New Davits-2

We stopped at Wolfs Marine in Benton Harbor, Mi and bought about 25 feet of 7/8 inch Stainless steel tubing (I wanted 1 inch but they were out) and a bunch of SS end fittings. (Time for a commercial break) As a little side note, Wolfs is one of the best kept secrets in Michigan. It’s the best marine store in Michigan and beats out West Marine hands down. Then, I retired to my shop to see if I could fabricate a set of davits that would be as good as store bought. I found that you can bend 7/8 SS tubing with a ¾ inch conduit bender and a bit of muscle. The hard part was judging how much to bend the pieces. I built a simple wooden gauge and as I would bend the tubing I’d check it against the gauge until I had the necessary 30 deg angle. The hardest part was “eye-balling” the placement of the tubing bender on the SS tube so that the bends on the inner tube ended up where I wanted them on the outer tube. This was easier than you would think since I’d just guess a bit longer than necessary then keep bending until the curve lined up with properly with the outer tube. Then cut off the excess curve. Next, the stand offs!