FILENAMES: ANCHOR.GIF ANCHOR1.JPG ANCHOR2.JPG ANCHOR3.JPG DESCRIPTION: These are a diagram and pictures of boat anchor and accessories posted by Ted Edwards . Ted provided the following description: ================================================================= Anchor E. M. (Ted) Edwards 000319 I live beside a lake that can get get quite breazy. Our boats ride on 300 lb. concrete anchors shakled to a length of 3/8" chain which in turn is connected through a swivel to a length of 1/4" chain. This later is connected to a bouy to which the boat is tied. The construction of an essentially free anchor and bouy is described below and illustrated in photos ANCHOR1.JPG, ANCHOR2.JPG, ANCHOR3.JPG and drawing ANCHOR.GIF. Materials: Anchor: 5' of 5/8" re-bar about 2 cu. ft. of concrete Bouy: Discarded 20 lb propane tank Two 6" lengths of 3/4" pipe with one threaded at one end 12" of 3/8" OD stainless steel rod One 3/8" diam headed pin with hole for cotter pin Anchor: Picture a 12" high hairpin made out of 5/8" re-bar with a cross, of two 18" pieces of 5/8" re-bar, welded to the bottom. See ANCHOR.GIF and ANCHOR1.JPG. This core is suspended a few inches off the bottom of a rubber stock feeding tub about 2' in diameter and a foot high which is then filled with concrete. Winds up at about 300 lbs. Bouy: 20 lb propane tanks need to be re-certified and the valve replaced every 10 years (at least around here). It is usually cheaper to buy a new tank on sale than to have an old one re-certified. Consequently the dump is full of then, free for the taking. When dealers discard them they often remove the valve first. If you don't see one of these, you'll have to do it yourself. To remove the valve, make sure the tank is emptied and cut away the valve protector/handles, secure the tank from turning and take a *big* pipe wrench to the valve. You can see how I secured the tank in photo ANCHOR2.JPG - there's a load binder out of sight tensioning the chain. I needed a 24" pipe wrench with a 3' pipe extension to get the valve out of one of mine. With the valve removed, either store the tank outdoors upside down for a day or so or fill the tank with water and dump it out to get rid of any residual propane. Cut away the circle of sheet metal that forms the base and set the tank in a warm place to dry out if you watered it. Clean off the remnants of the welds from the top and base. You want a smooth tank - no sharp pokies to bang your boat or hands. Flatten about an inch at one end of each piece of pipe (not the threaded end) such that a link of the 1/4" chain can slip into the oval end. On one of these, drill a 3/8" hole across the narrow dimension centered 1/2" in from the end. This will be used with a headed 3/8" pin and cotter pin to attach the bouy to the chain. Bend 12" of 3/8" steel rod (stainless prefered) into a ring. This will be about 4" in diameter. This size ring is easy to grab with either hand or boat hook when you come along side and is a good place to fasten the boats painter. Weld this ring onto the flattened end of the threaded piece of pipe (see photos) and drawing. This weld needs to be leak proof. I used TIG with 312 SS filler. Grind the paint off the center of the bottom and weld on the un-flattened end of the other piece of pipe. Screw the threaded pipe with ring into the valve hole using teflon pipe seal tape. A couple coats of bright orange epoxy paint will finish the job. I use a brass horse clip on the end of a vinyl covered wire rope for the painter. I found the ring wore the clip rather quickly so I wrapped the ring with nylon spiral wrap (see photo ANCHOR3.JPG). The wrap was secured with the two nylon wire ties.