Drill Time

I finally got to Rhapsody today. As noted on a previous post, I had a bolt that didn't want to come out of the starboard handrail. I was going to use a fine tooth saw blade like used on a hack saw but that didn't really work out. I went to the hardware store and bought a small 12v cordless drill. The bit I used was as big as the threaded part of the bolt so it wasn't oversized. I drilled from down below where the head of the bolt was at. Once it went through the head enough, I used a screw driver and popped the head off. I went back to the top and pulled the handrail right up. It was easy, I should have tried doing that earlier.

Now I have the handrail at the house, along with the other two pieces from the port side for sanding and refinishing.

My goal with the handrails is to scrape off the old varnish, refinish with several coats of fresh varnish then rebed the rails back on the boat. As of now, I'm looking at bedding down with butyl tape. Once this is done, then I can get a survey, insurance and take it up to a marina where I have reserved a slip.

Here's a picture of the bolt after I popped the head off and a picture of the whole bolt after I removed the whole rail.