OUR COMPASS AN UNUSUAL REPAIR

Anchored 05° 36.8N 115° 37.42E

For the last several days we have been anchored in the above location. We left Labuan after a big shopping day for duty free items, beer, wine and rum. We continued our move northeast and anchored at Pulau Tiga or survivor island as it hosted the 2001 "Survivor" TV show. We visited the resort where the production crew stayed and were hopeful to spend a few days there enjoying the clear waters and perhaps a jungle walk. Alas, the weather gods had something else in mind, a strong southwesterly blew up and after a sleepless night rocking and rolling about on a lee shore we moved to our present location. This has been a calm and secure anchorage and we have managed to relax and complete a few projects.

 For several months now we have had a problem with our compass. It had lost it's fluid and though it did work was not what it should be. The first thing was to find out what the correct fluid was, some use oil and others a petroleum based one. We found ours needed kerosene.  Even in this modern age of GPS and electronic charts we want to have the tried and reliable of old. A properly working compass, paper charts etc. Having nothing to lose, out came the compass from it's mounting to see what was causing the fluid to disappear.

                                   Ah hah! A crack was located in the dome, so apart it came.

 Disassembled we found a plastic dome with a four inch crack. So how can as Kathy calls me "Mister Fix-it" repair this. I looked through my various epoxies and settled on the all purpose Marine-tex. The cracked area was sanded, cleaned and then Marine-tex applied.

TAPED OFF AND READY FOR EPOXY

SEALED, WE HOPE!!

 The dome is sealed and ready for re-assembly. Oh No! on further inspection at the bottom of the compass is a rubber diaphram that has a tear in it. So now what "Mister fix-it"!!!

A SMALL HOLE IN THE DIAPHRAM



I JUST KEEP TAKING THINGS APART



 Epoxies are great for repair of metals, plastics etc. but what to use on rubber that needs to remain elastic. My answer was to use a product called 3bond, a liquid rubber based gasket material.

 I last used this on the rear oil seal of the engine. I applied several coats and after letting it cure overnight gave it a test by soaking it in kerosene. The kerosene seemed to have no affect so the whole compass was re-assembled and filled with fluid. One slight problem was we did not have enough kerosene,

So the compass has been re-installed and as tomorrow we are moving again to Kota Kinabalu we hope to find more kerosene to eliminate the "bubble".

This was not what I would reccomend as a "do-it-yourself' fix but here where there are no professionals to do these sorts of things we just try to do what we can.