Is this acceptable rust? (Bobstay

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Manateeman

Silicon Bronze. Machine it, cast it, weld it...it’s a great metal for boats in salt water. You can do all sorts of things to stainless but in the end it’s still steel.
The manatee crew.

PErhaps true, Mark, but I've not seen much bronze rigging wire around here...

And for the OP: what alloy is the suspect wire?

Jim

[Manateeman]

Ive seen bronze wire ( it’s rare) but I would not recommend it...solid round bar stock. You can fabricate a lower bobstay fitting out of 3/8” x 2” plate ...two pieces similar to chainplates. Thru bolted with button heads. Right at the waterline. Put a 1/2” bolt cross ship into it, add a toggle if you like. A number of wood boats were built with bobstay like this with real long bowsprits.
Never worry about corrosion even if the fitting is right at the waterline.
Bend it in a collision racing? Take it off, heat and bend it back.
Lyle Hess sent me a cast silicon bronze gammon iron and 30 years later its a perfect verdigris green. No need to get out a lense and a dye kit to see if it’s still strong. Silicon bronze is my number one choice for an all around boatbuilding metal on fiberglass boats...not... stain...less...steel as Boatpoker pointed out.
The strength, corrosion resistance, and the ability to cast, machine and weld silicon bronze has been proven by hundreds of boatbuilders for centuries.
I don’t trust stainless in a lot of Boatbuilding applications and I’m not alone. But...happy trails to you
Captain Mark and his manatee crew who are using 316 stainless for their onboard micro brewery.

[seabreez]

Originally Posted by ArmySailor

Got all new standing rigging 20 months ago. Noticed rust in/around the dolphin thumper. The rigging company said that as the steel "settles in" this can happen. My gut tells me to get a second opinion. I don't like it.

What say you?

What happens is that the machine that crimps these swagged fittings on may have some rust on them or they are hardened steel and the metal transfers during the process. Very little mind you but enough to look bad over time. A rust neutralizer or some thing like it will remove the rust and not return...

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Manateeman

Ive seen bronze wire ( it’s rare) but I would not recommend it...solid round bar stock. You can fabricate a lower bobstay fitting out of 3/8” x 2” plate ...two pieces similar to chainplates. Thru bolted with button heads. Right at the waterline. Put a 1/2” bolt cross ship into it, add a toggle if you like. A number of wood boats were built with bobstay like this with real long bowsprits.
Never worry about corrosion even if the fitting is right at the waterline.
Bend it in a collision racing? Take it off, heat and bend it back.
Lyle Hess sent me a cast silicon bronze gammon iron and 30 years later its a perfect verdigris green. No need to get out a lense and a dye kit to see if it’s still strong. Silicon bronze is my number one choice for an all around boatbuilding metal on fiberglass boats...not... stain...less...steel as Boatpoker pointed out.
The strength, corrosion resistance, and the ability to cast, machine and weld silicon bronze has been proven by hundreds of boatbuilders for centuries.
I don’t trust stainless in a lot of Boatbuilding applications and I’m not alone. But...happy trails to you
Captain Mark and his manatee crew who are using 316 stainless for their onboard micro brewery.

OK, I agree that the bobstay application could well be done in bronze bar stock, either flat plates as you describe or rod stock with threads to accommodate a rigging screw for adjustment. But for most of the standing rigging the flexibility of stranded wire is pretty well required. Modern textile rigs show promise, but the better grades of stainless wire are pretty reliable and relatively inexpensive and long lived and are more acceptable to many yachties.

Castings in bronze (various alloys to suit the application) are surely a well proven approach, and one that I've used in the past myself. But foundries are becoming kinda rare in many locales, and pattern makers don't come cheap, so getting custom designed fittings in bronze is not easy or inexpensive. Stainless fabricators and stockists, on the other hand, are common and thus custom work in stainless is more readily accessed for most folks, and if the right alloy is used, pretty reliable. I'm a big fan of the duplex and super duplex alloys... very strong, much more resistant to various forms of corrosion and fairly easy to fabricate and maintain. And for the DIY fabricator, a welded s/s part is more approachable than setting up a foundry in one's backyard.

I apologize for drifting the thread a bit, but discussion of alternative methods is sometimes useful IMO.

Jim

[Chris Cringle]

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

It’s less than 2 years old!!!

It’s just staining. Leave it be and worry about other stuff.

As I said, You bet your boat. As in, "I'll bet my boat against saving fifty dollars on a piece of new wire that it's just a stain."

[Searles]

They Look like screw together fittings ,slack off and open up ,you can then see what’s inside,and take it from there .⛵️⚓️

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by Chris Cringle

As I said, You bet your boat. As in, "I'll bet my boat against saving fifty dollars on a piece of new wire that it's just a stain."

To me, the above is a bit of an over-reaction. If you put some orange juice or lemon juice, or even water, on a paper towel, and wipe the wire, that looks to me just like stain, and it should disappear onto the towel. Then you keep an eye on it. I've wiped a lot of light stain over the years, and even had waves wash it off (after having been anchoring downwind of a slightly exhaling volcano for a week or two).

What is worrisome, is when the stain seems to be growing up wire (in defiance of gravity), and I asked Jim once to take apart one of our shroud Sta-Loks so we could see what - if anything - was going on inside the mechanical swage. As it happened, it was okay, I was just over-reacting.

If you look at the picture of the underside of the bowsprit, there is what looks to me like a very rusty nut up there, that drips on the bobstay, and then runs down the wire. The wire doesn't have one only rusty one, which you sometimes see if there is a cable problem.

