Swim Noodle Uses

Swim Noodle Uses

Swim noodles have all sorts of uses besides just swimming fun and they are cheap. If you get the ones with a hole through the center, it can make a good line chafe guard. You can wrap string or fishing line around a short piece of one to keep the line tangle free. You can hook your fishing hooks and lures into the sides of one to keep track of them. I put a short piece of one that has the hole through the center over the tip of a fishing pole for storage. It keeps the end of the line next to the pole and if there is a hook on the pole you can put in in the noodle piece.

Noodles are cheap and can have many uses they were not intended for. Every boater needs to have one on board. 8-) 

PVC Pipe Recycled

PVC Pipe Recycled

I found an old piece of big diameter PVC pipe when I was cleaning up the other day and I thought I should just pitch it out. BUT, it still could be useful, I thought. I am a pack rat, and I have a lot of stuff around that falls in to the category: “I am sure I could use that for something and should save it.”

I then thought to myself: The idea of cleaning up was to get rid of junk. OK, I thought, make something from it.

The piece was about 4’ long. After thinking about what I could make from it, I decided I could make 3 fishing pole holders for the boat out of it. I cut it in to 3 pieces, drilled mounting holes through the pieces and was done. I had recycled the pipe.

I was going to use one of the 3 as a winch handle holder, the other two I would mount on the stern rail of the boat. I drilled a pair of holes in my holders, each about an inch down from the ends. They went through both sides. Then I made the hole on one side if the pipe larger than the one on the other side. That way I could put a wide head screw through one side to the inside of the hole one the other side of the pipe so it could be mounted. That worked great for the winch handle holder, since it was to be mounted on a bulkhead.

For the pole holders, I just used a cord through holes at the bottom and tied it to the rail and a cord through just one side at the top and up over the rail so it would not slide down the rail and a pole could be put in it. I did not want to drill in to the rail. A pair of hose clamps could be used also.

That was one piece of pipe out of the pile. *-) Now what to do with the rest of the stuff.

Einstein had a Sailboat

I saw a photo of Albert Einstein on his sailboat. He looked familiar in the photo but I did not recognize him because he was totally out of context of my stereotype of the man. He looked like a normal old sail-boater on a well cared for boat.

He looked like a guy I would talk to about his boat and not be to good to respond. I thought it was nice that he often sailed a 15' dinghy named Tinef  ( Yiddish for worthless ).

After seeing the photo I thought that I have two things in common with him. I like to sail and I have an untidy mop of white hair. 8-)

Re-bed Boat Fittings

Deck Fitting Re-Bedding

My old sailboat's construction is mostly solid fiberglass panels, not constructed like the newer boats with  a core of lightweight material between two fiberglass skins. Re-bedding a solid panel is straight forward and easy. The fiberglass skin panels need additional work.

After taking the fitting off the boat the fitting and the fiberglass needs to be cleaned with solvent like xylene to get all the old bedding material off them. New bedding will not seal if it is not well cleaned.

With a skin panel deck you next need to drill out the mounting holes and make them over sized. They need to be bout twice the size of the mounting bolt. Then with a bent tool like a allen wrench dig out some of the core between the skins. Vacuum out the partials and the masking tape the bottom hole.

Next fill the new cavity and hole with epoxy, this seals the soft core material so it will not wick water in to it if the bedding leaks. After the epoxy is hard drill the proper mounting bolt size hole in the new epoxy plug. Now when you bed it can get a good seal and the panel will not crush when you snug the fitting down.

A polyester sealant like 3M 4000 UV works well but it is incompatible with some plastics. Test any sealant first to make sure it is compatible and is OK.

Put the sealant on the clean fittings and a little in the hole and mount. Do not tighten the fitting all the way down right off. If you let the sealant cure one day and then snug it all the way down you get a gasket like seal that is more waterproof.

Make sure you test fit the fitting and bolts in the new holes before you put the sealant on and try tightening it down. Also use large washers on the underside to dissipate stress over a larger area on the fiberglass under skin. You are in for a major big redo and cleanup if the fit is not good and up put the sealant on and try to mount a bad fit.