bonding material

[JohnCranston]

Does anyone have any extra material that they want to sell? If not, where's the best place to buy it? What's the size of the copper strip that's needed?, I forgot.
Thanks for the help.

[IRGuy]

Someone here about 6 months ago had bonding strip material for sale.. I communicated with him and then lost his name and address before I bought any. I also want to get some. Not too long ago someone posted here that it is available from West Marine, but I have not checked that out either.

[Rawleigh]

Copper from West Marine

Or just cut your own from copper flashing.

[In Memory of Vicroy]

Have your own cut at a sheet metal shop. When I installed the SSB ground system on AJ I did that per advice from Mike Ohlstein. Get the copper cut to one inch strips. The shop I used cut me four foot stips. Get some copper pop rivets from the same shop and make a simple jig out of two peices of thin wood clamped together like a sandwich to drill the ends for the pop rivets, then sweat solder the riveted joint with rosin core solder and a small torch. If you don't use the jig the copper will wrap around the drill bit. I put two pop rivets in each joint. The sheet meal shop copper is much thicker than the boat place stuff and easier to work with. To make a spot to hook a drop wire to underwater stuff, just fold the strip over and crimp it with pliers making an "ear" in the strip, then drill for the bolt using your wood jig. Attach the strip to the stringers about every foot with copper or brass screws, and use copper or brass machine screws and nuts to attach the drop wires. I looked at the stuff from West and it was too flimsy for me.

UV

[randall]

im sure mike will chime in cause i dont know dick about lectricity....but it seems to me that mike also used copper screening between the one inch strips............as a side note i believe the largest antenna in the world is buried in the sand about 5 miles from my house.......zactly the same set up as vic's boat

[Russ]

Go to an electral supply outlet, they have tinned copper braid in 1 inch wide strips. An ice pick or an awl pushed threw the center will make a 3/8 hole so you can attach #8 green wire to it with nuts and bolts. Flat washers in between make a good connection. I believe the braid is a Dupont product. They come in 25 foot rolls. Hope this helps. Russ

[Tony Meola]

Try Mead Metals Inc. I believe thats who Capt. Pat gets his from. Tony Meola

[daydreams]

I was asking the same question a while ago. I'm not sure if its right but I went with an insulated #6 tinned wire. no splices [a continuous loop] I stripped and folded the wire and solder in a battery type lug at the intermediate bonding points. Then I intend to coat the connections.

[In Memory of Vicroy]

Well on a SSB ground, yes, you use a lot of bronze screen (inside the boat) to increase the ground plane area....not the same issue as the bonding inside the boat where we are tying the underwater metal to the boat ground. The SSB ground is "pushing off" (like a diving board) about 150 watts of radio frequency power, where on the boat ground we are tying the underwater metal together to make it eat up zinc rather than our good stuff.

The electrical currents we are dealing with in the bonding system are near zero watts, but very high variable voltages, think of these as static electricity. Because of the very high voltages, they don't like round wires, they like to run along the surface of flat conductors like copper strips. So using #6 wire as the main conductor on a bonding system is not a good idea, but better than nothing....remember we are not conductiing current, like to a light or a radio, we are conducting stray electrical currents, like mini-lightning that would register near zero on a ampmeter.....we are trying to make all the underwater metal look the same to the zincs we are going to sacrifice to keep from eating up our nibral props, bronze struts, and stainless stuff.

Hope I have added some logic to this subject.

Anyway, I'll be gone for a few days, me & the Bride are making a trip to the big apple to try to pry some antique silver from the paws of the purveyors, gotta get my game face on.

UV

[DanielM]

John,

When I was looking for bonding strips for my boat UV offered the suggestion to have a sheet metal shop cut some strips. I checked the shops around town and I didn’t find anyone that wanted the work. The local shops didn’t seem interested in what I was asking for at all, maybe you'd have better luck in Houston. In the retail marine supply catalogs I couldn’t find any bonding material that was at least the 26 gauge thickness like Capt Pat mentions on his tips page. I found two marine wholesalers that did have it listed in their catalog but when I called, they told me they had lost their supplier and couldn’t get it anymore.

Anyway to make a boring story even longer. I found a commercial lightning protection company called Independent Protection Co. www.ipclp.com. They carried a 1” bonding strip that was 16 gauge so it was thicker than what I was looking for but not much thicker than what I had pulled off the boat when I stripped it. You can find it in the connecting & bonding cable section of their catalog. I used #49. 1” wide soft copper bonding strip. I could order it to the length I wanted.

Hopefully you’ll have better luck finding bonding strips than I did, but here’s one option if you need it. One caution though…..get ready when it comes to price…..those folks, they be luv’in their copper…

Later,

DanielM

[Hyena Love]

I have a decent bit left from my roll, but its the stuff from Hamilton Marine (or some other marine supplier).

If you are around NW Houston next week, you could stop by and pick some up. But, all things being equal, the roll I bought was soo cheap as I recall, the gas costs and time will likely exceed any savings.

[Capt. Mike Holmes]

Ernest, Charlie was asking about you last week, wondering how you were doing, if you were still happy with the tower? I bought a couple of lots in Turtle Cove, down from Noe's, moving my operation over there. Only drawback is it's hard to sneak by without Charlie or Noe flagging me down to talk.

[Hyena Love]

I need to get back down there and see those guys.

Actually, I may be looking at some property down there in a month or so. BYB is closing (going to townhouses), and we have been looking at stuff in Tiki. Bridge Harbor and some new development (name includes the word Point) there on the road to Kirby/your old place might be in the running. Trying to avoid going in the water with my baby, and I don't want to give up the Bay fishing opportunities in the Galvest. complex. I know, simply want it all.

Let me know when you want to buddy boat and chase some wahoo or tuna. I am ready to roll, although after my last trip, while emptying the last drops out of the bilge, I got some light smoke from under the dash. Gonna try to figure out/fix that this weekend.

[JohnCranston]

Everyone,
Thanks for all of the options.

Ernest,
All I need is about 40-50:. Any chance that you might be able to drop it into the mail for me? If so, just tell me what I owe you, and I'll send you a check.
Thanks.

[Hyena Love]

I'll check it out over the weekend. I don't know how much comes on a roll. Thus, I am unclear - off the top of my head - how much is left on my roll.

[daydreams]

in regard to the #6 tinned wire, I'm not finished yet so I can still go back to a band. I'm not doubting anyone only obtaining information. I spoke to a few dealers and an advanced searay mechanic. They all say #6 is all that is used on most new boats. The band was more for interferance on mostly older electronic equipment. The difference with electrolysis will never be noticed with either material.