Sea cocks: Bronze or composite?

If you were to read the fine print in Forespars Marelon cock manuals, it instructs you to operate theme monthly and kept lubricated with Forespar grease.
I discovered this the hard way after installing a couple in my personal fish boat many years ago. Went to open one one day and it had seized from internal fouling. Then the handle failed.

Quickly I learned a valuable lesson.

I know there are other composite mfgs out there that may have a better product but I know they will never be stronger than bronze.

Since then, I only install better bronze thru hull flanged fittings and cocks.
Don't skimp on proper bonding also.

Yes.

Bronze is a mixture of different alloys.
Everybody has their own recipe pending supply of resources and expense to forge these resources and to cast/machine the end product.

You probably have realized a different recipes used in China vs the New-England area of the US.

I am sure across the Atlantic (O P from Denmark), other mfgs have different mixture/cast/machine processes also.

Remember, it's keeping your ship afloat, not a place to skimp.

By better manufacturer.
The novice my not know and relies on us old farts.
Rule #1, #2 and many more; Avoid **** from China.
My old crapper experience is Groco first, Perco & Buck Algonquin, very close second.
IMO, nothing else to tap on.
Don't ask me about that Apollo junk.

I have no idea of the quality from the other side of the pond. Denmark may have another list of quality & not so ?? over there.

Like some mfg's here

Here, the manufacturers widely recognized as the best for this stuff are Maestrini and Guidi.
Hard to name the absolute best, since both have their strength, depending on the specific product.
It's just worth mentioning the innovative "non stick" valves recently introduced by the latter, with no steel ball.
I heard nothing but praises about them so far, but only time will tell for sure.
If and how easily they can be sourced in the US, I really don't know.
Pretty expensive stuff even when sourced factory direct, anyhow.

It's not a states call. O P from Denmark.
Thanks to mapism for opening our eyes to some east bronze shops.

Good point, I wasn't paying attention to that.

@ JohnHansen:
aside from what you can find directly in DK, I'm pretty sure that you can source the whole Maestrini range from the online chandler SVB.
You can't go wrong with their stuff.

Btw, I forgot to mention that when it comes to composite vs. bronze, I'm also in the bronze field.

Interesting
The U S Distributor is in here in Jax. I'll swing by one day and have a chat and maybe look over some of their TD products.

I don't think ignore is the correct term here.
Maybe just hardened and old fashioned. After a life time of discovering what works and does not work, some education the hard way; I just may be one of those ole dawgs that new tricks are just not going to happen.

Not to talk bad of a product I have never handled.
I work with what I know.

I hope the OP does check out these TD products. They do look impressive.

menkes
Thx for your post and thoughts.

+1.

In fact, when I decided to replace the mains seacocks in my current boat after purchasing her (when she was already 13 years old), I did check out also composite parts.
But back then - and I don't think the product range has been extended in the meantime - the max size available was 2".
And while my boat is no superyacht by any stretch of imagination, I needed 3".

That aside, also in my experience good quality bronze stuff, properly grounded, work just fine.
So, any alternative is actually a solution to a problem that I don't have.

Btw, menkes, lasting three years in perfect conditions ain't such an impressive result, to be honest.
I've seen 30 years old boats where the original bronze fittings were replaced to stay on the safe side, cutting in half the old parts afterwards out of curiosity, only to find out that they could have lasted another 30 years...
Though arguably that kind of bronze quality is harder to find, these days.

AAAh
Most of my 42 year old bronze is fine. 15 years ago we pulled and found some questionable thru hull out side fittings. Seems the backing plates were leaking, wet bronze and bonding strap at these locations sucked or loose. This hardware was to the heads way under the decks. Way out of sight.
All replaced with new back plates and flange bolts. New straps run.
During our autopsy, all really looked good and could of lasted longer.

I dissect everything that comes of any boat we work on. Amazing what we find sometimes.

And what brand are those flexing handles?

You are making me curious, on which boat(s) did you come across them?
They are pretty rare also among Italian builders - at least the half decent ones, which invariably use Guidi for strainers.
Not that I'm aware of any specific flaw in those built by Maestrini, but pretty sure the Guidi ones are built like a brick sh!thouse.
Coming to think of it, I can't remember to have ever seen a boat, no matter how old, where they had to be replaced.