I'd say, just clean it up, carefully, with emergel or oxalic acid, and see how it goes. See where the rust comes back to first. Then decide. To me, none of those pictures looks close to catastrophic failure.

I'm hoping the OP used 316 and not 304: I see rustier looking 304 and it's not as strong.

Finally one of Jim's little jokes. It was alluded to earlier: stainless steel--isn't; titanium--is.

Ann

[Manateeman]

Buy a new piece of wire and new cones. Tef-Gel the threads. Fill the ends with whatever goop you wish. There are a number of videos on line which show you step by step. Or you can have a rigger do it. It’s not brain surgery.
If you learn, you can carry one long wire and two fittings and fix any one stay on your boat if you get a broken strand. Great skill to learn.
The manatees

[MatthLE]

Hello;

Short answer;
Rust resistance is a result of the right kind of rust.
Long answer;
Rust resistance is a result of a strong tightly adhering not very permeable later of rust. That desirable layer of rust is a result of the alloys in stainless steel rusting under the right environmental conditions. "Stainless steel's resistance to rusting results from the presence of chromium in the alloy, which forms a passive film that protects the underlying material from corrosion attack, and can self-heal in the presence of oxygen" What you saw is probably imperfections in the alloy that are typically of limited area and very limited thickness. So clean with minimal aggressiveness and wait and see. If a real problem it will come back.

Respectfully
Lem

[Training Wheels]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

To me, the above is a bit of an over-reaction. If you put some orange juice or lemon juice, or even water, on a paper towel, and wipe the wire, that looks to me just like stain, and it should disappear onto the towel. Then you keep an eye on it. I've wiped a lot of light stain over the years, and even had waves wash it off (after having been anchoring downwind of a slightly exhaling volcano for a week or two).

What is worrisome, is when the stain seems to be growing up wire (in defiance of gravity), and I asked Jim once to take apart one of our shroud Sta-Loks so we could see what - if anything - was going on inside the mechanical swage. As it happened, it was okay, I was just over-reacting.

If you look at the picture of the underside of the bowsprit, there is what looks to me like a very rusty nut up there, that drips on the bobstay, and then runs down the wire. The wire doesn't have one only rusty one, which you sometimes see if there is a cable problem.

I'd say, just clean it up, carefully, with emergel or oxalic acid, and see how it goes. See where the rust comes back to first. Then decide. To me, none of those pictures looks close to catastrophic failure.

I'm hoping the OP used 316 and not 304: I see rustier looking 304 and it's not as strong.

Finally one of Jim's little jokes. It was alluded to earlier: stainless steel--isn't; titanium--is.

Ann

316 wire is more corrosion resistant, but 304 has the higher breaking strength.

[wiekeith]

It seems to me, looking at the OP’s pics, that the corrosion is only at, or close to, the swages, not along the whole length of the rigging wire? This being the case I’d hazard a guess that the cutting and swaging has released the tension in the twist of the wire, hence allowing the ingress of water, and subsequent internal corrosion, at those sections. But, that’s just a guess/observation – I know very little about the properties of stainless rigging...

[Manateeman]

I’m pretty sure they are Sta-Loc fittings. Inside there is a hollow cone. The center wires go straight through...the outside wires are on the outside of the cone and are held in compression between the cone and the upper nut. The body or lower part contains a beveled washer called a former which helps to turn the wire ends back to the center. In fittings which face up or are sometimes submerged, or are not properly filled with sealant, the former can rust in place and is very difficult to remove. Improper sealing results in pitted cones as well. Another problem is the threads locking up. I use Tef-Gel to prevent this. These mechanical fittings are stronger than the wire, easy to learn how to make up and carry on board...they just cost more. With a short piece of wire and two new cones and some goop, replacing this bobstay would only take a few hours even if it were your first time.
There are videos on line of how to do each step...it easy.
Happy trails to you
Captain Mark and his manatee crew who need reminding to wash the pizza sauce off before doing rigging work.

[sailingchiro]

Good or bad, I have the habit of rubbing a bit of Vaseline above my fittings and let the sun ooze it into the fitting every few months. I feel, if it displaces the water, that must be a good thing for the wire and fitting. Any thoughts?

[tmcdonagh]

Originally Posted by thinwater

In fact, citric acid is the preferred stainless passivization chemistry at this time (google it). It will remove the stains and leach iron from the surface, reducing recurrence.


Citrisurf and Spotless Stainless are Examples, or you can formulate your own.


For this reason, and others, I switched to a Dyneema bobstay. Lost of salt exposure. The rest of my standing rigging is still stainless.

Can you tell me more about your Bobstay conversion? I have a bobstay that is 2 inches too long and am looking to replace it and stantion lines also.

[ArmySailor]

Originally Posted by Chris Cringle

I agree with Boatyarddog. The lower bob stay fitting lives in a much more corrosive location than the rest of the standing gear. Stop looking for excuses not to replace the bobstay and fix it right. Then have one thing less to worry about. Remember, you bet your boat.

It was replaced with all the standing rigging. It's not that I'm trying to find excuses, it's that I paid good money to have it fixed right (reputable rigger), and because like you said, I'm betting my boat, I wanted a 2nd opinion.



I circled back to the rigger, because they are located in my marina and they went back and inspected it. Most of the responses here support that it's surface rust, to get rid of it and then monitor closely.



Like you said, it lives in a very corrosive location.