(ET) galvanizing

["harry landis" <hlandis hotmail com>]

For those of you looking for another way to entertain yourselves with your 
ETs, here's something I did.

I have an E12 which had a rotted out deck, bad enough that I didn't care to 
try welding it back together. But I also had a spare deck that was in pretty 
good shape. I don't want to worry about it rusting out if I didn't clean it 
off after use, so I figured it needed some kind of protection. I considered 
the POR route, but then remembered that was an industrial galvanizing place 
nearby. So I called and made the deal..
I took the deck all apart and brought it to them in pieces A few days later 
it was ready, all nice and shiny gray. I put it back together with all SS 
fasteners. I had to retap a couple of holes that got filled with zinc and 
also ream out a lot of others to get them back to size, but there rere no 
real problems.. and it al works fine. I don't think I'll have much problems 
with rust now. It's probably a bit stronger than before as the zinc gets 
under the weldments and kind of glues them together, and also the extra 3 or 
4 mil of zinc on each side probably helps some.
They normally  charge by the weight of the item to be galvanized, at $500 
per ton. But the minimum was $175. So that's what it cost. If I had had 10 
decks, it would have cost the same.
Maybe someone could try it with a whole tractor.

Harry Landis