���Hmm, no sure answers here. I just have my cleats screwed onto my skerry mast and no indications so far of weakness. I used the cleats in the kitchen but I may have used longer screws than the kit had. I also usually predrill no bigger than the root of the screw. Means a bit more effort and care driving them. Also, using them I always try to keep the effort parallel to the mast face and not pull "up" on the cleats.

���that is "cleats in the kit ". I hate typing on my phone...

   Don't have a dory, but the cleats should not be ripping out. Very frustrating.

First when you did the drill fill drill, and the cleat still ripped out, what came out? The screw, or the screw and the epoxy?

If the just the screw, you might be drilling too large a hole for the screw, If the screw with the epoxy, something is wrong with your epoxy bonding (or not bonding) to the surface of the initial hole. Maybe some sort of contaninmate. (spelling?). Oil on the drill bit?

So some more info is needed. Of course, through bolting will solve everything, just make sure to use lock nuts with nylon inserts. They never fall off!

Hope the sailing gets better!

Joel 

   I'm pretty sure I just drilled holes into the mast and attached the cleats. Unless you plan to have your mast lying in the water a lot, drill fill drill doesn't seem to make sense. Perhaps it can be harmless overkill, but I trust the holding power of wood more than that of epoxy in this situation.

The only reason I tried the drill/fill/drill is that the holes had torn out. I wanted to replace the cleat in the same location, so I used epoxy to restore the hole. As to the other question, the epoxy held into the mast just fine, the screw tore right out of the epoxy. I am starting to wonder if I was sent too short of screws. Maybe I will run down to the local farm store. They carry a good selection of brass hardware. I don't know how long my screws are at the moment. But I think I might buy some twice the length and give that a try.

Hey Mike,

Sorry about your experiences.  You don't really need silicon bronze screws to attach cleats to the mast.  Those are used when they need to be encapsulated in epoxy.  You could try stainless screws.  They've been used for applications like this for decades.

I'm ASSuming the cleats have a taper built into them.  I highly recommend getting oval head screws instead of flat heads.  You'll have more meat for the screwdriver tip when you're driving them in.

Consider putting the screws into thickened, uncured epoxy. You may need a soldering gun to heat up the screw to ever get them out again though.    

Another option where fasteners get an inordinate loading is to 'pillar bed' them, not unlike thru-bolting but where separate fasteners are used at each end.

Idea is to use a solid metal dowel placed on axis for both fasteners. Dowel is drilled & tapped aporopriately at each end, maybe bedded in epoxy too during installation. This way fasteners can be removed individally as needed. This operation provides metal-on-metal thread bearing.

For a #8 or #10 machine screw thread, 3/8" dia. dowel would be used.