Car Refresh

 

Great Ketch possesses only two cars. Each car rides on a track on the half wishbone booms. The purpose of the car is to allow one to adjust the outhaul and the reefing tension for the sails.

The plastic end-caps on the cars will sometimes fail. I believe the age of the plastic and the exposure to the sun leads to fatigue and the integrity of the material becomes jeopardized.

Long before there were digital printers, the method I used to make new plastic end-caps was to use a good end-cap as a plug (cast) in order to create a mold. Once the mold was created I would pour two part plastic mix and after cure split the mold to reveal the new part. This process was perfect in those days as because I had control of how the part was made and I could make spares - I did.

The picture above displays the car taken apart. Notice the broken end-cap toward the right. The broken area had a channel so bearings could travers freely from the inside to the outside of the track.

The picture displaying the two cars compares the broken part with a replacement part. I mention that all materials I used to make the mold and part were purchased from a company: Smooth-On.

After cleaning the parts I decided to paint over the label Frederiksen and make the part look as new as possible. The product I used to spray paint the metal part is called TrimBlack. The paint I used to paint over the plastic parts was basic glossy boot strip black.

This is the look of the final product. New delrin bearings will be placed into the car when I fix it on the track.