Treating galvanized standing rigging - linseed oil?

[TheThunderbird]

I use linseed oil + white grease on stainless steel rig

[Wotname]

Why ?

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Why ?

Makes it so slippery that rust can't get a hold on it???

Jim

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Makes it so slippery that rust can't get a hold on it???

Jim

Might try it as an antifoul then

[vtlli]

It seems this thread is quite old, but it newest one in this subject. So I decided to picking it up and continue discussing about best receipt for galv rigging.
For myself I decided to go for mix of pine (Stockholm) tar, linseed oil and some varnish. And lanolin behind servings. This is for brand new wire which I splicing now.
I did hear from fellow boatbuilder who cruises now in Carribians that galv rig rusts very quickly down there due to wind filled with fine sand. I never read about this issue before but sounds quite logical. Sand, dust acts as sandpaper which rubs stays every time when hoisting sails.
Am I right? If so, how to combat this?


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[Orchidius]

You used a good protection method, another good one is written in Brion Toss' book and I've been in personal contact with him about the matter as well. If you want I'll dig up the tips he mentioned out of my mailbox.

I don't really understand the issue you're unsure about though. You should NEVER use galv rigging in a roller furler or on any forestay really. The roller furler or the hanks will indeed quickly damage the galvanization and make the stay rusty. It's also not as smooth as SS cable, so hoisting will be tougher.

I have galv rigging on both sides and on the backstay, and SS for my cutterstay and inside the roller furler. No sail really ever comes in contact with the galv rigging .

[vtlli]

Originally Posted by Orchidius

You used a good protection method, another good one is written in Brion Toss' book and I've been in personal contact with him about the matter as well. If you want I'll dig up the tips he mentioned out of my mailbox.

Yes, you are right, this book is excellent. When I started to work with rigging I am always have it right in front of me.
If it is not difficult for you it would be great to know few more tips from the Master. Another good source for that is thesquarerigger.com

I don't really understand the issue you're unsure about though. You should NEVER use galv rigging in a roller furler or on any forestay really. The roller furler or the hanks will indeed quickly damage the galvanization and make the stay rusty. It's also not as smooth as SS cable, so hoisting will be tougher.

I have galv rigging on both sides and on the backstay, and SS for my cutterstay and inside the roller furler. No sail really ever comes in contact with the galv rigging .

I never heard before to use ss wire in traditional rigging. I understand fulrling (my boat will not have one) there is involved different metals, lots of friction, chafe, stretching properties, etc. there is no way for galv. Your suggestion will definitely work. But lots of boats use galvanised wire for innerstay, jibstay, forestay. How they are dealing with chafe? Specially when sand or dust from land come between wire and hanks will grind off zinc. In the Brions' book I didn't find anything about this problem and googling gave me no result.



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[captain58sailin]

A combination of pine tar and boiled linseed oil works well, we used a broken "Mr. Coffee" maker warmer plate to heat it up and mix it together. Never ever leave any rags that have been used with this around, good candidate for spontaneous combustion. We split a 55 gallon drum in half to use for our cable bath, we also used a cable lube from the Chevron jobber on our anchor wire, it was kind of a green waxy stuff, I don't remember the name but it worked very well on the galvanized cable.

[Orchidius]

You could replace the hanks with dyneema soft-shackles. Well parcelled and served wire should be fine for chafe as well, but it's a bitch of a job and you might not be able to get it "just right" on small diameter wire.

I can't seem to find the emails, but we discussed a bit on his website's forum "spartalk" about it as well, and there are a few other posts about the matter on there too.

[Kim Gregory]

In 1982 I chose galvanized wire for my standing rigging to lower costs, and sailed from Canada to the Bahamas. In the Bahamas, rust started to show, and based on local advise, greased all the galvanized rigging with bacon fat.

The application was done with a greased rag tied around the wire, and hoisted up and down with a halyard.
This worked for a year, and when rust began to show again, painted it all with silver TremClad paint. This treatment lasted for more than six years.

[TeddyDiver]

Pine tar, warm it up and immerse the shrouds in it. Once a year wash the lower parts of the shrouds in place with fresh water, let them dry and apply more tar..

[vtlli]

Thank you for all your suggestions. Also thanks Orchidius for using your thread. Weekend is over and tomorrow I'll be back to my stays.
KimGregory I never knew pork fat makes good rust protection 👍 thanks for that tip.
Soft hanks will definitely eliminate that problem but here I see two another negative points. It is difficult to open by one hand ( I made few samples to simulate them). Another point is they will grind itself by stay.


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[charliehows]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Why ?

+1 treating gal rigging made sense when - a; everything was scarce/expensive - ie before most of us were born
b; a voyage might last a few years and go where replacement was not an option (see a; before most of us were born)
c; on square riggers with bloody miles of rigging
probably a few more reasons...
reasons for not treating it - a; gal rigging is cheap and untreated has a working life of up to 20 years - although I've seen older;
b; once it starts rusting you can tell its going to need replacing eventually, I think thats a practical working cue which is pointlessly subverted by treating the wire.
c; seems to me treating it is a good deal more work than replacing it occasionally

I came across an old bloke down on the wharf a while ago, he had a pile of rusty old wire with wire clamps instead of swages, he'd taken it off an old yacht, thought it was about 50 years old - he'd just cut one of the wires and although it was rusty as hell on the outside, there was still about 80-90% good metal within.