Keel Insert

[Rick D]

Hi Guys.  I'm new here and looking to build a PS22.  This looks like a great forum.  I've been thinking about a keel and wondered if anyone has done/seen an insert similar to the attached jpg.  The insert is a welded HR assembly that would be supported in the wood mold by the side bolts.  The side bolts go thru the mold sides and are removed after casting and the holes in the casting plugged with lead or epoxy.  The keel bolts would then screw into the top bosses.  Is this overkill/wouldn't work?  It avoids thru-holes for the bolts and I would feel more secure knowing there is some structure in the keel other than just lead, although just lead has been used for years.

Rick

[Designer]

Hi Rick,

I think that the steel weldment is complicating a fairly simple process.

First, lead is easy to drill if you know how. Because lead is very soft it is inclined to grab, you need to detune the cutting edge of the bit like you should for brass, grind a small flat on the cutting edge vertical to the hole and lubricate with kerosene while drilling.

Second, because you will be threading your keel bolts into a dissimilar metal you could have some electrolytic problems over time.

Third, the keel is not very deep and the holes are only 3/8" diameter.

Fourth, it is a sound practice to have the bolt head under the keel and the nut inside the boat and not depending on a un-serviceable thread.

Fifth, It is much tougher to drill the holes through the boat that exactly fit the cast-in holes than to drill through the boat into the keel. The method that I prefer is to mate the deadwood to the boat and drill from the boat through the deadwood, remove the deadwood and mate to keel and drill from the deadwood into the keel. You can counter bore the lead for the bolt heads with a spade drill. Drive a length of dowel into the bolt hole to to give a support bearing for the center point of the spade drill.

[Garry]

My first thought is "wicked galvanic corrosion!" There is no reliable way to prevent seawater from setting up a small battery with the lead and iron and eating the steel up.