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In Maine we get long winters, and it gives us plenty of time to do projects most others would put off until failure.


For years I have used these solid cast bronze sea strainers from Perko. Unlike many Perko products this particular item is very well designed, hefty and will last a lifetime with only the occasional rebuild consisting of three gaskets. I find it to be one of if not the best built strainers on the market today and have gone to the trouble of installing them on almost every boat I have owned. Fortunately this boat came with one already installed.


For this project I wanted to clean all the bronze pieces, polish the sight glass and replace all three gaskets. For cleaning I used brass brushes in my drill press & bench grinder and Scotch-Brite wheels on my Dremel tool. For polishing the glass I used Novus #2 & Novus #1.


Here you can see all the pieces disassembled and a new gasket kit, which is readily available from Hamilton Marine in Portland, ME.