Need help finding a suitable prop anode

[bony]

Originally Posted by rwidman

How was the prop protected when the boat was new? Before you restored it?

Previous owner had neglected the boat badly. There were no zincs anywhere on the hull when I first hauled the boat out before restoration. In fact the only anodes on the entire boat were the two internal pencil zincs inside the Yanmar diesel engine, and they were almost eaten away.

The bronze propellor had some minor pitting and minor erosion on the ends of the blades but was otherwise ok. The rudder pintles were ok but the raw water seacock was a brass gate valve and was badly corroded and about to fail, which of course would have been catastrophic.

The boat is back in the water now so I think I'll get myself one of those guppy zincs and see if it does the job.

shipleft's shaft brush information was interesting, but I wonder how they attach the pot scrubber to the salmon flasher?

My thanks go to everyone for the interesting comments and advice, much appreciated.

bony.

[shipleft]

A short length of stranded copper electrical wire looped through the copper chore-girl, through two holes in the end of the flasher about 3/4" apart. The flasher fastened on the other end to the boat hull with stainless screws into a rib(wood construction) or a plywood block glassed or glued onto a glass hull. Tensioned by bending or screw placement, with an electrical connection(or a through bolt) to an exterior Z 3/4/6 (depending on shaft and prop size) anode. Easy-peasey!

[Har2015]

Originally Posted by shipleft

Yes, those "cup"-type anodes are what a lot of larger installations use but unfortunately, in this particular case there isn't room for a second nut. The biggest problem with any of these bolt-on zincs is the fact that the zinc ablates around the fastener at the same rate it ablates on the general surface and often the zinc gets pitched off prematurely and you lose its protection unknowingly. A shaft-brush wired to an external anode is good, but relies on good wire-eye connections(usually in poor conditions) and can be undone by oil contamination on the shaft contact area.It needs to be looked at regularly, and it is seldom in an easy to access area. Just a note on brushes- many boat owners here make their own using an old chromed salmon flasher and a copper chore-girl, they work actually better than the carbon or metal-brushes and can be re-brushed with a new copper pot scrubber in a NewYork minute!

@shipleft :: There's been many tips or tricks that would help slow down the ablation near the hardware on bolt-on style zincs. One that I'm fond of lately is to pre-apply simple fingernail polish along where the bolt is to slow the process down a bit. It's not a complete solution but does seem to help.


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum