CD36 portholes question

[Greg Kozlowski]

I will need to completely disassemble some of the portholes on our CD36 in order to make repair to water damaged interior as well as reseal from outside. Has anyone done this job and have any pointers how to do it right. Specific questions are:

What is the size of the fastners and where can I order them before hand in case some are too damaged to reuse? I presume they are silicon bronze?

Also, any favorite sealant to use in reassembly?

And, lastly, any particular order in taking them apart? Inside rim first, outer one last? Does it matter? Dumb question, but how exactly are the portholes fastened?

Would appreciate any advice anyone has to offer.

Best regards,

Greg Kozlowski

[mgphl52]

Search the archives for bronze fasteners. There have been several suppliers posted in just the last year or two.

[Matt Cawthorne]

Trim ring comes off the outside first.

Removing the remaining portion is accomplished by removing screws from inside and pulling the port inward. I suggest an all-thread based jacking system to remove the port itself. Pounding with a hammer on a wooden block may not remove it. I started removing one once. It was starting to do damage to the interior wood so the process was stopped. Since you are removing the wood anyway, it should not be a problem. Someone at Robinhood recommended that I just seal the trim ring and not pull out the frame. That is what I did and it works fine.

Matt

[Jim Buck]

I pulled all 4 portlights on my 22D and resealed them with gray butyl tape under the outside trim ring. I bought new screws and the flat nuts from Spartan for re-securing the port body. A member on this board graciously provided me with enough round neprene? gasket material to redo the seals (which may have been obtained from McMaster-Carr). I first removed the outer trim ring with a heat gun a putty knife; patience is the key here. Then removed all the inside screws. I then fashioned a port puller out of two blocks of 2x4 and two longer pieces of 2x4. One long piece must span the outside of the port and have a center hole drilled through it for a foot long length of threaded rod. The other piece is a tad longer as it must span the inside of the port and the two blocks upon which it will rest in the horizontal position. It too has a center hole for the threaded rod which has a nut and large washer on each end with the longer 2x4's sandwiched in between. With the port open, place the shorter of the two longer 2x4's outside spanning the lip of the port with the longest 2x4 inside with each end resting on the two smaller pieces of 2x4. By turning the nut on the inside you will cause the outside 2x4 to put pressure on the rim of the port which will pull it towards the inside. You may have to add a 2nd nut on the outside of the rod if it turns when cranking on the inside nut. This will lock the outside nuts together and allow the nut on the inside to pull the port. (Shoulda taken a picture as I'm approaching a thousand words.) I bought the stout threaded rod, nuts and washers at a local hardware store and had the wood laying about the shop. Hopefully your previous owner didn't use silicone to patch around the trim ring. Doesn't affect the removal; just the cleanup. Hope this helps in your decision. Jim

[Greg Kozlowski]

Appreciate the suggestions and help on this from all of you.

Matt, just one more question. What sealant did you use when reinstalling the outer ring?

Greg

[Como No Cruising]

Greg: I have some photos I can email to you or post on my Picasa web photos. We pulled all our ports when we bought Como No and resealed. We pulled 12 ports and used various sealants in order to determine which worked best. Butl tape was the overall winner. As far as removing the ports, it is tedious. Heat gun and thin blade putty knives worked for us. Very labor intensive.

Incidentally, I found that the opening had been cut oversized by a considerable amount and on the ports that subsequently leaked I built up the fiberglass with West System. I have photos of that operation also. Are you still in the Med? We are in Boqueron, Puerto Rico waiting for a weather window to allow us to sail to Port Antonio Jamaica.

Happy sailing.
Will & Annie

[Greg Kozlowski]

Seeing some photos of the job would be nice. If you have a chance, email them to me to svsherpaAThotmailDOTcom. Or send me the link to your pic site, and I can have a look there. No hurry. The boat is presently on the hard at Marti again, and we won't be heading back there till about July this year.

Were you able to reuse the same fasteners, Will?

Best regards,

Greg

[John Stone]

Greg,
All of my ports are out--they are the original standard Spartan bronze oval ports.

