w ripley

Tim:

I've looked around but haven't been lucky finding something in a marine-grade aluminum (about half of my diving is in salt water plus when I spoke with Leon in Florida in November about the ISC shadow mounts he mentioned that they were marine-grade aluminum.) I've been sailing all of my life so I turned to the boating stores and am going with SS flat tangs. Just put "stainless steel tangs" in your internet browser to see what they look like and the sizes that are available. Schaefer, Harken, etc., all make them. They're just flat strips of polished SS with holes in each rounded end.

The size I'm using is the 1 inch wide by 8 inches long by 3/16 inch thick. That size allows two webbing bands at 2 inches each and 4 SS hose clamps at 3/4 inch each set up the way Outlaw did but with less space between the two webbing bands than he has. SS is a marine product, is strong for its size, and the tangs have less bulk than the alum. Because they are pretty thin (3/16 inch) I could use the existing SS hose clamps that are holding my backplate mount and shadow mounts.

Bill