Was working in a small yard in San Pedro California in 1975-76, I believe, and was helping a friend with his Cal 20. These quick nimble inexpensive little boats were prevalent everywhere in SoCal and generally held up well and left owners pocketbooks alone. He had been told by a surveyor to draw half a dozen keel bolts for inspection and if the bolts and nuts were very rusty then drop the keel and refasten, bed and fair. This interesting little keel is cast iron and has a full bolting flange all the way around bolted with flathead bolts nutted inside. I think there were like twenty-five of them ( maybe less ? ) and since the nuts were in the shallow bilge they tended to corrode. So one hand was assigned to remove all the nuts then we’d drop the casting, clean up both faying surfaces and coat with something then line it up with pins and rebed and bolt, fair off, paint and it’s done. My friend didn’t want to spend the money to sandblast and do some racing fairing work so the job seemed pretty straight forward
About three hours later I came aboard and found some of the nuts were badly rusted and frozen so it seemed like we would have to get a small Mikita grinder with a cut-off disc and remove the offenders. I really didn’t want to do this as the grinder would throw off iron particles and dust in the cabin causing rust stains. So another hand worked with the grinder using an old bed sheet to contain the particles and dust. After a while I was told all nuts were removed so I got the crane over slung the hull and slowly elevated the hull away from the keel. We had built some simple kickers and support timbers to keep the keel upright. The hull came up about foot and the keel was still attached. Set her back down then told the guys to get in there and get all nuts and drive out the bolts as they obviously missed a few. They came back and said they got ‘em so we walked around the keel and sure enough all the holes were empty, every one. Again we lifted the hull and up went the keel. The damn thing hadn’t started anywhere ?
We went to lunch and discussed this predicament to death and nobody could explain. So I went to the office and found the keel was, as I recall, about 1500 to 1700 pounds. This just doesn’t figure so the next move was wedges. We wedged in about six places and it moved a bit but I feared we might damage the hull. The white bedding compound was flexible so I just figured it was white a polysulphide or a BoatLife product and should therefore easily let go but it wouldn’t. I ask my friend the owner if the keel had been off before he bought it and all he knew was that it grounded about three to four years earlier and the work was done at small yard in Long Beach. I knew the yard owner pretty well so I called him and he remembered the job quite well. He then told me how the owner showed up with a case of this new bedding compound made by 3M called ‘ 5200 ‘ and wanted us to bed the keel with it, then he asked me ‘ how is it holding up ‘? I’d heard of 5200 but never used as it was pretty new stuff. But the only thing any of us could figure was this compound must be holding the keel on. So if this is what we were dealing with it was amazingly strong.
To close out this tale I can tell you it took us hours using old hacksaw blades heated orange with propane torches to melt thru the flange joint then we hammered in wood wedges to seperate. The hot blade would melt it’s way into and thru the 5200 then we’d drive a wedge to keep it open. After that experience I swore I’d never use 5200 anywhere that would likely have to come apart later on. It was only a few days later the yard store had a couple cases of 5200 in the store and it was selling fast but the owners were using it for jobs that some poor SOB was going to have to deal with later. Like Grand Banks window frames but that’s another story.
Rick
About three hours later I came aboard and found some of the nuts were badly rusted and frozen so it seemed like we would have to get a small Mikita grinder with a cut-off disc and remove the offenders. I really didn’t want to do this as the grinder would throw off iron particles and dust in the cabin causing rust stains. So another hand worked with the grinder using an old bed sheet to contain the particles and dust. After a while I was told all nuts were removed so I got the crane over slung the hull and slowly elevated the hull away from the keel. We had built some simple kickers and support timbers to keep the keel upright. The hull came up about foot and the keel was still attached. Set her back down then told the guys to get in there and get all nuts and drive out the bolts as they obviously missed a few. They came back and said they got ‘em so we walked around the keel and sure enough all the holes were empty, every one. Again we lifted the hull and up went the keel. The damn thing hadn’t started anywhere ?
We went to lunch and discussed this predicament to death and nobody could explain. So I went to the office and found the keel was, as I recall, about 1500 to 1700 pounds. This just doesn’t figure so the next move was wedges. We wedged in about six places and it moved a bit but I feared we might damage the hull. The white bedding compound was flexible so I just figured it was white a polysulphide or a BoatLife product and should therefore easily let go but it wouldn’t. I ask my friend the owner if the keel had been off before he bought it and all he knew was that it grounded about three to four years earlier and the work was done at small yard in Long Beach. I knew the yard owner pretty well so I called him and he remembered the job quite well. He then told me how the owner showed up with a case of this new bedding compound made by 3M called ‘ 5200 ‘ and wanted us to bed the keel with it, then he asked me ‘ how is it holding up ‘? I’d heard of 5200 but never used as it was pretty new stuff. But the only thing any of us could figure was this compound must be holding the keel on. So if this is what we were dealing with it was amazingly strong.
To close out this tale I can tell you it took us hours using old hacksaw blades heated orange with propane torches to melt thru the flange joint then we hammered in wood wedges to seperate. The hot blade would melt it’s way into and thru the 5200 then we’d drive a wedge to keep it open. After that experience I swore I’d never use 5200 anywhere that would likely have to come apart later on. It was only a few days later the yard store had a couple cases of 5200 in the store and it was selling fast but the owners were using it for jobs that some poor SOB was going to have to deal with later. Like Grand Banks window frames but that’s another story.
Rick
