Replacing toe rails

[Wayne Hunt]

During a recent heavy storm, my friends 1974 25 was "kissed" by another boat while sharing a slip. There is damage to about 2 foot of the outer toe rail on the forward starboard side just opposite the hatch. We are in need of replacing the rail and have no clue as to sources for the old parts. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks a bunch!



wayne.hunt.aksn@statefarm.com

[Dana]

During a recent heavy storm, my friends 1974 25 was "kissed" by another boat while sharing a slip. There is damage to about 2 foot of the outer toe rail on the forward starboard side just opposite the hatch. We are in need of replacing the rail and have no clue as to sources for the old parts. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks a bunch!

_____________________________________________________________________

Had the same thing happen to me during Hurricane Gloria in 85. I had to cut the affected piece out, bought a hunk of teak, and then milled the trapezoid shaped toe rail to copy the piece cut out cross section. The new piece was then "mortised" into the cutout space. New thru hull holes were drilled and filled with teak plugs. Not as difficult as it may sound. Looks great and can't tell.

Dana



darenius@aol.com

[Dana]

During a recent heavy storm, my friends 1974 25 was "kissed" by another boat while sharing a slip. There is damage to about 2 foot of the outer toe rail on the forward starboard side just opposite the hatch. We are in need of replacing the rail and have no clue as to sources for the old parts. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks a bunch!

____________________________________________________________________

I had found a hardware/lumber store which also did cabinet manufacturing in the back. They had planers, millers, the whole works. Once I had the dimensions of the trapezoid, it was just a matter of minutes for them to cut the angles.

The problem is Cape Dory had a number of different cross sections for their toe rails so it is difficult for me to tell you what you have.
You can see all of the different sizes from the Spartan Mid-Ship Toe Rail Cleat sizes. From their catalog you may have the following:

The top flat surface of your toe rail may be 1" wide, the base surface width may be 1-1/4", the height of the rail may be 1-1/2". The two sides are cut at different sloped angles not given. You could actually cut out a very short good cross section and measure it as a model.

Dana



darenius@aol.com

[Wayne]

During a recent heavy storm, my friends 1974 25 was "kissed" by another boat while sharing a slip. There is damage to about 2 foot of the outer toe rail on the forward starboard side just opposite the hatch. We are in need of replacing the rail and have no clue as to sources for the old parts. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks a bunch!

____________________________________________________________________

I had found a hardware/lumber store which also did cabinet manufacturing in the back. They had planers, millers, the whole works. Once I had the dimensions of the trapezoid, it was just a matter of minutes for them to cut the angles.

The problem is Cape Dory had a number of different cross sections for their toe rails so it is difficult for me to tell you what you have.
You can see all of the different sizes from the Spartan Mid-Ship Toe Rail Cleat sizes. From their catalog you may have the following:

The top flat surface of your toe rail may be 1" wide, the base surface width may be 1-1/4", the height of the rail may be 1-1/2". The two sides are cut at different sloped angles not given. You could actually cut out a very short good cross section and measure it as a model.

Dana

Thanks a bunch Dana. I'll check it out. Been a big help.

[Matt Cawthorne]

I am not sure if the toe rail on the cd 25 is the same as it is on the cd36 but if it is then the following may help a little. The first year I owned her I improperly tied the boat and went to dinner. A thunderstorm came up and when the wind shifted the rub-rail tangled with a bolt holding the finger pier on to it's piling. For about 6 months I told people that it was a shark bite, but eventually I knew that it needed to be fixed. I went to the local lubmer yard and got a piece of teak that seemed to match the color of the toe rail. This is not easy to determine because of weathering, but I at least took a stab at it. I purchased a very thick piece and essentially carved a curved piece to match the original rubrail. I left it a bit oversized. I removed the brass (bronze?) cap and cut away the damaged area , but left ramps at the end to make the job as smooth a transition as possible. The advantage of carving the curvature is that on a short piece it is difficult to force a short piece to follow the curve without having it split. I saved some of the sawdust from the sanding operation to add to the epoxy that I used as glue. After fitting the piece up I washed the surfaces to be glued with acetone because it can be hard to glue teak. I epoxied the joints and screwed the part into position. When the epoxy cured I used a longboard to smooth the transition. Having left the part a little oversized allowed for a little misalignment during the installation. The longboard that I purchased has special 3M sticky backed sandpaper in many grades and works great for this sort of thing. They can be purchased from Jamestown Distributors (Jamestown R.I) which also sells lots of bronze screws, bolts etc. They have a catalogue and I buy a lot of my basic hardware from them. If you buy the correct size of plug cutter you can cut the bungs from the same piece of teak that the toe-rail repair came from and they will match perfectly.

