Recycling Sunfish Parts and Gear

Alan S. Glos

Well-Known Member
Readers of this Forum know that I often find, refurbish and sell used Sunfish parts and gear, and along the way I often come across items that are abused or damaged to the point that they cannot be made boat worthy again. So each year I end up with a few mahogany daggereboards, rudders etc. that end up gathering dust in my tiny shop. In some cases there is enough undamaged wood in a daggerboard to make a new rudder blade but more often not a daggerboard is tip damaged or cracked or the edges are dinged to the point that it cannot be restored. The problem is that the wood is often decades old, beautiful, old growth mahogany and I can't bring myself to dump it or make it into kindling wood. So in one of those "ahah" moments, I decided to make nautical themed coat racks for family Holiday gifts. The first one is done, see photos.

Construction is actually pretty easy. Remove the top side handles and brass spring plate, belt sand with 60 grit sands paper, fill dings and cracks, and then palm sand down to 220 grit. Buy some Shaker pegs at the local craft store (Michaels, Hobby Lobby etc.) drill holes and glue them and one of the side handles in place. Drill three mounting holes on 16" centers and purchase three brass mounting screws to match the cleaned up brass spring plate. Hand sand, stain and finish with three coats of Minwax Antique Oil Finish with hand steel wooling between coats. The result is an attractive, functional, unique coat rack (and the mahogany did not end up in the kindling bin!) Total cost about $10 for pegs, sandpaper and finish and maybe 2-3 hours of labor.

Alan Glos
Cazenovia, NY
 

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Very nice! We made a little table for the bathroom out of an old rudder, cut 4 legs, but old tillers trimmed down could be used for legs also.

We also made a boat out of this "coffee table" sold by Beth and Jim a junk shop in North Carolina.

Beth and CHIP.jpg


IMG_7301 2.jpg
 

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