Reusing old cotter pins

[wikakaru]

I've never seen nor read about this method being used before. I'm probably not the first person to ever do this, but I'm claiming it as my own "invention" until someone sets me straight.

Yesterday I went to attach the spreaders of my Cape Dory 22 back to the mast and found that I didn't have any new cotter pins of the correct size, just the old ones that came out last fall. Normally re-using cotter pins is not too difficult, at least in places like turnbuckles or clevis pins, because there is only a single hole to go through and you can hold the slightly-spread pins together with a pair of needle-nose pliers. That method won't work on hollow aluminum spreaders, however, as the pins have to pass through two holes separated by about an inch, and if you can squeeze the slightly separated cotter pin legs together enough to get them through the first hole, they will just splay out again before they reach the hole in the other side of the spreader tube wall.

Not wanting to drive an hour round trip to the nearest hardware store which probably wouldn't have had the size I needed in stainless steel, and not wanting to make the 6-hour round trip that would be required to take a ferry to the nearest marine store, I had to improvise.

Anyway, here's the method: Tightly wrap the two legs of the cotter pin together with dental floss. Start from the end of the cotter pin having the loop and work towards the split pin ends, using tight pressure to keep them together. You can "cleat" the floss in place in the gap at the end between the two pins.

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The floss should be thin enough that it won't bind on the edges of the holes. At least my floss was that thin. Once you have fed the cotter pin through, just unwind the floss. It should come off quite easily.

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That's it! Super easy!

Smooth sailing,

Jim

[Jim Walsh]

I try never to reuse cotter pins but the couple times I have I just pinch the ends together with needle nosed pliers and poke them in the hole. Easy peasy.
There is no wrong method.

[wikakaru]

I try never to reuse cotter pins but the couple times I have I just pinch the ends together with needle nosed pliers and poke them in the hole. Easy peasy.
There is no wrong method.

As I said, the pliers method will work to get a cotter pin through a single hole, but if the pin has two (or more) sets of holes to pass through, such as through two walls of a tube or pipe, pliers simply won't work. Obviously new pins are a better choice, but given my constraints, this was the only option I could get to work. I thought about using tape to keep the two halves of the pin together, but that would have made the taped pin too big to fit through the holes, and even if it had fit the tape would have been stuck inside the spreader tube. I know of no other way to do this.

--Jim

[John Stone]

I like it. A useful technique that could save the day....

[gonesail]

or you have a few spares laying around