Anyone Have Experience With New Found Metals ?

[steve77]

So I'm have a great weekend walking around the Houston boat show this weekend, when I come across this booth with shiny new stainless ports. My 20+ year old Bronze ports leak and are looking sad. These new ports really caught my eye.

Has anyone purchased ports from New Found Metals? Any experience with the company or their line of ports? Thanks!

[djmarchand]

Yes, high quality and decent price.

David

[S/V Alchemy]

Yes, read all about my experience here (the prep) and here (the results).

Been 18 months and not a drop of rain, ice or snow has come into the boat.

The construction is great and the price was reasonable. I strongly encourage you if you do serious sailing to get the better glass and DEFINITELY to get the metal screens. Bugs hate 'em!

[s/v Beth]

I have the ports in my boat. Performance as advertised.

[bobconnie]

Good quailty, good materials, good workmanship, Great Products. is my opinion, from personaly installing and owning there products.

[keepondancin]

I have to agree with everyone else. High quality product at a competative price. The new ports look great on my Bristol 41.1. NFM offers support, and there are several sites where owners have logged their installations. I purchased their counter sink tool and the drilling jig, and made my own template from a port. I found the most time consuming aspect of installation, was cleaning up the butyl used to bed the ports. After coming up short on butyl, I was able to get more at the NAPA store. Buy the machine screws from them.

[steve77]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

Yes, read all about my experience here (the prep) and here (the results).

Been 18 months and not a drop of rain, ice or snow has come into the boat.

The construction is great and the price was reasonable. I strongly encourage you if you do serious sailing to get the better glass and DEFINITELY to get the metal screens. Bugs hate 'em!

Thanks for the recommendations, all of you.

Alchemy, not sure what you mean about "the better glass". They make these with tempered glass, but the only option I saw was for tinted glass. What were you referring to?

[Jehoshaphat]

They can give you an alternative for the butyl, some sort of sealing tape. We tried both but felt more comfortable with the butyl. We installed 6 ports in our Miller 44 and the installation was slow for the fist one much faster with the rest. We rented the template which was a big advantage. They look spectacular, solid and are all but bulletproof. +1 on the screens.

[rcmpegasus]

I just installed 6 of the 8x22, 2 of the 6x20 and 4 of the 5x12 in the new cabin sides. Not hard to do, I had the yard cut the opening and bevel and counter-bore. I bedded and cleaned up. The butyl tape works well. During clean up I found paint thinner dissolves away the butyl. About 1 hour per port light to bed and fit.

[Mike OReilly]

Another from someone who has installed them. Actually, we took all our old plastic ports out, re-glassed in the whole cabin, cut new port holes to fit the NFM sizes, and whalla -- all new (looking) boat.

... too bad we're selling her.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by steve77

Thanks for the recommendations, all of you.

Alchemy, not sure what you mean about "the better glass". They make these with tempered glass, but the only option I saw was for tinted glass. What were you referring to?

I believe when I bought mine, there was a Lexan option or a non-tempered glass option. I paid a slight premium for the tempered glass, and in my opinion it's the only practical choice for these sort of ports.

Conversely, I like Lexan for fixed, through-bolted, non-opening ports, and for larger opening hatches subject to the sun overhead, as the temperature swings can give expansions and contractions that can screw up the sealants holding in glass, in my experience.

An example of this would be the old-style, fore-and-aft, wood and glass "butterfly hatches" on larger ketches and so on.

They are very pretty, give great ventilation, and I have never seen one that did not leak in a rainstorm.

[steve77]

Thanks, all.

I placed my order today. I won't be able to make it down to the boat until sometime in May, so this installation will take a while. I'm definitely looking forward to the upgrade!

I'll try to post pics when done.

[AnchorageGuy]

steve, here is the installation for our New Found Metals ports, The Trawler Beach House: 15 Steps To New Ports On The Boat . Chuck