Mast Conduit - Best Practice?

[Lagoon4us]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

"I would use Aluminum unless you have a bare unpainted mast. " Pop rivets that is! I would probably still use aluminum.
As noted above:Two holes at each pop rivet location. One dead center on the conduit location, and one to the side. Use a stiff bent wire like a coathanger on the side hole to pull the conduit up against the inner wall. Fill the extra hole with a pop rivet. Every 18" or even couple of feet should be adequate.

The annoying thing is a lot of thin wall extrusions are not a good marine alloy unless in the states the alloys are different, second thing is when two alloys are side by side the less noble will corrode,, moisture cell etc etc pvc takes away a lot of that problem BUT in USA alloys may be matcheable....

[Lagoon4us]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

I like to use glass-filled polyurethane u-bolts to secure the conduit to the mast:

McMaster Polyurethane U-Bolts

They take a bigger hole in the mast section, so some may not like that. With the mast laying on trestles, place the conduit on top/outside where you want it. Mark for the u-bolts and drill. Put the u-bolts over the conduit and into the holes. Glue the u-bolts to the conduit (your choice of glue). Roll the mast so the holes are now down. Pick up the whole mess and slide it inside the mast with the u-bolt legs toward the center. Once it is in the correct position roll the conduit so the u-bolts face toward the holes. It may take a little work with a coat hanger to get the bolts to come out the holes, but I've never found it that difficult. Snug up the nuts, then cut off the excess bolt. If you like you can put a little glue on the nuts to make sure they don't some undone.

Our current stick is 46', these have been in place for the last 12 years, and nothing has come adrift. The system is 100% plastic, the bolts are UV resistant, don't have to worry about corrosion except where moisture may get trapped against the mast by the conduit, which will be the same regardless of attachment method. The conduit is clear inside, no rivets, easy to fish. IIRC we put the bolts 5 or 6 feet on center.

Sorry don't have any pictures.

That's a left of field solution

[Lagoon4us]

Like the idea of intervals of heat shrinks to squeeze hold the wires to the conduit, you could remove 75% of the conduit for say 6 inches slide a heat shrink on and lock it in. Nice!!!!