Cap Dan gave me a Seacook stove for my daughters cruise on my
sailboat. It works very well. However, the female part of the
mounting bracket is cracked and the stove is no longer made. Looks
like an opportunity.
The original parts are made from plastic that will eventually crack.
I can easily make replacements from the glass/plastic composite called
G10 that will probably never crack. G10 cannot be molded which is why
it is not normally used. However, it can be machined with carbide
tooling.
G10 is an amazingly strong material due to the glass imbedded in it.
I made backing plates for the cleats on my Tolman from it and the
rudder mounts for my MiniCup sailboats. It can be threaded although
I'd still rather have a backing nut
One could easily make outboard bracket plates from it or other parts.
These will always cost more than molded parts but the G10 parts are
better. It holds dimensional tolerances far better than molded or
stamped parts. It is also somewhat lighter than even Aluminum and of
course is a non-conductor.
So, anybody have any interesting ideas for parts to be made from this
stuff. The idea is to find some parts people need made in quantities
of a few dozen to a few thousand via CNC milling and lathe work. It
seems to me that some outboard parts might be good candidates.