[It's another MadMariner feature from a few weeks back.

I don’t claim to be any sort of workshop prodigy, but I love being able to work up solutions on my own, and each project gives me a little more confidence for the next one. Well, each successful project, anyway! —Tim]

When it Comes to Custom Fabrication, the Best Person for the Job May Be You

In the old days, sailing ships carried carpenters, sailmakers, metalsmiths and riggers. If something broke, they repaired it or made a new piece from raw materials.

Times have changed. Modern recreational boaters don’t need to know how to make everything, of course. Frankly, it would be impossible, given the broad range of technologies and specialized tools involved. Even propeller-headed uber geeks (guys like Ben Ellison and Steve Roberts) can’t make everything they carry.

Nevertheless, and no matter what your level of do-it-yourself expertise, I think it’s always worthwhile to ask yourself, “Could I make that?” Often times, the answer is an unequivocal “No!” But once in a while you encounter an opportunity to transform a frustrating “shopping” project into a fulfilling “fabrication” project.

Sometimes, custom fabrication is the only choice.

MAKE IT YOURSELF

For instance, when I installed my new Rocna anchor aboard Two Lucky Fish, the bail on the anchor roller was too small to accommodate the shank of the anchor. I looked and looked, but I just could not find a replacement bail that met my needs, and I didn’t want to buy a whole new anchor roller. If only I could find a piece of stainless steel bar stock like my old bail, but longer. Eventually, I found a stainless ring buoy bracket for $5. It already had one of the holes I needed.

I worked it, bending it into the shape I wanted, and drilled a new hole into it. It was a little tricky, I probably ruined a drill bit in the process, and the finished product isn’t perfect by any means. Click here for more pictures of this project.

But it’s been in service for a year, and even I don’t notice the tool marks, slight imperfections, or the extra hole. I’ve had people stop me and ask where I got the long bail. “I made it myself,” I like to crow. Those moments are worth all the time and effort, not to mention the $50 that I saved without having a bail custom fabricated by a local metal shop.

GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP

Sometimes, do-it-yourself fabrication means asking for help from your friends or family with specialized skills and tools. Here’s a good example of a project I could not have completed on my own: The V-berth in Two Lucky Fish has an unfortunate gap right in the middle, aft of the porta-potty.

The designers envisioned two adults sleeping here, and apparently they didn’t envision one adult sleeping with a kid on either side (because both kids want to be next to mommy, naturally). The gap makes it impossible to sleep in the middle, because nothing supports your pillow. The solution involved two projects:

First, I cut a piece of plywood to size and attached some rectangles of thick stainless steel sheet with nuts and bolts. That was pretty straightforward, but owning a small table saw and a rotary tool (mine’s a Dremel) helps a lot.

Second, I enlisted my mom to make a cushion. She’s got a sewing machine, and she knows how to use it. I purchased a piece of foam cut to size (plus an inch all around), and two yards of the Sunbrella fabric that matches the rest of the cushions on the boat. Although I watched her do it, I’m not sure I could replicate the process. But it’s done now, it cost a fraction of the commercial alternative, and it gave my mom and me an excuse to spend an afternoon working on a project together.

TRYING IT OUT

Sometimes you’ve got a piece of gear, and you know where it goes, but there’s no way to mount it. Or you’re not certain where it goes and you want to try it out in a given location without making permanent modifications to the boat or the gear. That’s the case with the Lifesling in the cockpit of Two Lucky Fish. I think I know where it should be, but I don’t want it to collect water, I don’t want to drill any holes, and I want to be able to remove it if it’s in the way.

In this case, I had to design a cheap, secure mount that I could make on my own. This is one of those oddball little projects where it’s virtually impossible even to describe the situation to anybody who isn’t standing right there looking at it with you. The picture clarifies the problem, hopefully, and the solution.

Components include some 1/4-inch scrap Delrin-type polymer, some 1/2-inch strips of 1/16th-inch stainless steel sheet, some tiny blocks of leftover PVC trim board, screws, and zip-ties. Obviously, it’s helpful to have access to a plastic store and a metal store, both of which I highly recommend for do-it-yourself projects at all levels.

This project was simple to execute, but it took a long time to figure out a design that I could accomplish easily. Drilling into stainless steel ruins drill bits fast, so I wasn’t happy with any design that required six or more holes. In the end, I only had to drill two holes in the metal. I minimized the amount of metal drilling by cutting slots into the edges of the stainless strapping with a grinder on the Dremel tool. The zip-ties seat into these slots, so the plastic and the metal are fixed firmly together. Firmly enough, anyway, and sometimes that’s the trick: How sloppy can it be and still work?

Even if all you own is a drill, a hacksaw, pliers, and screwdrivers, you can often come up with perfectly serviceable mounts and brackets for gear you want to install on your boat. And have I mentioned stainless steel bailing wire yet?

In the interest of full disclosure, of course, I should mention that fabrication projects can involve a lot of shopping, and a lot of frustration, and sometimes the end result is still unsatisfactory. But I find even the so-called failures to be rewarding. If nothing else, I learn a lot along the way.

Good luck, and remember to take pictures so you can share your successes (and, if you dare, your failures) with your fellow boaters!