Florida Offshore Multihull Association
Stainless Steel Handrails
By Capt Ron
Let me start by saying … I hate varnishing … for me it
has no socially redeeming qualities. All
varnishing does, is take away from otherwise perfectly good sailing days.
Sure it looks nice … for about two days.
Then you get to do it all over again … ok … so you traditional folks
out there, take it easy on me … besides they make Pacific Seacraft if you like
varnish …
Ok so, my handrails on the cabin top needed refinishing …
again!!! And I set about looking
for suitable alternatives. Fortunately,
I had a good friend that knew someone in the marine stainless rail fabrication
business and after swapping some drawings (by the way I love PowerPoint for
making line drawings), I got a quote … just under $100 … I jumped on it.
My friend must have cashed some chips to get me these rails and I love
him for it.
The rails are made from oval stainless steel tubing … it
measures about 7/8 inch thick in the thin dimension… not sure on the other but
maybe 9/8” or 10/8” something like that anyway. The trick is in getting them bent … the fabrication outfit
bent these to my estimated 4” depth of curve measured in top view from the end
points and flat in the horizontal view … turned out to be almost dead nuts on.
I drilled the holes myself … 36 in the top altogether and
18 in the bottom. I also made the
starboard end caps (with my friend’s help) …. The rails are held in place
with #12 x 1.75 inch self tapping screws.
The original wood rails were removed by chipping out the
wood plugs concealing the screws holding the rails to the molded-in stanchions.
The screws all backed out with no trouble after the glue or whatever was
picked out of the Philips slots.
I then cleaned the tops of the stanchions with a ¾ inch
chisel and an orbiting sander… filling the old screw holes with Marine-Tex.
The new rails were prepared by clamping and taping the old
wood rails to the new ones and marking all the old screw holes.
Then I made a template out of an old batten with two holes 3 inches
apart. The template was aligned
with the rail and centered, then jockeyed around a bit to avoid drilling new
holes where the old ones were but within the limits of the stanchion ends.
Then the holes were drilled. A drill press would work better but I drilled all of the
holes by hand with a 3/8 variable speed drill…. AND I cut all of the holes
with the one drill bit. Now I said
36 holes but if you consider each hole passes through two layers of stainless,
there’s really 72 holes … plus the 18 holes in the bottom of the rails…
for drainage. About 90 holes in
.065 stainless with one drill bit … not bad …for me anyway.
The trick to drilling stainless steel is several things.
First use a cobalt steel drill bit that’s sharpened to an angle of
between 135 degrees to 145 degrees (more is better it turns out).
Then using plenty of cutting oil, drill very slowly with as much pressure
on the drill bit as possible (a drill press helps here).
The idea is to cut the metal not burn it. Slower is better and you should never exceed 300 rpm with
these bits. Drill only until you
see the first wisp of smoke and then re-oil the bit.
A CNC machine would have a continuous oil batch on the drill and the
work.
Counter sinking is another story … I ran through about 5 counter sink bits … the best ones are
cone shaped with a single cutting edge formed by a diagonal hole running through
it … they look like an old fashioned plumb bob.
The high speed steel 5 fluted jobs you get at a hardware store just burn
out. Again with the right
counter-sink, … go slow, with lots of pressure.
The pictures show the result … the rails are bedded in 5200 and the first (or last screw) holds the end caps in place.
