Stainless steel screws

[mdryden]

Hello. Is it ok to use stainless hardware on the roof of my trailer? I resealed my winegard antenna and was going to replace the screws with stainless. The screws do go into aluminum and I was told that this can cause corrosion?

[ferndaleflyer]

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.

[mdryden]

Thanks for the information everyone.

[opnspaces]

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

[Lwiddis]

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.”

[2oldman]

Stainless screws into aluminum

[KD4UPL]

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.