Anchor Pulpit rebuilds/core trouble foreward (and fixes)

Gezuz, what is with the people who put some things together?

The teak inlays on my pulpit are wasted and require replacement. So today, out came the wood chisel to get the boards off.

They were 5200'd down, and then black cauk run around the edges. Ok. No problem there.

BUT - on assembly, the people involved screwed the boards down from the underside. Of course there's no way to get THAT off without pulling the entire pulpit!

WHY? The 5200 ain't going anywhere, and the screw embedment was all of less than 1/2" - into teak, that's gonig to do NOTHING.

Except, that is, make for a real serious PITA on this project, because now I'm going to have to take a dremel to about 30 screw shanks and cut them off before I can replace the boards!

Grrrr..... (just venting here)

Karl,
I felt your pain. I did mine in 03. While you have the teak off you might want to check the pulpit and deck core carefully. The pulpit has three layers of plywood under it that is untreated and sits flat on the deck. Mine was mush as was a 3x3 section of the core in the deck. It is a common problem. My friends 85 45 has the same problem. The main problem is leaks around the windlass and exposed end grain and balsa where the chain feeds through. I rebuilt the pulpit and saturated the wood with West epoxy and replaced the deck core from inside the rope locker. The core was Wested also. Then all holes had the exposed core sealed. Most of the screws in the teak inlay broke. The new inlay was just stuck down with 5200 and no screws. I also painted the pulpit while it was off. The job took me 2 months and was miserable. A local yard quoted another 46 owner 10,000 to repair his. I know why. Good Luck,
Dave

... in the anchor locker is ok. It was one of the things I looked at BEFORE I bought the boat. There was no way I wanted that problem.

I don't know if I'm lucky or smart, but I don't have trouble there. Now the plywood under the pulpit may be mush, but I have no way to find out without pulling the entire thing - and while that'd be bad, getting the windless out just to START the job is going to be a Battle Royale. That beast is HEAVY!

I may just do the teak.... or I may decide to pull it all apart. You know how boat projects are....

Hopefully your core is ok.I sounded mine when I bought the boat and it sounded good. It was not until I removed the rusted windlass with a sawzall that the damage was apparent. It seemed like a small area under the windlass, but as I started to cut it spread. Hatteras did not fill the kerfs between the sheets of balsacore and it made water channels for migration. When I got good balsa I would stop cutting, a couple days later it would look damp. A little more digging and bad core was found behind good core. This is part of the reason it took 2 months I wanted to be sure it was dry before sealing it up. I used saturated marine ply for the area under the pulpit I felt it would be something better to fasten to . All the kerfs were filled also. Weather it was luck or smarts hope it is dry. It seems to be a common problem.

I had the boat yard dig out the teak on my pulpit and pour an epoxy mixture back to the level of the wood and coat it with non skid. One less teak area to maintain. One note it takes a lot of epoxy so if it's a do it yourself project be prepared to work fast. Good Luck

... the two rear mounting bolts are at the rear of each of the teak channels!

If you fill that with epoxy you ain't NEVER getting that pulpit off without destroying it.

My deck core is ok, and the hawse hole for the anchor line has had the core edges epoxied.

The more I look at it the more I'm convinced that someone had it off somewhere in the past before I bought the boat. The screws are in no discernable pattern and some have badly hosed holes while others, right near them, are tight in the base. That suggests that someone had the problem at some time in the past, tore it apart, "fixed" it, but put (new) screws back in.

Barf.

I'm going to fill all the screw holes after grinding them out with epoxy, and then lay new teak. I ain't taking the windless off nor playing with the deck unless I have a reason to, and I've checked the underside of the deck inside the rope locker and its sound.

I have some softness in my pulpit (and probably the deck underneath it as well), so I'm in the process of removing the Ideal windlass. That is a major PITA. Ideal suggests that, in theory, one can simply slide the capstan and wildcat off the shaft, but good friggin luck in practice. I got the capstan off with a gear puller, but now I'm having to have a custom designed puller made to get the wildcat off.

And this is just the price of admission to start rooting around inside the pulpit and deck. And when I'm done, I'm not even sure I'll be able to reuse the windlass, since the under deck plate is coming apart in chunks of rust.

Barf is right!

Ok, the pulpit is coming off.

I found a soft spot under the pulpit in the locker when I went to pull the line to do the hawse-pipe area.

Its not out of control - yet - but it ain't gonna get there either. Off it comes. The rubrail and bow rails were easily disassembled from the pulpit and bow rail tube. No big deal there.

BTW, the windless isn't bad to get apart. Here's the deal.

1. There should be a "manual breaker bar" on the boat. If not, you need to find or make one. It engages the two pin-holes on the top of the capstan cover.

2. Remove the nut and washer on top.

3. Unscrew the capstan cover. The capstan is fit with a key - pull it. It will come off. If its sticky, use PB Blaster and lever it up with a pair of screwdrivers until it comes free. Remove the key from the keyway.

4. The wildcat is a FRICTION DRIVE - you'll see the friction disks once you have the capstan off. Pull that. Again, it should come off. There is no keying on this; if its stuck, its corrosion on the shaft. Liberal PB Blaster use will take care of that; be careful not to get it on the friction discs unless you intend to replace them anyway.

5. There is a base plate under that which is ALSO on a keyway (separate key). Pull THAT. If the key sticks (it did on mine), use the breaker bar to hold it up and drive the key down on the shaft using a drift. Remove the base plate and key.

6. Now pull the circlip and the windless body is free from the bottom. Go inside, shut down the power to it, remove the electrical leads, and drop it. Careful - its freaking HEAVY!

The anchor roller plate and windless are coming physically off tomorrow, and if I get lucky, I will be able to get the pulpit off tomorrow as well. If not, it'll be another day or two of work to get through the sealant and get it free from the hull.

Then its time to "drill, dry and fill."

I'm debating using Starboard instead of Marine XL ply for the build-up between deck and pulpit on replacement. Anyone have any thoughts on that? Its rot-proof and quite solid - I'd think it would work really well and be damn near impossible to damage.

The problem I have with Starboard for this type of application is that nothing sticks to it. The wood was glassed to the pulpit and the deck has a crown. to get full contact and to not leave any void for future water to get into I mixed up a epoxy mush and after putting wax paper on the deck smeared it with mush then temporarily set the pulpit down in it. The plywood was already saturated with epoxy and should outlast me. Then the pulpit was removed caulked and bolted down.
This way there is a perfect fit to the deck.
It was amazing how hard it was to make the new mounting holes for the windlass, drilling through the epoxy. Hope this helps, Dave

Now I understand the original construction details. Got it. It didn't make sense before.

So basically the ply is a "core" inside the pulpit, except, of course, they didn't bother to epoxy seal it.

Great. I bet digging it all out is a lot of fun. Grrrr...

Oh well, I needed a nice project. Sounds like I got one.

I may do the "drill and fill from the top" deal on the deck, depending on how bad the core is. Cutting the bottom open is arguably a better choice, but that's a royal bitch of a job - I hate working on my back, especially when cutting fiberglass.