Old Elvstrom bailers

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Finnsailor
Posts: 18
Joined: Tue Nov 23, 2010 6:06 pm
Location: Warsash

Old Elvstrom bailers

Post by Finnsailor »

Has anyone any ideas for replacing the rubber gasket located in between the upper and lower casings of an old Elvstrom bailer.

The internet provides advice on how to remove the internal rubber gasket on a modern bailer, but my bailers are late 50's or 60's, however, a similar process naturally falls onto place once you know the basics.

My 4 large bailers are identical and each chute is held in place by a stainless steel rod, on which the bailer chute pivots. The easy part was removing the chute from the bailer and extricating the rubber gasket from the recess - I now need to replace the 50+ yr old rubber gasket which is about 5mm thick.

Has anyone already done this? And what did you use to replace the gasket lodged between the upper and lower casings? My bailers are firmly in the boat and I do not want to remove them - I am simply looking for ideas on what I can replace the gasket with?

Many thanks to any-one who can help – then I can get my 1957 Finn on the water for the first time in 50 yrs.

Martin
Martin Hughes
1957 Jeremy Rogers Finn K192
1956 Fairey Finn K17
2004 modern Devoti Finn: GBR567
Bill-Conner
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2010 3:08 pm

Re: Old Elvstrom bailers

Post by Bill-Conner »

I did this thankless task in the early 60's, the bad news is you have to take the bailer out and given the vintage they will be fitted from the outside, recessed into the outer skin. 6no 6mm machine screws, and some by now very solid bedding compound, from memory! Having removed them you will need to file/drill the copper rivets holding the two parts apart. Since these particular bailers are long out of production you will now need to make a gasket, we used what Elvestrom used which is/was neoprene, since you have already removed the old gasket probably not in one piece you will need to create a pattern, I have no idea how tight the hole for the chute should be but I would suggest tighter is better! Best to lubricate with a non petroleum jelly which prevents wear and helps being watertight beware though it does attract grit too.
The neoprene was I think 3-4mm but you can judge that once you have them apart.
Good luck!
Finnsailor
Posts: 18
Joined: Tue Nov 23, 2010 6:06 pm
Location: Warsash

Re: Old Elvstrom bailers

Post by Finnsailor »

Brilliant, Bill thank you. I have managed to get the moving part of the bailer our of the fixing, so I did not need to unseat the entire bailer. I did manage to get the old gasket out in one piece, and yes it is about 5mm. I will try neoprene but I do not think it is quite stiff or hard enough. I took a broken modern super-mini apart earlier and found a reasonably hard rubber gasket – I think I need a substance that is harder and more dense then neoprene, but I will give it a go.

Many thanks
Martin Hughes
1957 Jeremy Rogers Finn K192
1956 Fairey Finn K17
2004 modern Devoti Finn: GBR567
alan williams
Posts: 1650
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 10:44 pm
Location: Devon

Re: Old Elvstrom bailers

Post by alan williams »

Hi Martin
Had the same problem with a hornet bailer a long time ago. Ended up cutting several layers of car inner tube and bonding them togethe,r messy job but did the trick after carefully trimming to size and then seating the bailer on sikaflex.
Cheers
Al Finn 424 and 670
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