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jroy
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Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2001 - 08:58 am:
Wow, I am really surprised 5200 was easy to remove. Everytime I have had to remove something bedded with that stuff it was a war. Consider yourself lucky!
I have all the signs of the plate corrosion around the mast partners (documented by another owner in a different thread) and will probably be redoing that part of the boat this spring. When the yard put my mast in this past spring they used the gasket and then followed up with 3M 101 sealant, which is a polysulfide. Silicon is a poor choice for most boat sealing jobs because it has no to very poor adhesion charateristics. Urethanes like 5200 have outstanding adhesion, almost to a fault. Polysulfides offer decent adhesion without being so tough to remove. I have also had good luck with Life Seal, which is a hybrid of silicon and urethane (not Life Cualk which is polysulfide).
I am ocnsidering abandoning the whole gasket idea completely. I know a lot of people who have boats with more traditional mast partner set ups that have had great success with Spartite. This stuff is some form of epoxy and creates a custom partner. If installed correctly the spartite stays on the mast and only a small type of sealant is needed.
I haven't made up my mind exactly how I am going to repair this yet. I plan to open it up to see what I am dealing with and then look at all my options before committing to rebuild it as it was originally.
I plan to unstep my mast every season so I can have the boat trucked home for winter storage.
