REMOVING A FROZEN ANCHOR SHACKLE AND SWIVEL

I recently mentioned the anchor swivel's pin that was approaching a "yikes" moment. Since I had a spare on board I looked to replace it. It had been attached for as long as I have owned the boat and normally should have been a five minute replacement job. Except for one thing the pin of the shackle that attached the swivel to the anchor was seized and no amount of PB Blaster, wrenches and even  micro torch supplied heat could move that shackle pin. Looks like that five minute job just got a little longer since I was going to have to cut this shackle off too in order to replace the swivel. But, what to use? It's a tight space around where the anchor and shackle lay. A hacksaw would be awkward to use in the confined space take quite a bit of time even if I had a new blade which I did not. Enter the Dremel 200-1/15 Two-Speed Rotary Tool Kit with a pack of heavy duty cutting disks. I am able to power the Dremel a number of ways on board. One is with my on onboard Honda EU 2000 generator which is really over kill for the power requirements of the Dremel Tool. Another is with the AIMS 1500 Watt 48 volt Inverter I installed last year. Though for most jobs I just use the 200 watt 12 volt Powerstar Inverter that I bought back in the 1980's. It not a pure sinewave inverter but, it powers the Dremel Tool quite nicely for all sorts of quick projects.  The Dremel made short work of cutting through the swivel that was attached to the seized anchor shackle as shown here:

Once the old swivel was out of the way I could start to work on the seized anchor shackle.  I probably should have used a  Dremel 1-1/4-Inch Reinforced Cut-Off Wheel but, even the Dremel 420 Heavy Duty Cut-Off Wheels  I used did the job. Though I did have one or two disks break in the process. They still cut through the swivel and shackel quite easily despite not being reinforced. I was impressed.

After removing the swivel I tackled the stuck shackle pin. Rather try and cut through the crown which would have required two cuts to remove the shackle. I decided to see if I could just cut through the one lug of the shackle where the pin screwed into. Perhaps just cutting away enough of the lug would allow the pin to be removed:

I was careful not to cut into the anchor shank. After a few partial cuts of the shackle lug I was able to easily unscrew the shackle pin:

Which still looked pretty good but, the corrosion that held it in place was pretty tenacious so it needed to be replaced along with the swivel.  I used some  Tef-Gel on the replacement shackle threads to help insure that I will not have to cut the shackle next time I have to remove it:

With the old swivel and anchor shackle replaced I could now sleep easier when BIANKA is at anchor:

RETHINKING PROPANE: Dismantling the Hillerange Seaward Stove Part Three

I was away from the boat for two weeks as work got in the way once again. But, then it will allow me to pay the boatyard for dropping the morning back in the water. So it is a trade off. When I got back on board I continued on the propane project which entails partially dismantling the Hillerange Seward Stove that has been on board since 1986. Due to corrosion in the burner area and the expense of rebuilding it I decided to abandon it's use as a stove and oven and use alternative cooking plans. I was able to remove most of the burner, controls and manifold on my last visit to the boat. On this visit I planned to take a look at the oven and see what I could remove there. Since I've owned BIANKA since 1995 I think I've used the oven twice. Frankly, trying to start it was always difficult and somewhat scary. Which is why I won't miss it much. But, I did store some cooking items inside of it as shown below:

   

Though they were just covers and bowls and oven pans in the limited space available. So since I no longer  plan on using the oven I thought it would be good to remove the burner and whatever else I could take off the boat. First I removed all the "stuff" that was stored in the oven:

The area needs a good cleaning and there is some rust that needs to taken care of. First thing was remove the oven tray. I found this was just held in place by two screws located in the back of the oven:

Once the tray is removed I had easy access to oven burner:

A screw on the left side holds it in place:

Over on the right side is a nut that connects the pilot light to it's stainless steel feed pipe securing the right side:

Once the screw on the left side and the pilot feed nut are removed the whole burner assembly is easily removed:

Removing the oven tray and oven burner created a much bigger storage area in the now unused oven space:

It needs a good cleanup  and some rust removal and I think I'll do some re painting in the future. But, I am happy with that the space that opened up by removing the burner:

I was now able to store all of the pots and pans I use on board in the oven area. Including my cast iron frying pan and four quart pressure cooker.  I still need to remove some of the oven pans which I will no longer use too. With the unused oven burner parts removed and the additional storage space created, I'll turn my attention to cleaning up the top burner area.

BONDING AND ANTI-BONDING WITH YOUR BOAT

One day I was down below checking the mast area and noticed some water dripping off one of the bolts that held the deck mast collar to the partner area. This is not good. So I figured it was time to re bed the mast collar. Since water was leaking from the deck. The photo below shows the  mast collar as it is installed on the deck.

I was not looking forward to this because the scuttle butt was that this collar was bedded at the factory with 3M 5200 adhesive. This is known as an especially tenacious adhesive. People often say once you use 5200 on something consider it permanently attached to your boat. I had owned BIANKA for over ten years at this point and as far as I knew the mast collar had never been removed. So I was expecting a real battle in getting the metal collar removed from the deck.

I removed all the bolts and took out a mallet, heat gun and chisel expecting to spend a lot of time trying to remove the collar. Much to my surprise the collar just lifted off with a simple hand pull. So it goes! No wonder it had been leaking as the bond between the 5200 and the cast aluminum collar was virtually non existent. I also found the the remaining 5200 was still very pliant after all these years as shown below:

This pulled off rather easily too. There was some of the adhesive that need to be cleaned up however. For this I used a product called Anti-Bond 2015 . It really helps in removing and cleaning up adhesives like 5200. I just sprayed it on the area I where I wanted to remove the adhesive and let it sit for a bit. Then I used a Proprep detail scraper to peel the remaining 5200 from the area.

In a few minutes I had the whole collar area cleaned and ready for a new coat of 5200 for re bedding the mast collar. A quick wipe down with a little solvent on a rag to remove any of the residue remaining. I also did the same for the underside of the metal mast collar.

BEFORE

AND AFTER

Now that it is time to re bed I wanted to make sure I would avoid getting any of the 5200 on the bolts as I insert them. I want to be able to remove them easily in the future. NOTE: I do put a dab under the bolt head to seal it where it rests on the mast collar.  I made circles around the bolt holes with 5200. This would allow me to insert the bolts cleanly back into the holes without getting the 5200 on the threads. But would also make sure the bolts were sealed when the collar was put back on the deck. As shown below:

NOTE: You can also see the blue 3M masking tape that I installed around the outside of the collar before I removed it. It helps make it easier to clean up any of the 5200 that squeezes out from under the collar. I also put 5200 on the underside of the mast collar in a continuous heavy bead again avoiding getting it into the bolt holes. I then placed shims on the deck and rested the collar on them so that it was slightly raised off the deck. This allows me to place the bolts in the holes without getting 5200 on the threads as I insert them:

After the bolts were installed and the shims removed the collar was laying on the deck. I applied a little pressure to set the collar. But, because 5200 takes a number of days to fully cure. I waited a week before I tightened the bolts down to secure the collar. The collar was re bedded three years ago and has not leaked since. Hopefully, it will be another twenty years before I have to do it again.