, but quite a few did not. Drilling the heads off did not work out so well. The drilling work hardened the stainless and afterwards the drills dulled. These were titanium nitride coated drills. Curiously some of the drills seemed to work well and others didn't work at all. An expert said I should use cobalt drills. I was able to blast apart some of the boltheads that had been partially drilled, a wedge was driven under the track near the bolt and kaboom! Porta-power was used to try to loosen bolts. A pry bar was driven under the track and the porta power ram was pumped up underneath the pry bar. The pry bar which is spring steel bent alarmingly. More pressure was pumped. Then there was a loud CRACK! A fellow up the inlet, hauling up his stars and stripes flag at his dock, jumped when he heard the noise. The porta power had slipped off the pry bar, the pry bar banged on the hull like it was hitting a drum. I checked for any damage. I positioned the pry bar and ram to take into account the bending. Maybe it would hold this time. Pump it up. It bent again. Pump it up. CRACK! Even louder this time. Maybe this isn't the best way to do it. Kaptain Kris came around and I borrowed a heavy duty claw-bar. This time things started to move a little bit. It was crushing the wood of the beam, but finally the track was lifted up. The bolts ripped out of the wood, still with the epoxy/graphite and some wood still attached. Well, I'll have to replace those bolts anyway.
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Next came the caps on the straps. The corrosion resistant bolts were not all equally corrosion resistant. Some looked rusty, others like new. They all came out with a socket attachment in the drill and some persuasion with a hammer.
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The brads for the air nailer continued their saga. It all started when I wanted stainless steel brads to put the beam laminations together. It's a fast way of securing wood together when you're gluing. I found some 18 gauge 1 ½ inch brads at a local lumber store for $22/1000pcs. I bought those, but then wondered if I could find any at a cheaper price. I wandered through the local Home Depot and noticed they didn't have any stainless brads, just some steel with brown colored heads. A furniture man could put together a cabinet and the brads wouldn't show. I started looking online and there was Home Depot, stainless steel brads, free ship to your local store. I bought 2000 at a price of about 7.50. A few days later they arrived and when I checked them over, I found they were the same non-stainless brads that the store already had, even with the same brown coloring on the heads. I double checked the online purchase information and, yes, they were described as stainless steel. I kept looking. A store named TheHardwareCity.com had stainless brads. 5000 for 32 bucks. I bought them. When they arrived they turned out to be galvanized, not stainless. The difference is the part number is STB18158 for galvanized and STB18158SS for stainless. The price for the galvanized is less than 10 bucks. When I contacted the store they immediately sent out the correct stainless brads. They didn't want to pay for the return shipment of the galvanized brads and said keep 'em or throw 'em away.
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The picture is of the port end of the beam. You can see the cap has been taken off the strap at the end of the beam. Also the mainsheet track is gone, leaving some holes where the wood was ripped out with the bolts.