Wednesday, May 18, 2011

REBEDDING HANDRAILS: Part 1: Handrail Removal

The handrails on board really needed to be refinished and they took really took a beating over this winter. So I decided to divert some of my attention from the fuel tank conversion  and turn  to re bedding the handrails on board while the boat was still on the hard. The handrails on BIANKA are screwed into the deck from the inside. Complicating the work is that the builder of the boat decided to put in a molded headliner. Which makes it attractive to some buyers but can make this simple project a little more complicated and problematic than it needed to be. My cunning plan to make it easy fell apart rather quickly after the first phase but, more on that later. The first step was to get the rail off for re-finishing without destroying it in the process. After I removed the screws the rails were still quite attached to the cabin top by the caulking. What to do? Sounds like a job for the Gam Pro painters multitool.
Always nice to find another use for a tool on board.  Whether it is removing pesky barnacles off the prop or a tenacious handrail off the deck a painters multi purpose tool is a good thing to have on board. A few hits with a mallet and the handrail popped off in one piece. So far so good.

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