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Replacing my spreaders this winter. Has anyone determined what type of wood the original spreaders were. I'm expecting them to be spruce or doug fir, but not being a wood expert, I can't be sure. I'm leaning toward spruce, since I have been chasing rot for several years and spruce is much more susceptible to rot.
I'll probably replace them with a piece of good quailty old growth douglas fir, assuming I can find some. I was just curious what the originals might have been.
-Argyle
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Fir or spruce are both traditional choices. I would bet that they used either or at the factory. When my father in law (way prior to him being my father in law 🙂 purchased our DE38 someone had used untreated pine which fell apart really quickly based on our understanding of how long it had been on the boat. I fabricated new ones for the boat for my father in law out of teak. It is definitely heavier and added probably 5 lbs or so of extra weight aloft. However it has given no issues in the last 8 to 10 years and we have never even treated it. It's teak... nuff said. If doing it now I would probably just go to aluminum replacements. However using the old ones as a template and simply shaping the wood of your choice to the same dimensions to replace the spreaders is super simple. I think we put in 3 or 4 hours of labor to fabricate them if that. Plus time to take down and put up. We just losened the upper shrouds unbolted and lowered the spreaders on deck. Moved fittings over to new ones and raised and installed new spreaders. Tightened upper shrouds and was done.
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Yeah, I think I remember you posting some pictures of those spreaders. Pretty rough looking. I remember thinking that my spreaders must be in great shape with only a few areas of rot here and there (which I repaired). Didn't know yours were 'Home Depot' grade pine.
I think I'm going to go with the outfit out in Washington, that supplied the wood for my bowsprit. That was a fantastic piece of wood. Old Doug Fir at around 25 or so rings per inch. If I can get another piece like that, I'd be happy.
More rot is appearing and there is significant checking on the end face that goes against the mast. I think I might have made a mistake in applying several layers of Cetol on the bottom and sides of the spares. I think the Cetol is too waterproof and is trapping water, accelerating rot. The spars lasted 35 years with not a lot of maintenance. For the last 8 years, since my 'improvements' I've been repairing rot every two to three years, whenever I take my mast down. Could be age catching up, could be the Cetol, but I'm definitely going to try another coating this time around.
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When I had my boat out of the water last summer I had asked the boat yard to repaint the spreaders. When they looked closer one of them had rotted through where the wire for the spreader light went through the spreader! The boat yard remade both spreaders with douglas fir. Too soon to say how long they will last, but we did put a new deck light on the mast to avoid any holes in the spreaders!
Good luck, Eric.
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The wire for your spreader light runs through your spreaders? The variation in build practices for these boats really surprises me. Maybe spreader lights and such were added at commissioning and not at the factory. My spreader light wire exits the mast under the spreader and runs along the under side to the light. It is never inside of the spar.
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Valkyr's old spreaders had the wire coming down through the top also. I discontinued that practice when we replaced spreaders. On valkyr the wire's come out of the mast over the spreaders. You would think this was a factory install item but maybe not. Or maybe mast's have been replaced on some of our boats and redone differently.
scott
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