Time-correct steering compass
I have no time to sail this season really.
Mostly because of house renovation and many projects around it. Partially also because I just don’t feel like sailing recently.
It’s a strange time, with all of us trying to avoid each other due to disease.
However - I keep high spirit regarding Meritaten. I know I will get a taste to sail her again pretty soon. As for now I keep an eye on flee-market (Blocket.se) for details which should help me eradicate some ugly, too modern equipment installed by previous owners.
Big eye-sore in the cockpit is plastic Silva compass, mounted (ugly) on the bulkhead. That’s on its way out this winter when I will renovate cockpit. I want to substitute it with time-correct steering compass, installed closer to the helm.
I got one such item last year - it costed nothing but required renovation. It became so nice that I decided to keep it as cabin compass.
There were recently few more on Blocket, also dirt-cheap, so I got both of them. Mostly because I needed one more gimbal-mount.
All these compasses are Swedish Silva.
Each comes from different era: the oldest was entirely made of brass, with only gimbal of aluminium. Apparently to save costs they went for making the housing ring in aluminium but they kept brass screws. This compass shows heavy deterioration due to galvanic corrosion.
They have definitely noticed the problem because later they changed many parts to Ebonite. That’s how my youngest, third compass, was assembled. Unfortunately Ebonite after so many years gave up and I had to replace it with brass ring last year.
As most of parts are compatible between models I decided to make two “Frankenstein-models” out of these three.
Paint on the oldest unit was flaking anyway so I removed it entirely, revealing brass underneath.
All painted brass parts were stripped from paint. Polishing with 800-grid paper removed scraper marks.
Bearings ring turned out to be made of aluminium.It was so ugly painted that it spoiled the entire compass.
I removed black paint with scraper, white paint in engraving was melted with acetone.
The oldest compass has black card with ivory.brownish markings, contrary to its younger sisters which have ivory-white cards with black markings.
I wiggled with parts to see which version I like more.
In the end I have two compasses to be installed on Meritaten: white-card, all brass compass will live in the cabin while black compass with dark card will be installed at the helm. We’ll see how it works - if not happy with this configuration I will change the card with the third compass.
Last were tests to see if any of these oldies still glows at dark.
Well indeed, the youngest unit is glowing still!
Constellation of Nort-South and Heading is clearly visible!