Bending chainplates

One thing keeps leading to another. In this case, I noticed that quite a few clevis pins (the large pins on the stays) were too long. This allows other bits of metal to shift and spread and makes things weak. So.... I purchased a bunch of new pins from my favorite source (about $5 each instead of the local price of around $20 to $25 each) and went around loosening the stays, replacing the incorrect pins with the right ones, and tightening things back up... and then I came to the foremost starboard stay.

Well, I managed to pull the old pin, but installing the new one just wasn't in the cards: even though the pin fit every hole, it would not fit through all of them. It turned out that this was caused by misalignment of the holes due to the strap being deformed due to uneven forces due to the chainplate not being aligned with the stay!

So.... what to do? Pull the chainplates off the boat and take them to a person who could bend them? Get a BIG crescent wrench and bend them? Make up something out of steel, perhaps a piece of square tubing with a slot in the end? After chatting with my friend David about possibilities, I pulled out some bolts and hardwood I had aboard and made up a tool, although I was not optimistic.

I bolted it onto the starboard chainplate and gave a light tug.... and the steel bent easily.

 WELL! I bent it a bit more to align with the stay, unbolted it, and installed the stay with the new, shorter clevis pin. BEAUTIFUL!

OK, the matching port stay was also wrong, so I bent it, too. And the pin refused to go in. I checked and it seemed that it was drilled just a few hundredths of an inch smaller than required for a 1/2" pin: perhaps they had used a 12mm pin? Anyway, I borrowed a 1/2" bit from David and all is now installed, aligned, and repaired.

Most satisfactory.

Next time: bobstay fitting?

Sail cover?

Or maybe the refrigerator. Or perhaps the aft hatch.

NEVER a shortage of subjects to repair!