Heritage tip ups

[snowlt14]

With the season almost over I am thinking of doing some repairs on my tip ups. The tip ups are about 10 years old and are starting to weather. I was thinking of doing a dark stain on them and then a coat of poly. I am also going to replace all the parts on the spool. My BIGGEST QUESTION is how do I keep the cross members tight while using them. Over the years they have gotten much looser and a couple of them will no longer tighten at all. As soon as a fish hit them the spool slams against the side of the hole. Any suggestions? Thanks

[hardwater crazy]

they have bolts with wing nuts on them replace them all hardware stores have them take them and match them to ones there now if you want replace with stainless bolts and brass wing nuts or stainless wing nuts if you can find them

[adkRoy]

After you stain them, go over the wood with Spar Varnish. Its designed to last longer around marine environments.

[Fish Wayniac]

I like Hellmans marine spar varnish. I use it on exterior mahogany door thresholds.It will hold up great on your traps.

[stripernut]

Most of my Heritages are around 20 years old... One of these days I might even varnish them... I use to have a problem with the cross bars not tightening, but once I drilled out the holes just a little bigger, problem solved...

[NHHARDWATER]

My BIGGEST QUESTION is how do I keep the cross members tight while using them. Over the years they have gotten much looser and a couple of them will no longer tighten at all. As soon as a fish hit them the spool slams against the side of the hole. Any suggestions? Thanks

To fix this issue, drill out the bolt holes for the cross members and upright to the diameter (or SLIGHTLY larger) than the bolt diameter. Heritage tip-ups are drilled out slightly smaller diameter than the bolts, so they are actually tapping (threading) the wood and don't freely turn inside the holes. You will notice that when you take them apart, the #10-24 bolts don't just pull straight out, you have to unscrew them out of the wood. They actually end up tightening to the first cross member it "threads" through and so when you tighten the wing nut, it is not physically "sandwiching" the slats together. I am not sure if that was the best way to articulate what I mean to say, but trust me, drill them out just a hair bigger, and this problem will go away.

I just restored my old Heritage's, with dark walnut stain, and coated them with this stuff made by "Last n' Last" marine varnish. I bought it at Aubachan hardware for around $20. Expensive, but worth the results you get. I also replaced the hardware with all stainless bolts, nuts and washers. Came out fantastic.