But how to fix this thing now?

We know we’ll have to cut one of our beautiful end fittings off, trashing both it and the $40 rotary swage. Maybe we can cut the bottom stud off, slide the wire out, pop on the top connector then side everything together again and attach a Norseman stud fitting. But that won’t work, as we bought the special Harken stud which is about 12 inches long. The Norseman stud is a standard 6″ or so long stud and our stay would be way too short.

Any which way we wrapped our brains around it, we realized if we cut the stay it would never be long enough for the forestay. It was at this point that we started pricing Norseman and Sta-Lok fittings. We’d paid $80 for the swaging of the fittings to this wire and were still reeling from this bill, not to mention $100 for the end fittings. A quick check of the Norseman fittings prices and we found that for around the same price we could have bought the reusable mechanical fittings.

It became clear that it would be much more cost efficient to use the mechanical fittings as we replaced the standing rigging this year since the swaged fittings were nearly as expensive and then you had to pay the swaging shop. And then when the rig was replaced again in 10 years all those swaged fittings would have to be scrapped and replaced.

So, a decision made at last we –painfully– cut off the new bottom stud fitting. Michael carefully taped a new length of stainless wire to the old-new one and pulled it through the foils. Luckily, we still had a nice long piece of wire with the top toggle fitting still swaged and will probably use this for the new backstay, if we ever get through this project….

At this point, we consulted the manual again, this time reading the sections about assembling the unit using Norseman fittings. Of course, we discovered that the bottom foil is not to be fastenened on until the bottom stud is attached. Ack! But we’d Loctited everything three days ago!

We went outside and were able to unscrew the bottom foil. Hmm. Then the bottom foil slid right off. The Locktite was still only slightly tacky. Wasn’t this stuff supposed to be hard? We were thankful it wasn’t, in this case as we were able to get the bottom foil unstuck so it could be slid up when we attached the bottom fitting.

The next day, Michael was browsing while at work through the Harken manual and he came across this bit of advice:

Adhesive Alert: Foil assembly requires red Loctite adhesive. Loctite cures properly in temperatures above 60�∞ (10�∞ C). Surfaces must also be dry. If you assemble your unit at lower temperatures, use a heat gun like a hair dryer or hand held butane or propane torch to gently warm the parts for about 5 minutes after assembly. Loctite primer is available for lower temperatures, ask your local Loctite dealer or Harken….

For crying out loud! It’s been in the 40s for the past three months here in Seattle. No wonder the Locktite hadn’t cured. It was probably running down all over inside the foils by now. Michael rushed home after work, grabbed the heat gun and spent 10 minutes at each joint warming it up, praying the Loctite would actually be tite now.

We also have a printed copy of the manual now, complete with highlighting and page markers. What is it they say? Read The Fu$%&*@! Manual?

To (oh lord) be continued….