As was mentioned, pull the trim ring first. It is held on with 1/2" long bronze oval screws. Some of the holes will likely be stripped so you might want to refill those holes with some thickened epoxy and redrill before reinstalling the trim ring. I did that just this week.

The nuts that hold the port in place are wafer thin and have sharp corners that dig into the gelcoat when you tighten the bolt from the inside of the boat. They are thin so the trim ring will fit over the nuts. You might be able to reuse the bolts but mine were cut flush next to the nuts so the trim ring would fit over it. I don't know if you can push the nut in far enough to grab the threads on the nut. I would plan on replacing all of them. Mine are 3/16" bronze oval head. In there cut state they are 1 1/4" long. I would want buy them about 1 3/4"-2" long and cut them off with a hack saw, or Dremel tool with a cut-off wheel, after you have the port installed properly. You can probably get the bolts from a lot of different suppliers but I only found the nuts at Spartan. They are expensive. I would say I could reuse about half to 2/3 of the nuts.

If you just want to rebed you should not have to remove the port itself--just the trim ring. When I removed the port some of the plywood came with it--on nearly every porthole. No sweat for me since I gutted the interior. New Found Metals makes ports and they have some butyl rubber caulk you can find on their website. It sounds very good. They describe installing the ports with a combination of the butyl rubber and sikaflex 291. Here is a link to their how-to page which I think makes a lot of sens. http://www.newfoundmetals.com/pme/insta ... tions.html

I know other like it but I would never use silicon on my boat. It is messy, hard to remove, and does not work all that well in my opinion.

Let me know if you need more info.

Best of luck.
John

[Greg Kozlowski]

Thanks John,

That's really helpful. Can I just pick your brain with a few more questions?

1. What is the diameter of the 1/2 " long bronze screws holding the trim ring?

2. What is the threading on the 3/16X1 1/4 bronze bolts fastening the port to the cabin side? Also, how did you order the thin nuts from spartan.... I could not find them in their online cataloque? Call them?

3. What is the thickness of the teak veneer plywood on the interior of the cabinside over which the ports are mounted? I will need to replace at least a section of it right around the porthole, and would like to match the thickness of this patch to the original.

With your experience in the rebuilding, I really appreciate your comments and advice on this, John.

Best regards,

Greg

[John Stone]

Greg,
I put a caliper on the screws and I read it as a skinny 5/16" or a fat 9/32. They are so short they are hard to measure. I don't know what the thread count per inch is on the bolts. I called Spartan Marine about the nuts. I would ask the guy there about the bolts and screw diameter to be sure. If you are going to pull all the ports it might be worth it to replace all the bolts and nuts.

The plywood is 1/4" thick. It is faced up to the headliner and screwed to it. The headliner is one piece, and conforms to the underside of the cabin top, sides, and turns under the deck and carries all the way out to the topside (at least on my boat--Hull#61. It's about 1/4" thick. There is an air-gap between the headliner and the underside of the cabin overhead/cabin sides/side deck (except where mastic mush adhesive connects the headliner and cabin overhead and side deck together. Then there is a about a 1/4" thick polyester "mush" flange around the inside of the port opening that pretty much conforms to the outside dimensions of the porthole itself. The screws and bolts all go through that flange. I would say the cabin sides are only about 3/16" thick. The cabin sides are not cored. The net affect is there is about a 1/4" air space between the inside of the cabin side and the fiberglass headliner between the ports. The plywood is just screwed to the headliner. A small note--the bolts obviously go all the way through the cabin side. The trim ring screws do not. The hole bottoms out in the polyester flange around the inside of the porthole. I think the intent was to keep water from getting into the boat through those holes.

After you pull the portholes you should be able to remove some trim and drop the plywood. At that point you'll see the fiberglass headliner. If I remember correctly, I was able to pull most of the plywood intact enough to use as a template if I had wanted to.

I don't have a way to post pictures here but there are some posted on my website that show what I did a poor job of describing. Here is the link: http://www.farreachvoyages.com/projects ... erior.html

Regards,
John

[Russell]

I am going through the same process right now, but I have run into a snag reguarding fasteners.

