Fixing stainless steel brackets onto mast

[CJU]

I am about to fit S/S brackets to my mast for the radar reflector. I am going to use monel rivets coated in Duralac and will also coat the mating faces to try and stop corrosion. I wondered about cutting gaskets from poly milk bottles and fitting tham between the mast and bracket to further insulate the two dissimilar metals., still coating the surfaces with Duralac. My questions are: is it worth the effort, will it do more harm than good, if I do proceed should the gasket be of a larger size than the bracket face, say, 1/4" to prevent water bridging over the gasket. I am prompted to do this as on our previous yacht the boom had a lot of pitting under the head of a S/S bolt that was in direct contact with it.

 

[bobgoode]

I put electrical tape on mating faces, so the plastic will not do any harm. No need to go biggerthough.

 

[Norman_E]

Duralac on the rivets is good, but I doubt you need anything else. Electrolytic corrosion needs an electrolyte, and if your radar is high enough up the mast to be useful, I doubt it will be immersed in seawater very often.

 

[CPD]

I wouldnt hesitate to do as you suggest. thinking about it, I wish I had done the same.

 

[Strathglass]

When I built my mast from a Sailspar kit I was supplied with self adhesive pads which I had to cut to the exact size to put between all the stainless parts and the mast.

The pads felt a bit like wet suit neoprin.

I also used duralec on the rivets.

I would sugest that some form of insulation is essential.

Iain

 

[dratsea]

"Running rigging lasts 5 years, standing rigging lasts ten and the mast lasts twenty" I have SS tapped into Al with Tefgel (sic) that look fine after 10 years. If your mast is more than 10 yrs old just use some sort of "insulator" and you should be fine. But WARNING: SS isolated from Al boom with silicone (as recommened, oops) has destroyed boom in five years, but said boom is resting on the drive, waiting for scrap Al prices to go back up to levels when I was sailing this summer.

 

[Refueler]

[ QUOTE ]
I put electrical tape on mating faces, so the plastic will not do any harm. No need to go biggerthough.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ditto .... and on non structural such as flag halyard cleats - I use alloy rivets not monel - basically using same material as mast alloy. Years later - still fine. Even if they did fail - easy enough to knock out and re-rivet.

Some have mentioned corrosion around SS tappers ... my furling gear second line is via a small block fixed with SS self tappers just below mast head. was refixed about 4 years ago and still fine. That was only a refix after 20 odd years of previous fixing.
The Mast steaming light SS bracket has decided to fall off this year and that was fixed by the accepted monel rivets, duralac and insulation between faces method. Guess how it's going back this winter ! Yep alloy rivets and tape between faces.

 

[CJU]

Thanks for the thoughts. I will probably go with the tape method.