4 years ago, believed a sales pitch and my wife and I purchased an above-ground pool with a salt water system. Despite my questions to the contrary, the salesman assured me that the pool water would be "less salinic than a human tear" and that corrosion would not be a problem.

He has since "moved on" and the pool store acknowledges that the rep lied to many people. They also say he SHOULD have highlighted the fact that a salt system would void any warranties for the pool. Nice.

I'll get to the question soon.

On top of each post of the pool, there's a "joiner plate" which is made of steel. This plate rusts like crazy. Twice, I popped the caps and coated these things with an Eastwood product but I could only get to the faces...they are rusting everywhere. This year, they are crumbling into the pool.

I've ordered 17 new plates and I'm planning to treat them with the best stuff I can find before installing them. Short of powder-coating, what might I try that will make the parts far more impervious to salt water? I *think* they are galvanized steel as the come from the manufacturer.

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Would 304L or 316L stainless steel be favorable to salt?

Take a pattern of one into a custom fab shop to see if they can duplicate it.

The first paragraph should give you a idea about how impervious it would be to salt.

http://www.powrfab.com/

Thanks. That's a good idea and SS would be ideal. But time is of the essence and...cost is a bit of the essence too. Years ago, I used a product called Corroless(sp?) and its claim to fame was it's use on off-shore oil rigs. I'm wondering if something like that could work for this season...and then maybe I could get an extra plate to be used as a pattern for some customs...

Find a scrap yard that has used stainless and buy some with enough area to make the pieces as it will cost less that way.

Don't appear to be much over 11ga material anyway.

Find someone with a laser or plasma and have them cut and formed up.

Depending on what the holes are for and how fancy they have to be, they could probably be cut free hand maybe with a plasma and wouldn't have have them programmed, which is part parcel to the cost and just form them up??

Hard to tell just by the pics, but it appears the two funky holes towards the front have fingers bent down to help support it on the back side and is there a lip that goes under the tubing rail as well? I'm guessing not, as you probably wouldn't be able to slip it over the tube.

I can't tell what the two towards the back do.

Instead of the fingers, is there room to just lay a piece of flat on edge and skip weld it so that it keeps it tight to the tubing in the fore ground?

Since you can't skateboard in it, I say get rid of that pool.

I swam in a salt water pool once. I kept thinking I was swimming in pee

OK, I'm an asshat!

You mean you're convinced you WEREN'T actually swimming in pee? You put way too much faith in your fellow man (and his kids), my friend.

But back to my rusty crusty problems...

There was a day when I worked for Wayne Pump (Gilbarco) and had access to an extensive manufacturing plant and machine shop and I had really good friends out on the plant floor who could hook me up with favors ranging from CNC to powder coating....but the UAW went on strike one time too many and the company moved to TX. ...and I didn't take them up on their invitation to join them.

So now, I'm looking for good coatings. Rust preventive coatings.

I had a friend suggest roll-in bed liner. May be simple and effective, yes? Since there wouldn't be direct UV exposure, how about POR-15. The stuff I've applied in the past hardened like appliance epoxy.

First get it up on jackstands. Then get a grinder to cut out all the old metal. Then get out the welder, call Restoration Designs, and you're fixed. A little epoxy undercoat, and it's ready for Signal Orange paint. Let's see it done correctly the 914 way.

GunKote.
http://www.kgcoatings.com/gun-kote-finish.php

I can think of only two solutions that might work with salt water pool. Galvanizing is a zinc coating that acts as a sacrificial anode so the steel won't rust. Once the zinc gets sacrificed off the surface, it starts to rust. One solution is to add more zinc to the galvanize, such as a zinc plate under or over the galvanized parts. Old car trick was to add zinc washers under bumper parts. You will need to add a bolt or screw to act as the electrical conductive path between the zinc plate and the steel.

The other one is to duplicate the parts out of fiberglass. Make them a quarter of an inch thick because glass isn't as strong as steel..

Ken

The reps in the local pool supply store tried to sell me a chunk of zinc to sit in the skimmer basket to "draw any corrosion". They weren't the least bit interested when I told them that the zinc needed to be in contact with the part I that's needing protection....So, I guess I would need 17 chunks o' zinc.

I should scan the print-out they gave me last weekend. Had the same blurb about the skimmer chunk on the top of the paper.

Picked up my replacement joiner plates from the pool company today. And while I don't feel I should have had to pay for these, they will maintain their position that the salt system voided the warranty.

At least these new parts were only about $4 each.

Originals were not painted. They were Galvanized. These have a nice glossy paint on them but I want to add more protection before installing.

What coating can I reliably apply to these painted pieces that'll make them more impervious to salt water?

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I would be happy to GIVE you a filter, pump etc to help you afford to get rid of the salt system and use good old fashioned chlorine.

Rich

I doubt powder coating all of them would be more than a couple hundred bucks...

Can they be powder coated OVER the paint that's already there?

If that paint can take the 325º bake it takes to properly set GunKote (recommended previously with link...) , I'd do that.
Check it out.

Of course - you are not coating metal, you are coating paint. Anything that gets under the manufacturer-applied paint will still cause adhesion failure.

The best course would be to find some uncoated brackets. I can't see it being worth the bother to strip and sandblast a whole batch of painted parts. And there's enough fabrication details in those parts that you're not really tempted to make your own in 316.

Lacking that - maybe Plastisol or PlastiDip...

our salt system pool is 4 years old too - i better check for corrosion too.

Hey, Jim.

Is that a Vogue Zenith? If so, you may have the same problem. My sister's pool is a Doughboy (or some other brand different than mine) and her joints and retainers are all stainless or plastic. Her pool is OLDER and she converted to salt more recently but has had no problems.

Hmmm plasticoating. I'm going to look into that.

Thanks guys for the offers and suggestions.