Braided copper - shrouds to keel bolts.

st599

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A mate of mine was waving some verdigrised braided copper ribbon around in the pub asking about where to buy a replacement.

4-5cm wide 0.2cm deep and about 2m long. Heavy duty.

Anyone know where you buy this stuff?
 
Assuming he has stainless steel rigging wire for shrouds then copper braid or foil is pointless. The shrouds will have significant electrical resistance. So might as well use light wire.
If he is connecting to the keel for protection for lightning strike (or power line contact) then he should be earthing by connecting the mast base to the keel. The mast has very low resistance so can conduct a lot of lightning current without overheating. The shrouds will get very hot with a hundred amps or so and will fuse and melt or at least lose their temper.
So don't try to provide a path via the shrouds. olewill
 
I don't doubt the quality but IIRC the material of choice for RF grounding is flat copper strap as it has a lower impedance. I for one found it far from convenient to install though, but it is considerably cheaper than braid

The reason it is used is it's handling, strip is a pain, and cheaper only if time is free, actually the IMEA standards do not specify the physicality, only the cross sectional area of >8awg
 
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