I grabbed a bit of time after office hours to install Biscuit's chainplates, both starboard and port side plates. I first cleaned the old bedding compound from, mostly, the underside of the plates with a razor blade, and continued the effort to clean the plates by sanding with high-grit paper. Wiping the plates clean with acetone brightened their appearance up quite a lot and readied them for installation. I had secured new 2" 1/4-20 stainless steel machine screws prior to arriving at the shop, and also picked up new flat washers, lock washers and nylon locking nuts.

With all hardware ready, I made my way out to Biscuit's decks to counter bore the fastener openings in order to provide ample room for bedding compound to fill. After the decks were ready, I placed a good amount of white Sitkaflex 291-lot on the deck and fastener holes, placed the chainplates on the deck and inserted the new 1/4-20 machine screws. I then went below, and through the hand-sized access hole, carefully placed the washers and nuts onto the machine screws. At this point I called in another pair of hands to assist with securing the fasteners. My helper firmly held the machine screws from rotating as I tightened the washer and nut assemblies from below using a 1/4" "dog-bone" - a small scale socket wrench for compact spaces. With both fasteners per chainplate secured, I went up on deck to clean the squeeze out from around the base of the chainplates. This finalized the installation of both chainplates.

After knocking off for the evening, I sanded the first varnish application to the bilge pump switch mounting plate, cleaned it, and applied a second coat. One more coat for this mounting plate before installing the bilge pump switch.

Total Hrs: 1