Through the years as boat building in Southern California ceased, we went to the plant closings and purchased a large amount of stainless steel custom fittings. Chain plates, bow plates, tangs, mast heads, chain plate finish plates, hawse pipes, and dozens of other strange items that only the maker knows what they were supposed to do. Many of the items we priced ten and fifteen years ago (the word turn-over is not in our vocabulary) and they still have the same prices. Through the years I've found that these items really come in handy. I mounted a chain plate to a bulkhead in my chain locker and shackled the dead end of my anchor chain to it. When I mounted my new Lofrans windlass instead of using fender washers on the four large bolts under the deck I drilled holes at the proper locations on two chain plates, polished them up and used them instead of big washers to really spread the windlass load around a large area. Yes, our "heavy metal" can be a godsend for certain applications aboard your boat...
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