What seacock grease?

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by HopCar

I'll defer to Maine Sail on this. It's been thirty years since I last took apart a tapered cone seacock. In fact I don't think I've even seen one in that time.

With Spartan and Wilcox being North East manufacturers a lot of boats up here in Maine still have tapered cones. I have some out there over 50 years old still in perfect working order. Bristol, Shannon, Hinckley, Sabre, Pearson, Cape Dory etc. etc. etc. plus numerous Down East builders used tapered cones. Serviced well, and with the correct grease, they can last as long as the vessel.

[HopCar]

Originally Posted by Maine Sail

With Spartan and Wilcox being North East manufacturers a lot of boats up here in Maine still have tapered cones. I have some out there over 50 years old still in perfect working order. Bristol, Shannon, Hinckley, Sabre, Pearson, Cape Dory etc. etc. etc. plus numerous Down East builders used tapered cones. Serviced well, and with the correct grease, they can last as long as the vessel.

I agree, the only thing wrong with a tapered cone seacock is the price of new ones. If I had old ones I'd keep them forever.

If I'm buying new ones, I'll go for a good bronze ball valve type and mount it the way you show on your website with a nice fiberglass backing block.

Did you pick up that Groco took your idea and started producing backing blocks for Groco and Apollo Seacocks?

[HopCar]

Originally Posted by SVTatia

Good idea, but be careful there - grease fittings are made of steel - you need to keep an eye on them. I replaced all of mine with bronze plugs, they were rusted... As a matter of fact it is pretty hard to find bronze plugs - they come with new seacocks but are not sold separately by Spartan. Most every else are listed as bronze but they are actually brass. Just my twocents.

There are stainless ones available. They are usually pretty greasy anyway so it should be a long time before it rusts. The steel ones are cheap and easy to replace.

I wouldn't worry about using a brass plug either. Only the very tip of the plug is exposed to salt water and then only to the water trapped in the seacock when it is closed. It would be a very long time before there was enough dezincification to cause a leak. Even then it would be a very minor leak.

What would be very cool would be to put brass grease cups on the seacock and keep everything polished! I'll never do it, but wouldn't that look retro-cool?

[botanybay]

Nice discussion of grease choices and MainSail's description of lapping a seacock will be really useful at my next haul out.

I have a total of 18 of the Blake seacocks below the waterline and about 6 more above the waterline.

Interestingly even yards in Southern California who don't allow you to work on the boat in the yard are happy to have me do the seacocks myself. Mostly a lost art around here.

Not knowing for sure what to use for grease the first time I hauled the boat I ended up using Lanocote which worked very well. Since then I have found some sources online for seacock grease which I will shift too at the next refit.

However, I have had really good luck with the Lanocote, does anyone see any issues with it. It is perhaps a bit stiff but I can move the seacock handles easily.

[oztayls]

My shipwright recommended lanolin grease. Just squirt it up when you haul out for antifoul and work the lever back and forth to get the moving bits well coated.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by oztayls

My shipwright recommended lanolin grease. Just squirt it up when you haul out for antifoul and work the lever back and forth to get the moving bits well coated.

I'm not sure if you realize it, but the old thread you were responding to is talking about tapered cone sea cocks, not modern ball valves.


I used to squirt one or another kind of grease into my ball valves on haul out, but I stopped doing that after I replaced them a couple of years ago. Modern ball valves have the ball running in a Teflon seat, with no metal to metal contact, so theoretically at least don't need any grease. In my experience the most important thing for the reliability of ball valves is to exercise them often.


I'd be interested to know other's experience and knowledge concerning this.

[Lepke]

Waterproof grease.

[oztayls]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I'm not sure if you realize it, but the old thread you were responding to is talking about tapered cone sea cocks, not modern ball valves.


I used to squirt one or another kind of grease into my ball valves on haul out, but I stopped doing that after I replaced them a couple of years ago. Modern ball valves have the ball running in a Teflon seat, with no metal to metal contact, so theoretically at least don't need any grease. In my experience the most important thing for the reliability of ball valves is to exercise them often.


I'd be interested to know other's experience and knowledge concerning this.

Yes, I absolutely agree with using the seacocks often! We open all of ours every time we use the boat, even if they won't be in use, and close them again when we leave.

I was referring to the teflon ball seat type, which can stiffen up when not in use for long periods. The key is to to use a non-mineral type of grease as some types can affect plastics. As Lanolin is organic, it won't affect plastics and it's resistant to water, so is long lasting. Plumbers grease (tap grease) should also be good.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by oztayls

My shipwright recommended lanolin grease. Just squirt it up when you haul out for antifoul and work the lever back and forth to get the moving bits well coated.

Wd40 works well