Once the rails are off, they are more or less straight and will take a bit of bend without too much effort. They are aluminum....not spring steel. You could start at either end and work your way in the opposite direction. Leave one bolt in place somewhere near the middle simply to hold it up. If they were bedded with sealant, you may have to gently pry them off. No big deal, although you may have to scrape the old stuff off to clean them and the boat joint up. Again, no big deal. A sharp putty knife or dull chisel should be all you will need. Do keep track of all the nuts and screws. They are fine threaded screws with square nuts. You won't find replacements at the hardware store. Mine were looking pretty scruffy, so I hit them with a wire brush to clean them up as best I could, then laid on a coat of Rustoleum primer and a couple coats of semi-gloss enamel.....both out of spray cans from the hardware store. They looked good then, and still do. On Sep 29, 2012, at 9:54 AM, pam and dana wrote:
Thanks Howard. Your help is much appreciated. Taking the toe rail off does seem daunting. I have two concerns: will it spring open (I can imagine there is a best pattern for removing the bolts) or is it shaped to stay in a curve? If it is straight, is it hard to bend back to the boat shape?
Pam
On Sep 28, 2012, at 12:37 PM, Howard Audsley wrote:
Pam:
Someone had tried to seal Audasea up from the inside and it didn't work. It simply wicked past the silicone or whatever sealant they had used. Best to nip it at the source, which is under that toe rail (assuming you have one of the older boats with metal toe rail). Sounds daunting, but really, is not that big of a deal. Nothing like lifting the deck off, which was what I was contemplating doing.
I used a Dremel tool with a cutting wheel on it that was the perfect size to grind out the loose caulk. I used thickened epoxy to seal the crack, and doubled down with some 3M 4200 over that. No more leaks.
Howard
On Sep 28, 2012, at 1:18 PM, pam and dana wrote:
My fall project is to repair all the leaks along the hull-deck joint. In Howard Audsley's blog he described taking off the toe rail and drilling out the joint before replacing the caulk (can't remember what kind). Has anyone else done this project from inside the cabin so you didn't have the work of removing the toe rail? Did it work well? What kind of tool did you use?
Pam Port Townsend