When That Beloved Part Fails!

Recently a real bummer occurred on My Other Honey. The dreaded/loved railing hinge broke. These are the stainless steel railings that surround many of our crafts. This is not the hinge that connects to a mahogany railing. Just to be clear. This is an ingenious design that allows the railing to fold back on itself and secure to the railing with a snap. Here is a photo of how it works.

There are two failure points. The brass part you see that bridges the two railings and the brass part that goes into the tube. The brass piece snaps in half and or the tube end breaks off one of the ears.

You can see above that both pieces had failed on ours. I did not shoot any photos of the tube end repair. You can see that I repaired the ear by using a piece of a washer. Then drilled the brass part that was remaining and used a 6/32 machine screw to anchor the washer piece in place. When I was happy with fit, I used a little JB weld to anchor every thing. If you look closely, you can see the threads in the brass where the tap got too close to the surface. OOps.

Next was the broken part. I ordered a piece of 1/4 inch brass flat stock for fabrication. ( Evil Bay- 14.99 delivered)

I then made a pattern from the broken piece and started to cut out a rough blank.

I used my band saw to do the rough trimming and then a grinder and flat file for final shaping. The end result is seen below. New vs Old with the pins installed. I decided to use the old pins which are brass since they showed very little wear.

All put back in place and ready to take to the boat for final install. I am by NO means a machinist and I am sure there are a million ways to do this better. In the end, I had the enjoyment of repairing a broken part and the satisfaction of getting it done. Cheers to all and show us your projects. BIG and small. Scott