Rebed Mainship 06 table and railing

[DonW28]

After reading about "Mainship Tea" I figured I'd rebed the table and railing on mine before I had what seems to be a common problem. But before I unbolt them can anyone tell me if the table is held by a screw or a bolt and nut? I assume screws but learned the hard way on a Bertram that if you back out a bolt with a nut don't be surprised if getting the nut back on tight is much more complicated that you originally thought


Thanks,


Don

 

[jleonard]

I don't know that answer but kudos for doing this as a PM task.

 

[danderer]

The upper deck railings on my '06 34T were just screwed in.

I pulled the table 10 years ago and don't remember any special problems so either it was screwed in or there was a plate or nuts embedded in the deck. I *think* it was just screwed..

 

[DonW28]

Thank you for the reply. I was hoping not to have to deal with nuts that were somehow not securely bedded. Easy project as long as they are screws or the nuts stay where they belong.



Don

 

[Comodave]

I would hope they have a tapped backing plate of nuts. Just screws may not hold over time. But either way keep up with the bedding. Marinehowto.com has an excellent article on bedding.

 

[Dougcole]

I tackled this task on our '05 400 a few months back.



The midship legs on the railing around the stairs are attached directly to non skid and on my boat they were secured with just screws. The outside legs of the rail though are attached to a raised area of smooth fiberglass and I was unable to budge those screws without stripping them. They appear to me to be bolted into some sort of backing plate. I am under the impression from reading about 400's and a couple of discussions that I have had with a surveyor friend that the majority of the deck leaks come from those inboard screws, which makes sense to me. Your boat may be different, I'm just relaying what I found.


I removed the screws from the inboard bases then used a ratchet strap attached to other rails to carefully pull them out of the way. The I overdilled the holes, reamed out a bit of the core, and filled them with thickend epoxy. I let that cure about halfway then coated the screws with some WD-40 and carefully put them back in about 3/4 of the way. Came back the next morning and tightened them completely.


The core on my boat around the screw holes was sound, as far as I could tell. It was not wet under the screws I took out. Lucky, I guess.


Table is also attached directly onto non skid, so I expected more screws. I tried three screws and could move them about half a turn using an electric hammer drill before they locked up. I tried most of the tricks I know to break them lose, short of getting super aggressive, which seemed kind of pointless to me. So again, they are set in something solid. Maybe a backing plate?



I tapped around the table bases and didn't hear anything to my not real trained ear that indicated rot. There aren't any stress cracks or other indicators of soft wood there either. I know the screws in the table base aren't screwed into wet wood or they would have come right out. I spoke with my surveyor buddy about it and he suggested leaving them alone, so that's what I did. My boat has had a full enclosure on it since it was new so that table area doesn't get super wet all that often. Maybe that has something to do with it, hard to say.



Anyway, that's just my boat, yours may be different but I hope this helps. I look forward to hearing about what you find.


Doug

 

[DonW28]

Well-Appears that Doug is correct for my 2006 34T as far as the table is concerned. 3 of 4 bolts (not screws) came out on the table legs while each leg had the one obstinate one that said no thanks. I'm thinking about whether I want to remove the other bolt from each leg and use epoxy to repair the result and go from there. Like yours I have a full enclosure and no sign of core issues. Still going to tackle the rail though as it is just outside the canvas. Don

 

[Bacchus]

I have followed this as I wonder about my lower rails on my '08 34HT (no flybridge so no table / upper rails).
I can confirm that MS used drill & tapped & embedded alum plate in the swim platform to attach the swim ladder. SS bolts in alum threaded plate have a tendency to gall threads if not careful and lube used. I Broke 1 OR 2 when removing but was able to redrill & retap adjacent holes to reassemble in that case.

 

[Dougcole]

Interesting that you found the same thing as me. I didn't get any bolts out (I didn't try them all) but based upon their behavior, I was pretty sure that they were not screws.


Interesting that Don found an embedded aluminum plate, that is what it feels like to me, with galling/corrosion keeping the bolts from coming out. My thought is that if there is a plate in there that means the wood core was removed from that area, therefore no rot should start there. If that is the case, there is no need to bed those holes in epoxy.


My recollection is that the table rot was on an '04 or older boat (Bay Retriever?) but I could be wrong on that. Maybe Mainship corrected that issue in later builds? Then again it could also have been that they put the plate in some boats and not others, depending on the day or crew.