X-Ray Testing of Standing Rigging

[cburger]

I will re-stepping the boats mast next spring. As part of the refit I have visually inspected all the standing rigging. The stainless wire looks suprisingly clean. The fittings are a combination of Norseman and swages and with the excepton of one of the wisker stay swages that exibits crevice corrosion look visually good as well. As the boat is 35 years old and I have no way of knowing if the standing rigging has been replaced anytime in the recent past. My question is is xray inspection of the rigging a cost effective meatod of determining if the rigging is safe. As I own all the tools to and am comfortable rereigging the boat myself I can save substatial costs of having to pay a rigger to do the work. However i don't want to just toss good rigging if not needed.

[IceMan]

cburger,
I don't know how much per flimsy(x-ray picture) it costs where you come from,....but where I come from it's 600.00 and upward per picture. After a couple of those, you could pay for new rigging. Instead of x-ray, why not go dye penatrant, eddie current or ultra sonic. Any of those would be far cheaper than x-ray. Just my 2¢ worth.
WD

[cburger]

I didn't think dye would do anything for the wire??

[bill good]

Cburger, please keep the info on your xray/nd testing as it may save a lot of money.

regards bill

[anotherT34C]

What's involved in the analysis? Do you simply snap a picture and look for fractures?

I wonder if we could use my accelerator... It produces a highly collumnated beam of roughly 10^11 photons/sec focussed on a point 100 micrometers wide. I can't really defocus much, but there is substantial scattering after the beam terminates on the beamstop. If we put the chainplate in front of my ccd detector, it might provide a useful image. Or it might not, I've never tried.

You're up in Nyack, right? Wanna take a road trip down to Long Island (my lab)?

[David M]

Who gets to wear the lead suit while holding up the film? Sorry, it was just a funny visual I had.

[bill good]

sometimes the available item is just not as good as the bit it replaces!!
Regards Bill

[cburger]

Thanks for all the replys folks. I was hoping to get some responses from some who have had real world experince with this procedure. Specifically the cost to reward benefit or lack of same. My thougfhts are I will be replacing the rigging.