Cleaning the rudder stock tube?

[blackrose]

Despite my best laid plans I'm having difficulty cleaning the rudder stock tube prior to painting it. I bought a couple of wire pipe cleaners that I could attach to a drain rod but one is way too big in diameter and the other one broke from its threaded fitting as soon as I gets l tried to withdraw it from the tube. I then had to use some mole grips to get it out. I tried to trim the bigger one with a pair of tin snips and then a slitting disc on an angle grinder but both failed. 

 

The plan was to straighten a mini 4" paint roller to apply epoxy to the bottom half of the tube but there's no point painting it unless I can get it clean. 

 

Does anyone have any other ideas? The tube has a 6mm wall thickness. Has anyone ever heard of these rotting though? I've shone a torch up there and there is some pitting on one side for about 4" around the waterline. Mine goes through the diesel tank so it could be a ecological marine disaster!

 

I'm aware it is a poor design, but it's also fairly common so I'm surprised there's not more discussion on how to maintain it. 

[GUMPY]

Get Clive to waz it with his blaster

 

[PaulJ]

What sort of diameter is your tube?

Mine is a good fit for a wire brush with a bit of appropriate sized wood screwed to the back so its fairly tight in the tube. 

Used this cut off paint brush screwed to a broom stick to paint the inside-load the brush heavily and have a tray under!

[BEngo]

⁹Depending on the diameter you can buy wire flue or boiler tube  brushes to fit, up to about 115 mm. diameter.

 

The easy way to clean it is to put a galv bucket  over the top to control the grit and crap then stuff a blast nozzle in the bottom  which is ok if you have a blast machine handy.

 

The rudder tube is serious weakness in a lot of boats, simply because it is so easily neglected and in many boats (not yours)  is being attacked from outside by water on  top of the counter as well as from the inside  Pitting is usually the failure rather than general wastage and collapse.

 

N

[ditchcrawler]

[Bee]

Yes, it's maybe not the best design but it's cheap and easy. On one of my old boats there was no fuel tank so I had to fabricate one that sat on the swim on one side. It wasn't great for many reasons but it did leave the rudder tube accessible and repairable and it would have been easy to fit an inspection lid. A better design would perhaps be a vertical triangular corner tank like on the old GU boats. I think all you can do is wuggle some sort of bent brush thing around in it as best you can.

[Midnight]

I screwed a wire brush to a length of 2x1 timber then hammered a hairy roller over the end to apply the paint

[Opener]

As far as cleaning is concerned, do you need anything as sophisticated as a wire brush/pipe cleaner?

I had concerns about the curved pick up toob in my water tank. Got some flexy curtain wire. Removed the plastic covering from one end and opened up the spiral a bit. Other end in my drill and fed the bare end into the tube. The wire is nowhere near a decent fit diameter-wise so whips around randomly and scrapes any loose crap out of the tube. Feeding the wire through a bit of tubing can control any excess whip.

[blackrose]

8 hours ago, Loddon said:

Get Clive to waz it with his blaster

 

 

I'll ask him tomorrow. The diameter is only 35mm so he won't get the blaster head up there but it might still work. 

8 hours ago, PaulJ said:

What sort of diameter is your tube?

Mine is a good fit for a wire brush with a bit of appropriate sized wood screwed to the back so its fairly tight in the tube. 

Used this cut off paint brush screwed to a broom stick to paint the inside-load the brush heavily and have a tray under!

 

My tube is too narrow for anything like that unfortunately

3 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

 

Bit late for that now. I'll never get it in time. Aren't these available from any shops?  

Remember shops? 🙁