Stainless Steel Chainplates Wire Wheeled

[emma41]

i listened to an old salt who recommend wire wheeling my neglected hull mounted Stainless Steel chain plates. it cleaned them up great but the luster changed and i suspect i did a major no-no. any thoughts?

any help would be appreciated.

thank you

[Jeff_H]

You may have especially if the wire wheel was a steel wheel.I had a set of a stanchion bases welded up on a prior boat. The shop used a steel wheel to clean up the base when they were done and for years after I had rusting problems with those bases. I eventually polished them with a course rubbing compound followed by a finer polishing compound and it greatly helped the problem.

Jeff

[jparker11]

Emma41,

Like Jeff H says, if it was a steel wire wheel, it is a major no-no. Carbon/iron contamination of the stainless results. Within short order in marine conditions, the nice shiny stainless steel will look like a rust hued piece of neglected steel. On top of that, the contamination promotes stress crack corrosion in the area of weldments.

You can reduce this contamination by the methods Jeff mentioned, but all grinding or polishing activities will encapsulate some of the contamination particles and allow them to re-emerge at a later time.

No steel cup brushes/ wheels, saw blades or even non-ferrous grinding or cut-off wheels that have been used on carbon steels allowed near stainless!! If you must, stainless cup brushes (never used on carbon steel), bronze wool or scotch brite.

I hesitate to suggest this, but a rinse with mild nitric acid may get some of that carbon contamination out. You must be careful of yourself, surrounding aluminum items and fiberglass (in that order) when attempting this. It will turn the Stainless black, and you will be back to Jeff''s plan to get the shine back.

Hope this helps,

[namaste04]

Just wantd to tell you that having new chainplates made is probably not as expensive as you think. We decided to replace our 20-yr-old plates before going offshore. they look completely fine, but we wanted to atleast get them tested. Turns out having new ones made is only a little more expensive than the dye-testing! We are having all 6 shroud chainplates, plus the stern and (very complicated) stem fitting made and polished for $600. If you have simple SS straps for yours it''ll be much cheaper.

just a thought.

Of course, this necessitates removing them!

Stacey