I just replaced all stanchion as well as bow,and stern rail backing plates on my 34 Pearson. The manufacture used fiberglass and other than being nasty from years of water penetration they held up fine. I made new and thicker ones using
epoxy resin. I laid up a large sheet of fiberglass aproximently 1/4" thick and cut into appropriate sizes with a box knife and straight edge just before it got too hard, this you'll have to use your judjment on. The balsa core had deteriorated some 1" to 2" around where the stanchion bolts go through the deck and liner. I dug all the rotted balsa out using several sizes of Z-shaped heavy gauge wire and blew out the rest of the junk with compressed air. This took several months of tapeing the holes at night and pealing it off during the day to allow it to dry. Then I filled each hole with VERY SLOW cure
epoxy putty using a soft putty knife. It took a long time but the results were better than great.
I recently purchased an '82 7.3 meter and a couple of stanchions need attention (loose, Gel Coat cracks). All the literature I have indicates that the stanchions has stainless steel backing plates, but when I am tapping around the base (have not removed the headliner yet), I don't think I have any backing plates at all--is this a feature S2 included for only some of the 7.3 production runs?
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