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Stainless Bolts, Aluminum pedestal Base (dissimilar metals)

juneausailin

Member II
Hi all, please see attached photo. Curious on ideas of how to prevent corrosion due to dissimilar metals. Dielectric grease is looking to be a good prospect at this point. Other ideas?



PedestalBase.jpg
 

footrope

Contributing Partner
Blogs Author
Tefgel

The grease Tefgel is the only solution I know of. There may be other pastes and grease type insulators. Bronze and Stainless Steel work well together, but I am not sure if Bronze and Aluminum will be any better. I'm looking at using bronze bushings for a mast issue, but haven't decided yet as I haven't had a chance to investigate. There are a couple interesting solutions for your decayed base on the board here if you search.
 

Shelman

Member III
Blogs Author
Isolation!

I use a bit of lanacote on things that are only marginally important. If you really want to stem the corrosion you absolutely must isolate the dissimilar metals. use plastic washers under the stainless bolt heads and plastic tubing slid onto the bolt threads to prevent the threads and the bolt head from touching the pedestal base.
 

lbertran

Member III
Aluminum Bolts

Edson uses aluminum bolts and nuts on their pedestals to avoid corrosion. Those bolts are available for purchase from Edson and fit the Yachting Specialties pedestal.

I had a new pedestal base cast for my boat and used stainless bolts for the install and was shocked to find the paint around the bolts bubbling up after only one season! I switched to the Edson bolts this spring and repainted the pedestal base. So far, no problems.
 

Ryan L

s/v Naoma
I second all the solutions mentioned above except do NOT buy your bolts from Edson. You can get what appear to be the identical aluminum bolts from McMaster Carr for much less $$$ (that's what we did.)
 
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