If you decide to replace a longer piece of the toe rail then having it milled would be easier and could be bent without much trouble. If you want to have it milled then just apply a little bit of paste wax to an undamaged portion of the existing rail and take a cast of the rail using polyester body filler (bondo or some similar brand). The cast will pop right off if the surface underneath is waxed and the blob of body filler is thick enough. The cross section of the rail can be determined from the cast.

Good luck

During a recent heavy storm, my friends 1974 25 was "kissed" by another boat while sharing a slip. There is damage to about 2 foot of the outer toe rail on the forward starboard side just opposite the hatch. We are in need of replacing the rail and have no clue as to sources for the old parts. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks a bunch!

mcawthor@bellatlantic.net

[Wayne Hunt]

Matt, good info there. Thanks for taking the time to reply. I like the shark bite story. Ialso use that but for the bicycle chain scar on my leg. Really wows the over 50 set. Thanks again.

I am not sure if the toe rail on the cd 25 is the same as it is on the cd36 but if it is then the following may help a little. The first year I owned her I improperly tied the boat and went to dinner. A thunderstorm came up and when the wind shifted the rub-rail tangled with a bolt holding the finger pier on to it's piling. For about 6 months I told people that it was a shark bite, but eventually I knew that it needed to be fixed. I went to the local lubmer yard and got a piece of teak that seemed to match the color of the toe rail. This is not easy to determine because of weathering, but I at least took a stab at it. I purchased a very thick piece and essentially carved a curved piece to match the original rubrail. I left it a bit oversized. I removed the brass (bronze?) cap and cut away the damaged area , but left ramps at the end to make the job as smooth a transition as possible. The advantage of carving the curvature is that on a short piece it is difficult to force a short piece to follow the curve without having it split. I saved some of the sawdust from the sanding operation to add to the epoxy that I used as glue. After fitting the piece up I washed the surfaces to be glued with acetone because it can be hard to glue teak. I epoxied the joints and screwed the part into position. When the epoxy cured I used a longboard to smooth the transition. Having left the part a little oversized allowed for a little misalignment during the installation. The longboard that I purchased has special 3M sticky backed sandpaper in many grades and works great for this sort of thing. They can be purchased from Jamestown Distributors (Jamestown R.I) which also sells lots of bronze screws, bolts etc. They have a catalogue and I buy a lot of my basic hardware from them. If you buy the correct size of plug cutter you can cut the bungs from the same piece of teak that the toe-rail repair came from and they will match perfectly.

If you decide to replace a longer piece of the toe rail then having it milled would be easier and could be bent without much trouble. If you want to have it milled then just apply a little bit of paste wax to an undamaged portion of the existing rail and take a cast of the rail using polyester body filler (bondo or some similar brand). The cast will pop right off if the surface underneath is waxed and the blob of body filler is thick enough. The cross section of the rail can be determined from the cast.

Good luck

During a recent heavy storm, my friends 1974 25 was "kissed" by another boat while sharing a slip. There is damage to about 2 foot of the outer toe rail on the forward starboard side just opposite the hatch. We are in need of replacing the rail and have no clue as to sources for the old parts. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks a bunch!