cotter pins or rings???

[forsailbyowner]

Just my 2 cents but i always safety wire my turnbuckles, then I generously smear them with lanacote then wrap them with canvas. I take the canvas off every 3-4 months and turnbuckles are always corrosion free and have never siezed. I smear and work the lanocote into the wire at the top of fittings and dont have that brown corrosion at the terminal to wire connection that i see so commonly on peoples rigging. I saw 304 stainless safety wire for $7 a lb at harbor freight recently.
wonder how much difference there is from the $20 four ounce roll i got at sail shop.

[Sandero]

On the subject of turnbuckles... They should be "sealed" at the top because water can work it's way into the swage since there are spaces between the strands of the wire rope. You can't get at this and it will corrode and not know it. Also in winter it can lead to freezing and even cracking. You can fill the voids with melted wax. Use a torch to heat the top of the turnbuckle and wire rope and let the wax melt and wick down into the swage.

[MidLandOne]

While I am not sure if I would want to fill swages in that manner myself (I have no sound reason for believing that though apart from I have never seen it done so am unsure of any reliability history), on other fittings we use rigging grade Lanacote instead of wax - warm the fitting with a hot air gun on a mild type temperature and the Lanacote will melt and run in. It then sets to a firm consistency.

On our own boat we use different rigging screws to most, they being an arrangement of telescoping threaded barrels rather than the traditional body with screws into each end, and these need to be protected in this way to prevent ingress of grit causing them to bind.

[Cheechako]

The turnbuckles I've had had very small clearance between t he open body and the screw... so there was no need to wrap the cotter pin around the body at all... the pin head even jams on the body most the time.