I'm working on a wire rope fence that looks like this. The difference is that we live fairly close to the ocean, which means lots of salty air.
I've bought 1/8" galvanized steel with plastic coating and stainless screw eyes attached to the posts. What's missing are the turnbuckles.
Ideally, I would like to buy stainless turnbuckles. The issue is that they don't sell them locally, and amazon is the only store that ships to my country and has a good selection of rather inexpensive stainless turnbuckles, like these.
On the other hand, I can find good galvanized steel turnbuckles like these anywhere. Those are the two options.
It seems that the galvanized steel turnbuckles are stronger. The problem is that I don't know how long they'll last being so close to the ocean. I can buy the stainless steel turnbuckles, but most of the ones sold in amazon say "light duty" and are being sold by questionable sellers.
Would it be a mistake to buy galvanized steel? Just to give you an idea of how bad the corrosion here is: I bought these pliers, and they had shallow rust spots one week later.
Best Answer
The age-old question of whether or not to use alloy materials is subjective.
Rest assured that the galvanized components will fail. You will then be unable to adjust the tension of the cables. If the consequences of the failure outweigh the initial investment for alloy materials, you should buy stainless (this includes the cable itself as well).
For decades and decades the oil industry resisted the use of alloys in piping and vessel construction due to cost; it was just easier and cheaper to replace carbon steel components at their earlier end-of-life. Now, the safety and environmental costs of failure are beginning to outweigh the cost of investment for alloy materials, hence they are now "alloying up".