HOW TO: ZINC SIZING AND INSTALLATION 

Thanks!

That's a great idea for a video... We have some instrumentation and electrical videos planned. If you can't find answers on our channel or on our website, try our forum. It.s free and its great source. www.sbmar.com/community/

Geoff, We don't really do a lot of on boat maintenance, mainly re-powers, product development and parts sales. But if any of our great customers wants to shoot some footage and send our way we just might put it on our channel.

@@SeaboardMarineIncVideos Makes sense. I always spill a bunch of salt water over the engine changing mine so figured you guys had a more elegant way...

First off you only need a bit of loctite, you don't have to coat everything like you do with thread sealant because you aren't sealing threads just keeping the zinc from wiggling loose,, secondly, the same thing will happen with the loctite, as the threads tighten there's enough friction between the surfaces to make good electrical contact. But if you are worried about it, just use a bit of loctite towards the outside of the threads, leave a few threads on the end of the zinc uncoated.

Probably not, but if you put loctite on threads and tighten them down, you will have continuity.

Actually it's called a galvanic anode or sacrificial anode if you want to get technical. But we aren't talking to scientists or chemists we are talking to boat guys. These in particular are a subset of Zinc Anodes are often referred to as pencil zincs, frequently shortened to just zincs. Did the video make sense? That's what really matters.

Thanks for taking the time Justin. And I'm sure Richard has never ever referred to a cotton swap as a Q-tip...…………….

I guess the type of anode metal depends on what type of metal you want to protect. Coolers typically contains brass or copper, so it's different from external metals in stern drives and outboards like aluminium.

For the most part the internet will tell you to use a Zinc anode in Salt water, a Magnesium in Fresh and Aluminum in Brackish. We mainly deal with saltwater boats. We do not sell magnesium or aluminum anodes. There are a lot of opinions and articles on the web about this, in our experience Zinc anodes are the most versatile and best go-to anodes. You can spend weeks overthinking the type of anode you decide to use on your boat, do some "research" on the internet, if you want to call it that, and you'll get a zillion opinions. If you plan to leave a boat in a body of water other than the ocean, I would talk to the guys in that same body of water, with a similar boat/drive-train, someone with REAL experience in those conditions, what really works for them? Find the person with the most hours on his engine, or most years in the water. I would either just use zinc, or go with what the locals have PROVEN works in those conditions. Don't go down the rabbit hole trying to solve this one.