Don’t Lose Small Parts During Boat Projects

Make sure you don’t lose small parts during boat projects. If a unique part or tool goes astray, it may mean a simple job becomes a nightmare.

Learning the Hard Way

When we bought Barefoot Gal, Dave tore the stove apart as one of our first boat jobs. Over three days, Dave and I (mostly Dave with me being the chief tool hander and third hand) worked on the repair.

The goal was to fix a propane leak in one burner. The job expanded when we discovered that the real problem was that a spill had run through the burner plugging everything up. Of course, it had never been cleaned.

The end result was that we (read: mostly Dave) had to tear the stove top almost totally apart to clean it. And the best place to do that was in the cockpit, once we got the stove out of the galley.

And so we employed a rule we’d learned the hard way on our previous boat.

Step 1: Plug Your Drains and Scuppers

Plug the cockpit drains and scuppers before doing anything else. It doesn’t have to be fancy — rags or used paper towels will do just fine. The one time we forgot to do this — you guessed it — we lost a critical screw down it. Luckily, Dave was able to jury-rig a substitute, but it taught us a very good lesson.

Not only is there Murphy’s Law at work, but everything slopes down to the drains, making it even more likely that items will roll down the drain.

This time, nothing was lost although many things were dropped. And I now have a stove that works really well!

Step 2: Make a Clear Work Area

Don’t try to work on a project with clutter from a previous project. Clear your work area. And have places to contain small parts as you work.

A diesel engine diaper (Amazon) is an easy and readily available light surface to put under your work. It’s easier to see small or dark parts against a white background. Even a paper towel is a good choice.

And yogurt cups or deli containers make easy catch-alls for screws, tools, or other bits and bobs. All the better if the containers have lids. If a project lasts several days (which happens more than we’d like to admit), you run less risk of dumping parts accidentally.

For bigger projects, a canvas drop cloth (Amazon) can be a handy way to cover the cockpit and scuppers at the same time.

Some cruisers recommend magnetic dishes for screws and bolts (Amazon). But keep in mind that magnets on board will affect your compass swing.

Step 3: Take Photos

It’s easy to lose small parts during boat projects if you don’t remember what all the projects are. Dave and I take many pictures at every step of a project. It helps us replace them in the right order. And keeps us from reassembling systems with missing parts.

I always use the highest resolution possible so that we can zoom in later if need be to see details. I also take photos from a number of different angles. Sometimes you can see an important detail in one view but not another. I try to download them onto the computer fairly quickly and label them (or put into folders). That allows us to find them easily during reassembly.

Step 4: Bag and Tag

We began the job of rebuilding our diesel engine with Dave disconnecting and removing everything before taking the engine through a tight opening.

I assisted by tagging everything that can’t be threaded back where it came from. For example, I tagged motor mount bolts with where they came from (port next-most-aft motor mount). They were then put into a bag with others from the same area (for example, all the motor mount bolts). All the bags are kept together in a “box” of some sort. I used a small paint pan I scavenged from the trash.

Anything that goes together stays together. Washers and nuts are put back on bolts. I taped screws into mounting holes. And I taped brackets taped onto what they hold.

Exactly how I tag things varies by the item, but the most common way is to wrap some blue tape around the item. I use it to make a flag for the description. This also works well for wires and hoses in the engine compartment.

Some items I just tape the screws back into the item, as with the coolant overflow container:

Celebrate Completion of the Job

A little extra time in preparation can make even a finicky job go more smoothly. So celebrate finishing your boat repair without losing any small parts. You’ve earned it.

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