I am trying to reinforce two older laser booms. I have tried to obtain the laser boom reinforcement kit to no avail. I have one kit on order with West Coast Sailing with no expected delivery date and recently inquired at APS who also acknowledged no idea when or if they will ever receive kits. With that said I purchased aluminum tubing 6061 T6 ASTM. I measured the ID of the laser boom at 1.853-1.864 ". The tubing purchased has an OD of 1.75 " and wall thickness of 0.065". Others on this site report purchasing licensed kits with tubing measuring 44 mm OD or 1.73 " and 1 11/16 " or 1.69, which measure favorable with what I purchased. No other OD was available to fit inside the laser boom.
I have read other posts of how to install the tube but have one question or concern. Since the tube is about 0.10" smaller than the boom, when placed on the bottom of the boom to install the boom eyestrap rivets there results in a gap between the reinforcement tube and the boom where the vang strap rivets are to be attached. If one installs a vang strap rivet on one side of the strap I believe the reinforcement tube will be pulled to one side furthering the gap on the other side. See photos. The red dots are approx. location of vang strap rivets, the black dot location of boom eyestrap rivet. First photo centered, second photo if vang strap rivet pulls to one side.
My concern is if you tighten the rivets with a gap something should move to close the gap: the vang strap, the boom or the reinforcement tube. I don't care if the reinforcement tube distorts I just don't want the boom to. I have not seen this addressed elsewhere and am curious how other installers have dealt with this.
Lastly for those attempting to remove the gooseneck plug, I inserted a brass punch rod through the gooseneck hole and then raised the boom to vertical, gooseneck plug down. With a few quick up and downs with the boom causing the rod against the plug, it came out undamaged. Took less than one minute. I don't take credit for take his technique, I read it elsewhere but others have told of the horrors removing this plug.
I have read other posts of how to install the tube but have one question or concern. Since the tube is about 0.10" smaller than the boom, when placed on the bottom of the boom to install the boom eyestrap rivets there results in a gap between the reinforcement tube and the boom where the vang strap rivets are to be attached. If one installs a vang strap rivet on one side of the strap I believe the reinforcement tube will be pulled to one side furthering the gap on the other side. See photos. The red dots are approx. location of vang strap rivets, the black dot location of boom eyestrap rivet. First photo centered, second photo if vang strap rivet pulls to one side.
My concern is if you tighten the rivets with a gap something should move to close the gap: the vang strap, the boom or the reinforcement tube. I don't care if the reinforcement tube distorts I just don't want the boom to. I have not seen this addressed elsewhere and am curious how other installers have dealt with this.
Lastly for those attempting to remove the gooseneck plug, I inserted a brass punch rod through the gooseneck hole and then raised the boom to vertical, gooseneck plug down. With a few quick up and downs with the boom causing the rod against the plug, it came out undamaged. Took less than one minute. I don't take credit for take his technique, I read it elsewhere but others have told of the horrors removing this plug.