Cleaning caulk from fasteners?

[richfriend]

Any recommendations on cleaning old caulk from SS fasteners other than individually wire brushing them? Heat? Solvent?

I have 5-7 lbs. of nuts and bolts that I would like to inspect before I reuse any of them which is difficult to do in their current condition.

[bhartley]

I also had many bolts with caulk on them when redoing Miranda. Wire brush was the best I could do also with some "Goof Off" type removers too. When it came right down to it, it was cheaper (with greater peace of mind) to buy new. I shopped at Bolt Depot. Their prices were very good and I could buy the exact number I needed instead of a box of 50. They also take returns on extras (if you buy something expensive it might be worth it).

I needed many different sized of stainless along with silicon bronze fasteners and they had everything I needed. .

Granted my boat was 30+ years old with no hardware updates. Some pieces would have lasted another 30, but the hours I was spending cleaning were better put to use on other tasks.

www.boltdepot.com

Bly

[Rachel]

I'm not sure I would want to clean off hundreds of fasteners, but when I was re-doing my M-17 I re-used most of them. There was no handy marine store and I was on a serious budget. What I did was to hold each fastener with ... I forget what exactly, but likely it was Vise-Grips. Then I held them up against one of those wire wheels that's on a motor - is that a bench grinder? It cleaned them right up and didn't ruin the threads. That was on stainless, so I'm not sure about bronze; but I suppose the wire wheels come in different degrees of wickedness.

[Jason K]

Fasteners and sandpaper are probably the two biggest "hidden costs" of boat work. If someone told me that I'd be spending what I've spent, I think I would have laughed in their face.

I'd try soaking the fasteners over night in acetone or a similar solvent and wiping them off with an abrasive Brillo-type sponge the following day. I don't think I would have the patience to clean each piece with a wire brush. If that was the only solution, I'd follow Bly's advice and just purchase new bolts.

[CharlieJ]

You might try soaking them in a paint stripper- pick a methylene chloride based one. Then wash with some lacquer thinner or mineral spirits. You might need to do a bit of brushing, but that should get most of it.

I do that with fasteners from furniture we are restoring- just put the stuff in a tub, pour in the stripper and swish it around with a stir stick- leave it overnight if possible.

[richfriend]

Thanks for the replys. I will try the paint stripper as I have several partial containers sitting on the shelf.

I have a good relationship with my wire wheels and often use the brass one with heavy welding gloves to clean up parts.

Unfortunately, my workshop has no heat and the forecast here is for teens during the day. Usually the result is my tea freezes over before it gets consumed and adding anti-freeze to it this early in the day doesn't bode well for any meaningful quantity of work.

Rfriend

[Hirilondë]

I am a total cheapskate. My favorite brand of marine supplies is Free. My favorite color is Free. I scrounge to save money, and working in a boatyard I can do quite well. But I do not reuse fasteners. Factor in the work to clean them and then inspection and culling out less than desirable ones and I splurge and buy new ones. I feel better about how well secured what-ever-it-was is because of new fasteners.

[richfriend]

In RI you are 'frugal', not a cheapskate. Many of these nuts and bolts fasten non-critical components and desrve to have their life extended past the 30 or so years they have already served. I do use new fasteners on what I would consider important areas such as chain plates, boom bails, most all running rigging, thru hulls for seacocks etc.

Rfriend

[dasein668]

Except possibly for a very large or exotic fastener, I can't see the work required to clean up, inspect, and cull fasteners to be worth the effort. The cost of fastners, like all things boat, certainly does add up, but so does the amount of time that goes into any sort of project. I'll get the new ones.

Buy fasteners in bulk, and search out good sources for unique and specialty fasteners. I like boltdepot.com.

[CharlieJ]

While that may be true, his post talked about 5 - 7 pounds of fasteners. That just might be worth cleaning.

We cleaned and reused what we could of the bronze fasteners when we rebuilt Tehani- finding replacement bronze of the correct sizes would have been a not fun chore.

[Hirilondë]

In RI you are 'frugal', not a cheapskate.

LOL, I will have to remember that.

[Ric in Richmond]

I've never tried it with caulk....but you would be amazed at what simply boiling a piece will do to paint.

We threw OLD door knobs in a pot and boiled them for an hour or so. Paint just fell off.

Can't hurt the fastener....maybe worth a try..

[dasein668]

While that may be true, his post talked about 5 - 7 pounds of fasteners. That just might be worth cleaning.

We cleaned and reused what we could of the bronze fasteners when we rebuilt Tehani- finding replacement bronze of the correct sizes would have been a not fun chore.

It may be true if you value cash expenditures more highly than time. And I"m not saying that's wrong. I'm just saying that for me the time expenditure to go through all those fasteners, clean them, make sure that they are perfectly straight with no bunged threads, or corrosion, isn't worth the cost savings.

My experience removing all the hardware from Dasein 3 years ago was that more than 50% of my fasteners were bad anyway. Plus I then would have had to file and organize the things so that I could figure out where they were to be reused, and calculate exactly how many new ones I would need to make up the difference. Since I buy all but the largest fasteners in bulk anyway, I wouldn't likely be saving any money.

Boltdepot, btw, has a very nice selection of SI Bronze fasteners. Which they sell by the indiviual piece if you need. Which then come in small ziplock bags with laser printed labels on each one describing the contents. Highly recommended.

[Mike]

I thought I was going to have to use 316 stainless for all of the exterior fasteners on my project? is 18-8 sufficient? I?m familiar with the Midwest Fastener brand which appears to be what Bolt Depot is selling and their 18-8 is slightly magnetic. I am going to be replacing most of the fasteners I removed because it appears the factory used bolts that were way too long, then they put nuts on them and cut them off with dull bolt cutters. Removing them was a pain.

[feetup]

18-8 is the chromium-nickel composition of 304, which is, as you say slightly magnetic. 316/316L has a 16-10 chromium-nickel composition which is why it is preferred of the austenitic stainless grades for salt water use. It is the chromium that is the culprit when chloride induced pitting or crevice corrosion takes place.
Personally I hate to throw anything away that still has use, part of my efforts to help the global warming thing. I clean and inspect fasteners, even though I work at a place where I can have many fasteners for free, and anything special order for cost. I wouln't re-use fasteners that obviously carry loads or where a failure could compromise the rig, but for things that are not heavily loaded like genoa tracks or hatch hinges it somehow seems waistful to throw them away. In other words it's not the cost, it's the waist that bothers me.
I have a bench grinder with a pair of fine stainless 8 inch wheels mounted together, to give a double wide surface, and an 8 inch polishing mop on the other end. I clean the end of the fastener lightly, held by fingers then chuck that end in a keyless chuck on a cordless drill, and spin it slowly while running it against the wheel. You will notice that spinning one direction clean the old calk off the other direction deposits it right back on. After, with it still in the chuck, and if it is a visible fastener I brighten up the head with a lick or two on the mop with white compound. Lastly, I use a power driver to run the threads in and out of a chasing die held in the bench vise. It all takes about 2 miniutes from coffee can to like new. Bent ones, corroded ones or badly damaged threads go in a third coffe can to be recycled.
I don't say that it's a bad thing to replace all the fasteners, I just think that if you aren't turned off by mindless repetative work it isn't always necessary
Like someone said in another post, old ain't always good, but new ain't always better.

Feetup

Sailing is a low carbon emissions pastime.