What Screw Material for a Wooden Boat Restoration ?

[hellosailor]

Square nails get stamped out of a strip, that's a fairly cheap manufacturing process. Much cheaper than the machine work needed for a screw, threads and slotted (etc) head.

I was taught that any type of ferrous fastener, zinced, stainless, whatever, was not a good idea in wood because the iron content reacts with acids in the wood and always will cause graying, which is also corroding the wood. Non-ferrous fasteners will of course triple your budget or worse.

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Square nails get stamped out of a strip, that's a fairly cheap manufacturing process. Much cheaper than the machine work needed for a screw, threads and slotted (etc) head.

I was taught that any type of ferrous fastener, zinced, stainless, whatever, was not a good idea in wood because the iron content reacts with acids in the wood and always will cause graying, which is also corroding the wood. Non-ferrous fasteners will of course triple your budget or worse.

It's just thread drift.

The only ones I know that use ferrous fasteners any more (zinc plated BTW) are on the old fishing boats, that are bleeding rust all over already.

[Schooner Chandlery]

Just ran across this old thread. We have a very good and affordable supplier of bronze boat screws, bronze carriage bolts, and custom bronze keelbolts in the marketplace. Shop here