The post about lightweight canoe seats reminds me of another question.
Does anyone know why high-end canoes don’t come with titanium fasteners, or where one might buy titanium fasteners to upgrade a boat?
It seems to me that there’s a couple of pounds that could be saved on an average boat. I know that the carriage bolts in my Blackhawk Combi weighed a ton and even the nice quality stainless stuff on Bells is quite heavy.
It would be nice to get my Black/Gold Northstar down to around 45 pounds (from 50) with carbon seats and titanium fasteners without losing any strength.
I saved a pound, maybe a little more,
by replacing the ash thwarts in my ww boat with spruce thwarts. But I wouldn’t have done it for the weight. I did it because I needed specially shaped thwarts to keep the minicell saddle in place. Such small weight savings often aren’t worthwhile unless other gains can be realized.
I’m pretty sure that there isn’t enough stainless in my composite tandem (Bluewater) to realize the weight savings you forsee by changing to titanium. Do you really have that much stainless aboard?
Here is a source
www.mcmaster.com
they sell titanium fasteners as well as all sorts of other materials. You will be impressed at the cost per gram of reduced weight.
Jim
Slim Fast is Cheaper
I used to race motorcycles. I found I could lose weight cheaper than worrying about tie bolts and such. Now, larger pieces, fine. and Carbon to replace plastic.
Slim Fast for breakfast, lunch, and before dinner. Works wonders.
So the answer to your question is probably cost.
working in aerospace
machine shops the last 26 years, I think a nice grade aluminum fastener would be strong enough, lighter, and more cost effective.
I think I spent around $150 30 years ago on a bicycle upgrade, swapping some ti bolts for stainless, and saving ALMOST AN OUNCE!!
Ti’s main claim to fame is heat dissipation, which is why it is used extensively in aircraft engines. It machines easily, is very strong and fairly light, but definite overkill for most civilian usage.
The machine shop I worked in
for 10 years made titanium horse shoes for a while.
Amazing
But Ti shoes for race horses actually makes sense.
The Ti 10-24 fasteners available in the McMaster-Carr catalog are quite limited in sizes. My concern about aluminum fasteners would be corrosion in a marine environment unless they were anodized.
SS is hard to beat for cost and corrosion resistance.
Jim
Cadmium coating for Al
in the aerospace biz.
Thanks for posting!
A few times, I thought about titanium fasteners for my ICF-K1, but never got around to search hard enough for them.
My experience with stainless steel fasteners is that: one seems light enough; however, when one places a few of them here and there, they add a tone of weight!
sure - but
how often did you have to put your motorcycle on top of your car?
makes sense
I didn’t even know they made aluminum fasteners…other than the made-to-squish pop rivets!
thanks!
Great source. I could not find anything like it when I did a search. I know of at least one builder that’s also curious.