Stainless steel screws

The hardware and fasteners used on the millions and millions and millions and millions of aluminum boats out there is stainless steel.....just sayin!!!!

Stainless into aluminum is certainly better than zinc on aluminum. Realize that zinc plating is micro-thin and will corrode away in less than a year. Stainless into aluminum are both solids so have mass. Electrolysis also needs an electrolyte (water); keep the contact point dry and you won't have a problem. I've replaced all the screws holding the moldings onto my trailer with stainless (over 600). Never a problem.

I’ve also put many (hundreds) of stainless screws into aluminum, on RVs and a couple pontoon boats. Certainly the screws into aluminum on the boats saw water. Have never had an issue.

Never had any trouble with stainless fasteners and corrosion.

I manufactured commercial kitchen equipment for 40 years and never had a problem screwing stainless screws into aluminum.....probably used a ton of them in my lifetime.

Thanks for the information everyone.

I followed one of the links form 2oldman to see about the speed of corrosion of stainless into aluminum. My first thought was if it corrodes really slowly (like 50 years slow) then who cares.

The only link I tried states that the corrosion is rapid though nothing was noted about a time frame. But the link also says that the galvanic corrosion is only a problem if the connection is exposed to moisture. So my take on it is if you can keep the connection dry there connection should be sound.

Link

As 2oldman pointed out...”Stainless steel is an alloy of carbon steel that is, itself, resistant to corrosion. However, stainless steel is reactive with aluminum, and when a stainless steel screw is in contact with an aluminum base metal, the aluminum is likely to corrode.”

I've used lots of SS hardware on aluminum. It's what's normally provided in my experience for anything that you don't want to corrode outside. Lots of metal combinations will corrode but I think SS and aluminum is a good combination.