Wax ring

Merlin Clark · Jul 18, 2013

Not much to see but a pic of mine is below.
Because of the location under my vee I had to install my transducer by touch. I checked the area with a mirror, then with the transducer in a bag of water after wetting the spot.
Clean the area as good as possible the take a piece of the wax and mash it down good to make sure there are no air bubbles, repeat until you have a big enough glob.
Mine's been there for 4 or 5 years with no problems.

Roadking Larry · Jul 18, 2013

Not much to it. Clean the surface, big glob of wax with no bubbles in it and squish the transducer down into it and keep it level to the waterline.

Ralph Johnstone · Jul 18, 2013

You might want to try using a hair drier to soften the wax a bit before setting the transducer to ensure a good contact.

Getting to the point where my hair drier is about the most used tool on my boat. All the usual uses like hoses and electrical boots, etc. Was installing #2 wire for a battery relocation in early spring and found that heating the marine grade wire cables made it so much easier for bending them into the battery boxes. Held the set nicely once the wires had cooled.

Doc_holiday · Jul 18, 2013

When I did mine, I used 2 wax rings and globbed them together. I felt it made a better mount. Ball it up (your hands will be caked with wax) and go for it. Some disposable gloves are a nice afterthought.

Nodak7 · Jul 18, 2013

RDS2012 said:
Does anyone have any pictures of their transducer mounted in a wax ring?

I'd like to see some if possible so I have an idea how to do mine.

Thanks in advance.

RDS I used Plumbers Putty for our installation. Works great. As with wax clean the surface well....

arf145 · Jul 19, 2013

Everyone's got it covered well. I'll just reiterate that you're not using the wax ring as a ring--just as a source of a chunk of wax. When you smash the wax onto the transducer bottom, just make sure it is continuous with no air voids.

jibes138 · Jul 19, 2013

This sounds like a good idea but I have a couple questions. Does the wax get really hard and brittle in freezing weather (like sub zero)? Do you get wax all over the place every time you access the area where it is applied? I epoxied a transducer directly to the inside of my hull once and it worked fine.

Nodak7 · Jul 19, 2013

jibes138 said:
This sounds like a good idea but I have a couple questions. Does the wax get really hard and brittle in freezing weather (like sub zero)? Do you get wax all over the place every time you access the area where it is applied? I epoxied a transducer directly to the inside of my hull once and it worked fine.

Jibes, one reason I used plumbers putty rather than wax was the cleanup issue. I know that the Putty will withstand -30 degrees f and still hold. It has a number of times and has been in place for 3 years.

Roadking Larry · Jul 19, 2013

You might want to try using a hair drier to soften the wax a bit before setting the transducer to ensure a good contact

Around here during the summer we use hair driers to cool things down

Merlin Clark · Jul 19, 2013

I wouldn't use wax in a place you access, like a storage locker.

Steve Dion · Jul 19, 2013

Just epoxy it to the hull.

If you hull is cored, it may not work properly.

rgranger · Jul 19, 2013

jibes138 said:
... I epoxied a transducer directly to the inside of my hull once and it worked fine.

Me too but my current boat has a through hull transducer. On my previous boats I made a circular dam out of masking tape, put the transducer in the void and filled it up with resin. I think I used the cheap ester resin (polyester from auto-zone). It cures nice and hard and no mess. No problems and I had a great signal. I also like the plumber's putty idea. I use plumber's putty for a lot of other things on my boats but never thought to do that with it. It is a good thing to have in your spare parts bucket. I use it for emergency leaks around windows, ports, hatches and keel pivot pins etc. Smash it in place... things stay dry until you can get back home and fix it right.

Wax ring

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