When we pulled the mast, the spreaders looked like this... and the trailing edges were nearly worn through, because the old wire halyard had been stored on the lifelines and left
chafing against the spreaders.

(see Pulling and Painting the Mast
for pics of the tips)

I want to paint the spreaders and feet with 2 part Linear Polyurethane, for extra protection up there. Judging by the look of the feet, they either weren't painted right in the first place, or they are magically prone to peeling.

They cleaned up well, but it took about 6 hours of stripping and sanding. Right under the surface of one of the feet, there was an air pocket in the casting. Just for aesthetics, I'm going to fill it with epoxy putty.

November 15, 2001.

The Spreaders are Here! The Spreaders are Here!
Yeah, and they're short. Or are they? Time to do some math. (The Tips are different, but still will work.)
The old speaders were 47.5" on the lowers, and 30" on the uppers. The new speaders are 46.3" on the lowers, and 29.75" on the uppers. Now, were the original ones too long, or did the welder in Canada screw up? And does it matter?

We're doing the math...

It turns out that the new spreaders are the right length. The old ones were too long. Hmmm. I have a set of design drawings for the boat and the rig coming from South Shore, just for fun. After all, I made him dig up the drawings, so the least I could do is buy a copy and keep them around.

I'm painting everything with Two Part Interlux LPU. The nice thing about spreaders is that the paint doesn't have to be perfect (who can see) but it does need to be bulletproof!

To prep the feet, I set them in a bucket of Phosphoric Acid for 10 minutes to etch out all remaining oxidation. Then painted with Chromic Acid and Zinc Chromate, before applying the LPU.

That's it! Next step is putting it all back together.

I painted it with a light coat of thin epoxy, then packed it with a thick colloidal silica putty. Fortunately, since it's an air bubble, the edges curl over the epoxy and it will never pop out.

Once it's painted, it will look perfect.

Now, back to business...