On Oct 7, 9:37 pm, Wayne.B wrote:
On Sun, 7 Oct 2007 17:16:28 -0700, "Lew Hodgett"

wrote:
Time for a replacement.

There are no rigging chandleries ay sea.

And a dismasting is a lot more expensive than a new head stay.

OK, lets see. Assume the two wires are actually removed thus reducing
the maximum load by 2/19 to about 90% of its previous capacity. This
seems well, worth the risk to me in terms of cost. However, this is
NOT the case. Filing down the two nicks will basically give the two
wires back most of their strength so I estimate the stay will have AT
LEAST 95% of its pre-nick strength (however, you have to remove the
stress riser produced by the nick or it weakens the whole thing).
The average stay that is less than 5 yrs old where such a nick is
removed is probably stronger than the average 10 yr old stay without
nicks (due to crevice corrosion in the fittings). There is a lot of
overstrength in these stays so reducing it to about 95% is nothing.