gripper substitute for cappy's wench

I built my first captain’s wench using instead of grippers paint stir sticks. This was a recommended substitute from the captain himself. Since then, I went to a plumber’s supply shop and bought some *rubber* gasket material—commonly used as gasket material on cold water lines. There are many different types of gasket material; you’ll want rubber. Then I took the rubber and cut out a section and glued it, using white glue, to the paint stick grippers on my wench. After glue drying time I trimmed any excess.

Rubber has a good friction coefficient, so it improves the grippyness of the paint sticks. The paint sticks have good rigidity so they lend some rigidity to the gasket material. It’s an improvement worth checking out for those who, like me, can’t get the grippers locally.

Ddog.