Anodes: Getting A Long Life Out of Them

[system 4-50]

See the youtube video on "The Battleship New Jersey & Pitting" on how to keep your anodes as good as new for many years!

[ditchcrawler]

42 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

See the youtube video on "The Battleship New Jersey & Pitting" on how to keep your anodes as good as new for many years!

I have seen a few where they are welded above the water line, they should last

[David Mack]

Epoxy them!

[Peugeot 106]

Get gold ones?

[blackrose]

4 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I have seen a few where they are welded above the water line, they should last

 

Well according to some on this forum (who forget that their mushroom vents are made of brass and their windows are aluminium) one shouldn't attach dissimilar metals to a steel boat above the waterline. Presumably they must also think that anodes welded on above the waterline would work?

[Tonka]

10 hours ago, blackrose said:

 

Well according to some on this forum (who forget that their mushroom vents are made of brass and their windows are aluminium) one shouldn't attach dissimilar metals to a steel boat above the waterline. Presumably they must also think that anodes welded on above the waterline would work?

 But the mushroom vents and Windows have sealant between the 2 different metals thus reducing the effects 

[David Mack]

7 minutes ago, Tonka said:

 But the mushroom vents and Windows have sealant between the 2 different metals thus reducing the effects 

And fastenings that probably do have fairly good metal to metal contact.

[system 4-50]

I put my 9 windows in using stainless machine screws tapped through the aluminium frames into the steel sides of the boat.  The 1st two of these I greased the screws before I put them in.  When I later came to remove the windows I found the two that I had greased had seized screws and a lot of white powdery stuff around them.  The others came out relatively easily.

[Tonka]

10 minutes ago, David Mack said:

And fastenings that probably do have fairly good metal to metal contact.

Oh, did you not use nylon machine screws ?

[LadyG]

Copper grease, silicon grease, plumbers grease, or beef dripping?

[Peugeot 106]

16 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Copper grease, silicon grease, plumbers grease, or beef dripping?

Duralac paste is made for the job but I wouldn’t bother on a Narrowboat unless I had some to hand. (Which I do as I have a Wayfarer with a stainless to aluminium mast). The corrosion is massively accelerated by a saline atmosphere which doesn’t normally apply to narrowboats

[Midnight]

The technical bod from McDuff (anodes) told me anodes do very little until the blacking breaks down. Midnight's hull sides and baseplate are gritblasted and two-packed - my anodes are 20 years old and still going

[Tony Brooks]

16 minutes ago, Midnight said:

The technical bod from McDuff (anodes) told me anodes do very little until the blacking breaks down. Midnight's hull sides and baseplate are gritblasted and two-packed - my anodes are 20 years old and still going

 

That is exactly what one should expect. A full insulating hull coating and no electrical circuit can be made between anode>hull>water>anode, so no erosion can take place.

 

What this also highlights that if an otherwise fully coated hull suffers a local break in the coating then all the electrical activity is likely to be concentrated in that one area unless there is an anode close enough to protect it.

Edited May 3 by Tony Brooks