{"id":1163,"date":"1999-11-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1999-11-30T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/?p=1163"},"modified":"2015-10-16T12:09:57","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T17:09:57","slug":"pinholes-in-stainless-steel-water-tanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/pinholes-in-stainless-steel-water-tanks\/","title":{"rendered":"Pinholes in Stainless Steel Water Tanks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Dear Steve and Linda: Your Offshore Cruising Encyclopedia was extremely helpful to me when I was outfitting my BCC “Calliste” for extended cruising in 1998. Currently in Tin Can Bay, Qld., Australia, on hard stand, repairing a gelcoat failure and discovering other maintainance problems as well.<\/p>\n

I have removed her two ss water tanks and was using a welder’s Ss pickling paste to remove the rust that developed around the welds on the outside of the tank. This revealed some deep pitting in some places, what looks to be a depth about half the thickness of the metal. Having trouble on deciding what to do, got any ideas to pass along ??? <\/p>\n

Have been enjoying your web site and will continue to do so, when we depart OZ. Sincerely, Douglas <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Hi: You have posed a tough question to answer from 8000 miles away! My first impression would be to ask a local stainless fabricator what he thought. Second would be to pressure test the tanks–but gently! Using a manometer (not water pressure from mains) I’d try an increasing head pressure to perhaps six feet–and watch for leaks.<\/p>\n

If the tanks are not too difficult to get out, and they pass the pressure test, I’d be tempted to put them back. <\/p>\n

Note: the main thing with stainless steel corrosion is keeping it in the air. As long as it has fresh air, it will usually take care of most surface corrosion. The problems start when it is sealed–as with a bolt embedded in a laminate. If the air cannot get to it, the crevice corrosion can spread quite rapidly.<\/p>\n

(You should be able to find more data on this in your copy of Offshore Cruising Encyclopedia). <\/p>\n

What I would not do is to try to cover these areas with corrosion with some sort of epoxy–this would exacerbate the problem with time. Good Luck–Steve <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Steve and Linda: Your Offshore Cruising Encyclopedia was extremely helpful to me when I was outfitting my BCC “Calliste” …Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech-talk","category-yacht-systems-faqs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36225,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions\/36225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}