Posted by katorpus (jrb@…>)
Fishing…
Turn to your tackle store. Get a stiff braided stainless steel wire
leader with a swivel on the end…longer than the circumference of
the mast…
Feed one end of the wire through the swivel (you may have to cut off
a piece of hardware from the other end)
Push the resulting loop into the exit hole in the mast and feed
enough wire through the swivel (which is still OUTSIDE the mast) to
open up the loop inside to the maximum diameter…
When you’re sure you have enough of whatever messenger line is being
trapped to drop below the swivel, lower it into the loop and slowly
pull tight, drawing it out of the hole.
Once you get part of the line out, you can cut off the fishing weight
you used to weight the messenger line and let it drop to the bottom
of the mast (Be sure you cut the RIGHT part of the line and hang on
to what you’ve got.
Do NOT!!! use self tapping screws. You wouldn’t use them to attach
something to a sheet of glass, would you? Same principle.
Rivets are best, followed by a tapped hole with a machine screw.
Self tapping screws will create stress in the resin surrounding the
hole, possibly creating cracks and ultimately failure. At best, the
screw will only be “held” by the shredded remains of the carbon fiber
strands which you have forced it through.
A rivet creates a compression load against both sides of the mast
wall, spreading out the pressure over the area covered by the back
side of the rivet after it has spread. Stronger, tighter, less
destructive. Easily removed by drilling the rivet head and punching
the body through the existing hole.
— In FreedomOwnersGroup@yahoogroups.com, “ron barr” <rwhb@…>
wrote:
The mast is down. A new boat to us so we had it pulled for checking
etc. All
kinds of weird releasing material inside dropped out. Presumably
from the
original looming.
I love the phrase “it broke in my hand” !! I’ve heard that
somewhere
before, could have been the maid. I said several things when I
found my
helper had forgotten to attach the messenger.
I would think it difficult to fish anything out of the bottom exit
hole,
fairly small - it is possible perhaps with a wire loop/lasso
approximately
the ID of the mast but you’d have to get it in and sprung open
somehow.
There may be fishing devices that electricians use for this. Worth
checking
into.
I have talked to a rigger from Freedom and he expressed no real
concern
about drilling the odd hole in the mast. For the steaming/foredeck
light
which I am putting in next week I will drill two holes for the
mounting and
one larger center hole for the 3 conductor wire. Freedom installed
quite a
few of these lights. They used rivets but I plan to drill and use
two #8
self tapping screws.
Ron
Hoyt F32
Newport RI
Post by “Sward” Re:
Ron, did you take the mast down to do this rewiring? I also had the
same
problem of the wires letting go into the mast when someone went up
for me.
He said when he disconnected the wires from the light which he was
going to
replace for me, the wire broke in his hand and the weight of the
wires from
the mast dropped. He had a piece in his hand that was left. Isn’t
there just
a small hole where the wires went into the mast and hard to fish
anything
out?
I would also like to put in a steeming light/fordeck light and it
sounds
like it is doable, but to rivit it in with epoxy as added strength.
Is that
what the end result of the conversation was?
I had someone wire a new anemometer and he said it was a nightmare
running
the wires.
About 6 or so years ago when I first had the boat, not knowing
about not
drilling into the mast, I had someone put a folding mast step on,
since it
was impossible for me to reach to put the halyard on the sail and
zip the
cover where the zipper started at the top. Is there something I
should do
about that or is it too late.