Plastic cover anchor winch repair

Truly this cover was in terrible condition.
Cracked, sun damaged brittle plastic in spots.

So I refurbished with an old computer motherboard, fiberglass cloth, epoxy, PL poly construction adhesive, and Rustoleum spray paint.



This front side, I snapped the plastic out by hand. So I stripped a PC motherboard and epoxied it on and covered it with 6 oz glass cloth.
I thought what is strong, cheap, I already have, not metal which will corrode and that fit perfect requirement.

Side view where the drum bolts
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...AAAAAAAJVQ/UxeBhvHskW0/s912-Ic42/P7162479.JPG

I started by reinforcing the inside with PL and FG tape for drywall. I coated the entire inside in many layers. This added a lot of flexible strength to the entire cover. You should use gloves, as it gets sticky and swells , push the cloth into the goo. It will set up in 30 minutes, but full cure takes overnight.


You can see the green board PC on the edge.


If I had simply coated the entire inside with PL and glass, and then coated the outside with epoxy and glass, then would not have had to replace one side with the PC motherboard, but I was rather disgusted with how bad that plastic was, much worse than the rest of the cover. So I simply kept breaking out chunks, but then realized the whole cover I could have broken up, so it involved a much more significant repair. This is very strong I can stand on it now.

On the outside, some plastic surfaces were warped, so I filled with Bondo.
The entire inside glassed, but the outside only the front all around the cover and lower sides are glassed.

Along the screw edge, I did 4 layers of epoxy and glass cloth. The cover has to flex to fit onto the gears, and it still can.
the bottom edge where the big hole is, I cut a piece of SS bar and glued it in for support to keep that edge straight. You can see it juts out a bit on the inside of the cover.

Since this cover must flex on the side away from the big hole to fit into place, I think I used the right stuff for the job to last a long time.

 

I'd have just remade the part. I would have made a plaster mold, as an exact duplicate, probably casting the original, to keep things simple. I'd lay a few layers of fabric with the resin of choice (polyester would be the cheap choice) and pop out of the home made mold when cured. This way it's uniformly strong, isn't pieced together and any additional effort to smooth things up are on a solid unit.

 

Yes, that could have worked fine I suppose to use it as a pattern.
The condition though, it was not perfectly straight it had some warped sides, so the mold would have to be worked on.
I installed it back on the gears, and it fits good, looks good, and is functional again, took me several weeks to get around to finally finishing it up.

I used white Rustoleum Hammered finish, I wonder how long it will look good that paint. Right now it look great.

I bought this at a marine consignment shop maybe 15 years ago, it is unusual in that it runs off 120vac. Works fine for me as I have a gen and an inverter. It is pretty powerful, pulls up the 60lb anchor easily. It only has a rope pulley, not a chain pulley. I like it enough that I wonder if a chain pulley could be fitted to the shaft. I dont have a clue who made this. Since I don't have any chain on the rode, it is not a problem for me.

The electric motor is Briggs and Stratton. There is a bridge rectifier which turns AC into DC and a switch and that is all it has for the electric part. There are several large gears in the thing. The hub has a clutch so it can only turn one way, set to retrieve.

Here is the motor.



Brushes are like new, very little wear down.