During this last refit, we had custom wood bezels with embedded helicoils built to fit permanently around the cabin ports (we’ll discuss these further in our Refit Series). During cold weather, we screw Plexiglas covers to the bezels and voila…no condensation! However, after installing them we realized that the little chains with small bars at the end that hold the ports open were now too short. (Have you noticed that every time you make a change on the boat, something else doesn’t work and you have to fix that, etc.?)
A few years ago we would have despaired, knowing it was going to be a huge task to come up with longer chains, but during this refit we learned about McMaster-Carr and, sure enough, they had exactly what we needed.
That was the start of a love affair with this great company. Need a high quality ¼-20 tap specially coated to cut 316 stainless steel? Go to McMaster-Carr. Go to them again when in a moment of inattention you wring that tap off and need a tap extractor to get the pieces out.
The good news is that, not only do they have everything imaginable, they also have an incredibly easy-to-use website and an efficient shipping department that will even ship outside the USA. So don’t despair, visit www.mcmaster.com!