Keep steering system from rusting

[Scotty Mac]

What does everybody use to keep the steering system wires from rusting? I have been washing it with fresh water but its stills surface rusting. Should I wax is with surf wax once its dry?

[DavidJohn]

Naish have sent out replacement stainless steel wires so you should get some.

Stainless is a funny thing.  I'm sure there's good and bad stainless and it's more a diss-color thing rather than rust.. It's good to see Naish are on to it.

DJ

[DavidJohn]

Hey Scotty.. Today I swapped over the stainless cables to spectra lines and it seemed to be fine.

I set it up with just the rudder fixed straight so I could spend some time moving around the board to find its sweet spots.. Tomorrow I'll attach the left arm and suss out the steering... Jeez it's nice.. 

DJ



arm

[Dwight (DW)]

It's about time someone tried Spectra. Way to go DJ  

The elusive trick is getting zero stretch, which is near impossible.

When I was testing North kite gear, line stretch was North biggest issue with 5 line kites. They pre-stretched lines at the factory, but it didn't help much. Lines seem to never stop stretching. They finally found something pretty close to zero stretch. The smaller the line, the less it stretches.

You could actually use kite flying line with sleeved ends for durability and get near zero stretch at the loads a rudder would experience.

If I ever do a rudder it will use line, not cables, and I'll deal with stretch adjustments.

All that stainless steel weight makes me cringe.

About the rusting stainless, how bad? Carbon fiber and stainless steel don't like each other. You will always get slight rusting, even when its 316. It's just harmless discoloration and can be cleaned off if it bugs you.

[PonoBill]

I found some Vectran fiber on ebay that was inexpensive and looks like the right stuff for control lines. It's 300 filaments with a yield strength of about 3000 pounds. Vectran has very low creep and stretches about 3 percent at yield. The problem will be attaching it. I planned to pot terminations in epoxy. Only problem is that here on Maui I have just a small fraction of the tools and equipment I have in Portland--this would be easy if I had my lathe. So I may wind up just tying the stuff and accepting the lower strength and higher creep of knotted line.

I tested the creep with knots by hanging a 100 pound weight from a 10 foot length of line with an indicator attached and marking the wall. After two days I can't see any at all. Compared to the kite line I tested that way that had nearly a half inch of creep.

I used a needle splice, which is done by threading the vectran through a big darning needle, sliding the eye end into a piece of heavy dacron line about five inches then pushing the needle eye through the braid, Pull the needle off the vectran and slide the vectran line back into the braid until it's almost back inside the dacron, then tie an overhand knot in the dacron about a half inch from the end. Normally this would be a really weak knot, but the dacron cushions the fibers. Then you can use any typical fishing knot for the dacron. Here's the video I got the technique from. Works very well and it's easy:

I also tried a bimini twist, but it was clumsy, too long, and too hard to tie well with the vectran.

While this video talks about spectra and dacron, I used Vectra and Kite line which is probably spectra.

[Scotty Mac]

Good one DJ,
I have some spare kite surfing line at home, I might try that. Might need slightly more tension than the wire but should work fine.
Only a short run compared to 25m kite lines so should be little stretch....

[DavidJohn]

I took it for a test run today with the steering on and it worked perfect.

DJ

[Dwight (DW)]

DJ, could you feel a weight difference without the cables?

[diesel]

In my experiences racing OC-1, I noticed that the cable broke at the crimps.  You need to be able to pull the plastic shrink wrap stuff down from the crimp and spray with this stuff called "Corrosion Block" that sailboats use on thier gear.  My cables lasted years of racing without changing them and you can put it on all the metal parts.

[DavidJohn]

Hi DW.. No.. there's almost no weight difference.. The s/s wires are so light that even holding just the wires in one hand and the spectra in the other it would be hard to tell the difference with your eyes shut.. 

Also DW You might be interested in this pic showing the 17's rocker against the horizon.

Thanks Bob and and diesel for the cable/lines info.. I'll be getting some of that spray.. thanks.

The guy at the shop where I bought the spectra said that s/s will last for ever but the spectra will only last about two years.. I'm happy to change the spectra every year to be safe.. It's cheap and easy to do.

DJ