Bow Eye

Here's another piece of vital hardware for trailering.

After surveying the available bow eyes on the market the ones I found were fairly wanting in terms of the strength and cross section of metal. Also they were not long enough to extend through the stem. So I decided to make my own.

I start by bending this piece of 3/8" silicon bronze rod into a U shape. It was fairly difficult to bend but it did without any cracking.

Here I drill holes to accept the piece. These go all the way through the stem or about 12".

I used my tap set to cut the threads.

Here's the finished U bolt. I rough sanded the prongs. When I install it the roughness will help the epoxy stick to it better and help secure it.

I decided to fabricate my own nuts since I didn't want to pay for 50 nuts to use only two. I cut these out of copper stock I had on hand. I then drilled holes of the specified size for tapping.

My tap kit and a bit of cutting oil did the trick in a few minutes.

Here are the finished nuts.

Here they are installed. The holes turned out a bit off center but not bad enough to warrant correction. I had to countersink these holes about an inch because the wood is so thick. I then liberally applied epoxy inside the holes, inserted the U bolt, then tightened down the nuts.

Here is the finished piece. After the epoxy set I used the winch to pull the entire boat a couple of inches forward on the trailer. It gave no complaint whatsoever during this process. From start to finish I spent maybe two hours.