RE: Tuning rig and closed body turnbuckles. [WAS: A'hoy Judy!]

From: Judith Franklin Blumhorst (drjudyb@pacbell.net)
Date: Fri Feb 11 2000 - 10:37:24 PST


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Hi Mac and webgang,

I gather you're suggestion is to run a single wire through both turnbuckles?
We never considered tying the turnbuckles to each other. I've never seen
that before on boat rigging. Interesting idea... I don't see why it
wouldn't work, from a physics point of view, as long as the other end of the
wire attached to the mast couldn't rotate. That kind of setup would
certainly keep the bodies from turning and loosening while trailering.

You'd have to to use a very flexible wire or thin cord, and leave a slight
slack in the wire, so there's no tension on it when the rigging moves
around. Over time, I think the wire would become brittle from constant
flexing during trailering, so I'd probably still want to use locknuts and
rigging tape. The wire could be a good backup system to the locknuts,
especially .

I called tech support at Johnson Company (www.csjohnson.com), manufacturers
of the closed body turnbuckles, to ask about that. Their "official"
recommendation is to use one or two nuts on the studs, then cover the nuts
with rigging tape to keep them from turning.

According to tech support, the hole in the turnbuckle body is for inserting
something to keep the body from rotating when you're tightening the lock
nuts. They recommend you poke a "chuck" through the hole, get the nuts
really tight, and cover them with self-adhereing rigging tape. The tech
support guy said he didn't see any problem with using a wire between the two
turnbuckles, but he said he couldn't recommend it either, since he wasn't
familiar with that practice.

If my boat had closed body turnbuckles, I'd also consider using some
Locktite (the blue version, not the red stuff. And I do like your idea of
using a nylock nut, at least on the outside nut.

Personally, I much prefer open body turnbuckles. Once the cotter pin is
properly inserted through the hole in the stud and taped, that baby ain't
going nowhere and you can see at a glance that everything is okay.

Fair winds,
Judy B, 1985 WWP-19 #266, Redwing

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mac Davis [mailto:mcmd@innet.com]
> Sent: Friday, February 11, 2000 9:14 AM
> To: drjudyb@pacbell.net; Potter Board
> Subject: Re: Tuning rig and closed body turnbuckles. [WAS: A'hoy Judy!]
>
>
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> West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
> dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
> List hosted by www.tscnet.com
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
> Hi Judy and web gang:
> It's even simpler and more elegant to run a piece of lockwire through the
> holes in each turnbuckle body, locking them together and thus
> preventing the
> turnbuckles from rotating. My 95 P19 came with extra (standard) nuts on
> each end of the turnbuckles and while that does help, both nuts
> will loosen
> if vibrated long enough.
>



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