One of the slightly annoying things I discovered recently after purchase, was that the companionway steps weren’t anchored very well. The bracket that attaches to the cabinet had been moved or damaged to the point where the screw holes were stripped out too badly and wouldn’t hold the screws any longer.
I bought some wood filler to repair the damaged holes so I can re-attach the steps securely. This stuff worked great. Easy to apply and hardened up after a couple hours enough for me to be able to re-attach the steps with the screws. I initially had my doubts about the effectiveness of it, but it worked perfectly.
It doesn’t look really pretty right now, but there’s no worries now about the steps moving or coming apart from the bracket when I step into or out of the cabin. I’ll sand off the excess and make it look better once it comes time to oil or paint the wood.
Damaged screw holes in cabinet where companionway step attaches
Step bracket
Wood filler
Holes repaired….not pretty but it works
Steps attached again
As we have been repairing our old beat up little boat I’ve constantly been torn between doing the job Right or Good Enough. It can be a hard choice sometimes as I can be a perfectionist about things sometimes. I’m mostly going with Right on anything safety or control related and Good Enough for cosmetics and extras. If I had “The Boat” I’d like to think that I’d be willing to spend more time, money, blood, sweat, and tears on getting as much Right as possible. Mostly though, our current boat is for learning and playing a bit on the lake.
You seem to have found a fair Good Enough answer here. It looks like that just holds the steps in place and isn’t as weight bearing as a step that people will be climbing on all the time. The filler will probably hold for a good while. For something holding more weight or for a more permanent solution you could put a backing plate behind the holes you filled and screw through the fill to the plate. That assumes you can get behind there without being a ninety pound yoga master with an extra elbow joint in your arm.
Thanks Stan, you’re right about it not being weight-bearing. If that had been the case, I’d definitely do it ‘right’ as you mentioned. Fortunately it’s not, because you’re right about something else..I’d have to be a double-jointed contortionist with three arms in order to accomplish that. 🙂