If I had to do this job again, I'd just have it sandblasted...

Pull and Paint the mast

(pics with borders can be clicked...)

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Back to Home ... s/v Stella Blue home ... New Rig Page ... Projects

Starting September 17 2001:

Dave, from Glen's shop, rode the crane up up the rig... We started late because of the international situation. The crane was right next to some Navy ships that had
suddenly become Active...

I'd prepped the collar by removing the boot and all the blocks that held the mast in place, leaving it loose at the deck.

My rig is being redone by Hansen Rigging.
For years, everyone has told me Glen Hansen is the best around, and after spending
a solid week and a few months in change
hanging around his rig loft I have to tell you I'm pretty impressed with the guy.
Beside that, he's a really nice person.

I accidentally imposed in a huge way. I'd been working too much and hadn't had time to drive up to meet Glen, so we'd just talked via phone. Folks had told me that he was located up at Nelson's boatyard, so I figured he was right AT the yard. It turns out he's down the street.

When I called him up and said that when we pulled the stick I wanted to sand, prep and paint it, I was thinking that we'd put it in the yard at the mast dock.

I knew the rig was in pretty bad shape, and intended to do some serious prep work before painting... I think Glen just thought I was just going to rough it up a bit and put a new coat of paint on, and I didn't get into detail because I thought it was going to be in a yard. You can imagine my surprise when I pulled up to his shop and realized that I was going to be right in his face for a week!

I apologized, and Glen was really cool about it. I tried not to impose, borrow tools, or get in the way.

To the left is a picture of the inside of Glen's shop. You can click on it to get a better look. He can fabricate just about anything you need to make your rig sound!

There's a lot of corrosion around any place where dissimilar metals meet, or where weather hits hard.

The upper spreaders probably wouldn't have survived a serious blow. Because the boat had just sat unused and unmaintained at the dock for years, all the fittings had welded themselves together with corrosion. The tangs were frozen, and if I'd sailed the boat hard the rod would have been forced to flex back and forth at the swages, rather than riding easy inside the fittings.

I think at this point the size of this job sorta hit me.

That's a pretty beat up spreader boot. It should have been replaced years ago.

The mast head looks ugly, but it's actually in pretty good shape. I'll be replacing everything that's bolted on, since it's junk.

I spent two solid days with a grinder and palm sander. On the grinder, I used a coarse ScotchBrite stripping pad, not a grinding wheel. The palm sander had 80 grit paper on it. I went through over 80 sheets of paper.

Doing all the work in front of Glen's shop was wrong, and a big imposition! I should have taken the mast to a boat yard. Sorry, Glen!

Once the mast was clean, it's time to prep it. Here's the process:

1) Paint thoroughly with Phosphoric Acid, to etch all corrosion out of the pores and scratches of the metal.

2) Immediately Paint thoroughly with Chromic Acid, to seal the metal. This turns the aluminum red.

3) Spray prime with Zinc Chromate. This also adheres to the metal and provides a prime coat. It's yellow.

The wire halyards had also been stowed away against the spreaders, so the metal on the trailing edge was nearly worn through. They are not going back on the boat!

We found new spreaders that match the aluminum extrusion, with tips, from South Shore. They should be here in 3 to 4 weeks. I would rather have Glen make them from the extruded aluminum stock, but they'll come ready-made.

I pulled all the hardware off the mast. Fortunately the bolts weren't too badly frozen, though some of them just crumbled when they were removed.

The mast head cleaned up very well. I buffed all the corrosion off with my Handy Dremel Tool. The black that remains is just dirt. It will come off when I acid etch the aluminum -- I'll scrub it out by hand using a small bronze brush.

Here's a close-up of the work.

Just to the right of my mast, you can see a black carbon fiber mast that snapped in half last week when the rig failed. This is why I'm putting myself through this!
Of course, unlike that boat, my boat will never hit 30 knots downwind (I hope) !!!
My "Telephone Pole" mast is pretty strong, but it needs sound standing rigging.. I'm looking forward to beating this boat into the teeth of a whee-ha breeze.

September 23, 2001 -- Time to get back to my job and work on this project at night and on weekends. Fortunately, I can fit the rest of the job in my garage!

Update 2003 -- I've learned a few things in the last two years. If I had to do this job again, I'd just have the whole mast sandblasted. It's cheaper than I thought, and removes the corrosion a lot better. Then I would have painted with 2 part LPU over an Epoxy based aluminum primer. However, after two years the mast still looks fine...

Next: Cleaning, priming and painting all the mast fittings... putting it all back together!
Stay Tuned.

Next Page -- Mast Collar

To the right is the mast after the first coat of paint. I painted with Interlux Single Part Polyurethane topsides paint.

I was afraid to use two part paint, because the solvents in two-part paint can lift other types of paint, and I wasn't sure if the mast had been previously painted or anodized. It looked to me like it had been painted, and I didn't want to risk having my whole mast peel away in a few years...

I used the old "Roll and Tip" method.

Below is the second coat. It could be better, but I saved $50 a foot to have someone do it!