The fasteners that hold the outer ring down are bronzes, slotted, oval head, 5/8" long, #6 (I think) self tappers(not wood screws).

I cannot find anyone anywhere that sells silicon bronze self tappers, only wood screws. A number of these screws are not reuable so I need to replace them. I called Spartan and they do not have them, they sell the ports without fasteners and were unsure where I could source replacements. Jamestown Distributors only sells wood screws and machine screws, not self tappers in silicon bronze.

Anyone have any ideas on a source? Apparently this is a very odd fastener.

I suppose I could refill all the holes and redrill and use wood screws, but I would prefer to use the self tappers.

[John Stone]

Russell,
You are right. Much more accurate--slotted oval. However, they are not #6, at least mine are not anyway, they are #10. I agree, they are 5/8 not half inch. I looked around as well and could not find self tapping. So far, the only thing close I can find is at Jamestown Dist. Below link:
http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/u ... +Screws+OH

I'll keep looking 'cause I am going to need some as well. I already filled my holes so I have some flexibility.

Best,
John

[Russell]

I have called every fastener supplier I can locate using google that lists silicon bronze, none yet have self tapping. When I called Jamestown the woman on the phone told me she does not think there is such a thing as a bronze self tapper, when I told her I was holding one in my hand she was suprised and had no idea where I could source them. I am getting rather discouraged.

So, if refilling and redrilling the holes, is there any reason to not use wood screws? What would be the down side? I have the proper tapered bits for redrilling for a wood screw and the top smooth part on the shaft of a wood screw should not be an issue since the width of the port ring will prevent that from needing to bite into the fibreglass anyway.

Thanks for the correction on them being #10 rather then #6, screw sizing confuses me sometimes.

We used to have a terrific fastener shop in Annapolis called Chesapeake Marine fasteners, this guys knew their stuff and could source anything you could imagine. But between West Marine and Fastenal moving into town, they pretty much got put out of business, a local chandlery bought their stock, but unfortunately did not buy their expertise and knowledge.

[John Stone]

Russell,
Well, it sounds like wood screws might be the the only option at this point though I have some time to look around a bit more.

I don't know what I was thinking when I said 5/16 or 9/32. It's more like 3/16 and none of those are even screw sizes! I had been grinding the bottom paint off of Far Reach yesterday and when I tried to answer this email I was flat wore out--I think my brain had already shut down!

Back to grinding--almost done.

Happy Sailing,
John

[Russell]

I think 3/4" wood screws are indeed the way to go as I have thought about it. 1/2" might get the job done, but given the thickness of the port trim peice, may not be enough length to bite adequately into the glass. There is plenty of depth to work with, you could probably use over an 1" and be fine even before you start hitting the interior trim plywood. No need to go overboard though.

I was thinking about the "nuts" under the trim ring that secure the interior peice in place. They really are little more then bronze sheet thats been drilled and tapped and cut into squares. It shouldnt be hard to make your own if it came to that. But at the same time normal bronze nuts come pretty thin as is, and there is some extra space to work with on the trim rings (little indents in the trim to allow for space). Judging by the thickness of the silicone I had to remove over the top of the nut there is extra clearance. Having bought some bronze machine bolts and nuts at west marine of the same size today for a different project, looking at the nuts I think its very likely they would work. Though I think both John and Greg you have older CDs then I do, and the Spartan ports did change over time (older ones lack the little drains), perhaps the indent is not on the older ones as well?

For normal rebedding to stop leaks though, the interior piece should never have to be removed, leak stopping is done by removing the outer trim ring alone. but in gregs case repairing water damage it is nessisary. If it was me however, unless there is serious rot all the way through the plywood, I would look into leaving the port in place and laying down new veener around it (if its just damage to the ultra thin veener that CD used, which happens fast and cannot be refinished properly due to its thinness). I actually constantly toy with the idea of laying formica down there to brighten up the interior (CD purists are probably gasping at this).