On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 02:24:38PM -0500, [email protected] wrote:
>
> I presume your PDQ36 is a fiberglass boat.
>
> I find it hard to believe the seacock in your ac cooling system was bronze.
> I suspect it was brass, and poor quality brass at that. Brass is subject
> to "de-zincification" in seawater turning into sponge copper.
>
> I have had no discernable disintergration on any of the many W-C bronze
> seacocks on my vessel.
>
> The only thing still standing on the bridge of the Titanic is the bronze
> steering station.
I've seen a cheap Chinese-made "bronze" seacock that was all kind of
pretty pink and green (i.e., deteriorated via chemical leaching) after a
year's worth of service on a boat. "Bronze", these days, is not a
description as much as a wishful and probably intentional translation
error. :) It's one of those things that you *must* buy from reputable
suppliers, or suffer the consequences.
Good quality bronze - what they used to call "marine bronze" - is really
great stuff, especially when made big and beefy as it should be...
unfortunately, it doesn't get along well with steel. Happily, 316SS is
there to make up the lack. At least when you can find it in reasonable
quality anymore...
Tip: buy yourself a neodymium (NdFeB) magnet - about $5 - and take it
with you when you go to buy SS fittings. An absence, or a very low
amount of ferro content is no guarantee of high quality, but anything
more than that is definitely an indicator of low quality. E.g., most
stuff in West Marine is right on the margin (and thus makes for good
magnet-testing practice. :)
Ben
--
OKOPNIK CONSULTING
Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business
Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming
443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik
_______________________________________________
Liveaboard mailing list
[email protected]
To adjust your membership settings over the web
http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard
To subscribe send an email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/
To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
The Mailman Users Guide can be found here
http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
