Refurbished Attwood Swivl-Eze Seat Pedestal
A neighbor tossed out a Swivl-Eze 2385400 Boat Seat Pedestal that was in really bad shape and in seeing it I thought, "I can refurbish that and turn it into something cool!". The photos I took with my phone don't come close to doing it justice, in person, it turned out and looks absolutely beautiful! I'm very proud of the end result and thought I'd share a bit of what it took to bring it back so read on if interested...
Just a quick heads up, though I'd love to share some of the before pics which I did take several with my phone, for some reason those and others over the past months disappeared. I looked into why photos are disappearing but can't find a solution. Though I have an Android phone, a friend is also having a similar issue with photo's disappearing on her iPhone. An internet search shows we're not the only ones finding this issue on cell phones. Attempting the remedies recommended to bring them back, or see them again proved futile for me so far. That said, I'll do my best to describe things I did, the mistakes I made and I made some, and/or prcedures I would change if doing it again, and how it looked prior...
A new Attwood Swivl-Eze model 2385400 Boat Seat Pedestal looks like this:
The cast aluminum base is painted silver and the post is anodized aluminum while the seat mount itself is just plain cast aluminum from what I could tell, no paint. As mentioned, the above is nothing like the one mine looked like when I recieved it.
The Damage:
The base was completely corroded from salt water so much so that the paint had peeled off the underside of the base entirely and half the upper side. The anodized post was starting to corrode. The height adjustment was rusted but not enough thankfully it couldn't be simply cleaned up and repaired with a wire wheel. The friction nut on the seat mount was rusted frozen and the nut had to be cut off to remove it. I did so with a dremel cut off wheel. The bolts were stainless but the nuts were not, so I could save the threaded bolts on both. It's also missing the seat mount swivel lock pin and lever. Which is something I called them to get a replacement for but they don't have replacement parts apparently. Go figure... And though I haven't done so at this point, that is something I'll have to manufacture or find another to get the parts from for this one. I haven't decided on the remedy at the moment.
The Prep Work:
The first thing of course was to tear it down to individual parts and buy new but stainless nuts for it. The underside of the base was a challenge as I don't have a proper sandblaster per say let alone a compressor that can run one. I was going to take it somewhere to have it done but then I remembered I picked up a little 9 oz gravity feed sandblasting gun from a thrift store and thought what the heck, let me try it. Harbor Freight is where they are sold normally if you want to pick one up.
I can tell you this, my little 2.5 gallon compressor not something you want to use for this task. But that was all I had and it proved a somewhat daunting task. Spray 5 seconds, wait 20 for the compressor to build back up. And yes I had to shake the gun as it would clog often, only because the sand I was using wasn't the cleanest. After an hour or so of this, the base underside and the seat mount were finally sandblasted. However, I wanted to smooth out the topside of the base casting and for that I used Nylon wire wheels and cups. Starting with 80 grit and moving up to 150 grit which worked great on the cast aluminum. Again, Harbor Freight items.
Now in hitting the topside of the cast base with the nylon wheels, as I did when sandblasting it I taped off and bagged the post to protect it as I didn't really want to remove the anodizing. I thought I could simply polish out any corrosion it had. But!... (yup, there's a but in this lesson to be learned) and I'm only mentioning this if you have a new one you want to custom paint.
I wanted to get right in the weld where the post meets the cast base and I removed the tape and thought I could free hand it with the 4 inch wheel. This proved to be a mistake on my part. Perhaps with a dremel nylon abrasive wheel I could have gotten in real close and maintained the edge free hand but with the 4 inch wheel I ended up hitting the post about an 1/8 inch to 3/16ths up the post which removed the anodizing and made a stripe around the post where it meets the cast base. So if you're stripping the paint off a new one, keep the tape on the post to maintain the edge if wire wheeling it.
That said, you won't be trying to remove corrosion like I was so it probably won't be that much of a concern. Now this proved to be less of a concern as I ended up hand sanding the whole post down to remove all corrosion which removed the anodizing anyway but if I didn't have to do that, or opted not to, it would have been an issue. So mask off what you want to keep is my point.
I do want to say if you are thinking of refurbishing something that is aluminum and it's corroded. You have to get every stinking bit of corrosion off. You must have clean aluminum or the corrosion will continue to corrode under the paint and bubble up the paint in no time. Something I learned from the guys painting aluminum hulled boats. All the corrosion and white corrosion dust must be removed before painting.
Mistake number two I made or rather a mistake in procedure... In thinking since I had the stripe alrady striped of anodizing on the post, to go ahead and paint the base asap. I knew enough that you want to get a sealer/primer coat on the fresh metal (aluminum in this case) as soon as possible. So I went ahead as soon as I was done with prepping the cast base prepping it and taping it off for paint. We were having humid evenings and I caught a break in the weather and rather than wait till I sanded and polished the post, went ahead with painting the base. In hind sight I wish I had done the post first, then the base, then paint. It would have proved easier as I had to be super careful sanding the post especially around the base so I didn't damage the paint.
Painting:
For paint I chose Krylon Fusion Black Satin for the seat mount after an acid etch primer and white primer. I have used Krylon Fusion on tools before such as shovels and other garden tools and I was surprised at how well it adhered and how durable it was especially on a shovel. There may be better paints but for a single part rattle can paint, I like it. The seat base base received 6 coats of Krylon Satin black in two stages.
For the Base I again used an self etching primer (2 coats), sandable white primer (2 coats), base coat of metallic silver (3 coats), top coat of candy red topside only (3-4 coats) and finishing off with 6 coats of clear under and over the cast base.
Polishing out the Post:
Polishing out the post was a lot more work than I thought it would be initially. More so because I didn't use any power tools to do it. Had I used power tools it would have been a lot easier and quicker. But because I painted the base first.. I didn't want to risk it. So.. I wet sanded it starting at 100 grit... and worked my way up to 600 grit with a final hand polish and waxing with a cream polish and 3 coats of carnauba wax.
I find that for me personally, I need to do my initial sanding and then walk away... come back and inspect it. The reason is because it takes so damn long to do this by hand, one can get hasty and complacent. And after 3 hours of hand sanding... you just want it to be over. Thoughts of, "it's good enough" really start to creep in after 3 hrs of sanding. So I choose to do sanding like this in sessions. The initial sanding, then the final sanding. And it payed off wonderfully.
I could have put a high polish on the post, brought it to a chrome finish. And I thought hard about doing so. But as I was sanding and bringing the post finish up I really like the muted fine brush look with the candy red base. So I stopped at 600 grit and then cream polished it. It shines but doesn't take away from the high shine and luster of the candy red. It looks kick ass in the sun. As I mentioned, I'm really pleased and proud of how this project turned out.
Some final thoughts and pics...
I've been asked what I'm going to do with it now that it's pretty much done with the exception of the locking pin. To be honest, I don't know. I considered making one of those stools you use when working on cars and what not. But I don't work on cars or that low when working on projects so I think it would be a waste at least for my use anyway. Though I still might as I have some aluminum tender flooring that I could use to mount it to and add wheels to it. It would be something special for sure. Then I could sell it like that or, I may put the locking pin in and sell it as is... I really don't know.
As stated, sadly I don't have the before pics but I do some more after pics I can share...
Yup, she sure came out perddi...
I think it would look make someones fishing boat or tender sure sparkle... bet they'd catch more fish with it... lol
Till next time people...
Stay Creative, Stay Happy!
cheers...
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