Primary Winch Rebedding Project
All of the winches were pulled over the weekends of  12/11-12/12/2009 & 12/18-12/19/2009, the deck is cored in this region with 1" thick mahogany marine plywood, there was no moisture damage in the wood other than some minor discoloration, all holes were overdrilled and filled to ensure no future moisture intrusion into the deck. The large holes for the 66 series electric Lewmar winches were cleaned up with a 50 grit drum sander and then immediately covered with a layer of fiberglass saturated with thickened epoxy (using a small amount of 404 high density filler). The 1" thick mahogany plywood has approximately 8 layers of wood each looks to be perfect as marine plywood should be. Almost to beautiful to cover up with epoxy! Researching rechroming all winches     After trying to determine if the Chrome plating on winches is a "dress/show chrome" or an "Industrial/Hard Chrome" process I obtained the following information from Lewmar which is the chrome plating schedule they use when manufacturing the winches new. It is a basically at least 0.5 Microns of Chromium plated over 2 to 3 layers of Nickel with a total Nickel thickness of at least 25 microns over a base layer of buffed copper.      Highland Plating - Max understood exactly what I am looking for and is in Los Angeles, saving the shipping cost and risk      Chomal Plating - Focused on "Hard Chrome" for industrial plating, recommended Highland Plating for applications of Copper/Nickel/Chrome      Nu-Chrome -      NEOP - Advertised in "Good Old Boat", patty was very helpful with approximate prices and details of their process Research upgrading the Lewmar Ocean 54 Series winch on the Starboard Side to use for the genoa roller furling to ease tacking, parts required for the upgrade are as follows:      48054055 - Winch Baseplate/Powerdrive conversion      69000345 - Switch      48000090 - 24V ELS control box (variable speed control box is no longer available)      68000349 - Circuit Breaker for 24V @ xx amps      48000076 - 24V electric motor and gear box Unfortunately the combined kit is only available for 12V systems      48054300 - 12V Complete kit for Lewmar Ocean 54 Series Winch - $3015 (2009/12/22) I am researching multiple sources of these items to see who can give a good deal on lewmar parts as there is also a significant amount of work to do with the lewmar hatches and other gear on the boat. The starboard aluminum base for the electric 66 winch shows evidence of someone having gotten loose with the hammer trying to get the winch off the deck at some previous time and then having it roughly repaired. Hopefully I can have a shop which repairs motorcycle aluminum parts do a more professional job and then have the anodize process reapplied to have a permanant repair.