Rusty 'Sky' dish

"Tim Jones" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the advice guys. If anything, the dish is less exposed than
other dishes around here, as it is under the eves and in a 12 ft alleyway
to the next house. About a third of the dish is rusty. This hasn’t
affected reception, but the wife is not best pleased with the look of the
thing (to put it mildly).

The eBay seller described it as a Sky dish, but as there was no branding
whatsoever on the packaging I was wondering if it was just a cheapo tin
copy. Perhaps the official dishes simply have more paint on them.
Anyway, I’ll try a clean-up and coat of paint, and see how that goes.

Thanks again.

I bought a dish off Ebay about 5 years ago for about £12 including the LNB.
When it arrived it was a Raven dish and has been excellent for my parent's
"freeSky" and looks as good as new despite 5 years in the Welsh rural
climate!

My own dish here was on the house when we moved in some six years ago and
although unbranded and a dull matt grey colour, it shows no sign of rust. I
wonder if you've just got a rogue dish with an insufficient paint covering?

New dishes are pretty cheap, and I'd be tempted to replace it rather than
messing about rubbing down and painting it.

Tim Jones wrote:


I thought of Hammerite, but doesn't this contain metal, and so likely to
interfere with reception?

I'd doubt if it would matter, the disk itself is a reflector. As long as
you are not painting the LNB.

Pete

--
http://www.petezilla.co.uk

"Ivan" wrote in message
...


" wrote in message
...
On Apr 24, 11:35 am, Petert wrote:
On Sat, 24 Apr 2010 08:59:11 +0100, Tim Jones

wrote:
I bought a ‘Sky’ dish from eBay eighteen months ago and am annoyed to
find that it has already gone quite rusty, even though all the
‘official’ Sky dishes in this area (even those that have been up for
years) are fine.

I would like to replace it, so as to avoid continual repainting, but
how
can I tell if a replacement dish won’t go rusty? Are Sky dishes made
of
aluminium? Is there a recommended manufacturer or source?

Grateful for any advice.

Does the dish still work OK - i.e. are you still able to receive a
good signal at your STB?

If so, treat it as you would your garage door - paint it - far cheaper
than replacing it :-)
--
Cheers

Peter

(Reply to address is a spam trap - pse reply to the group)

Yes, there's no reason why you shouldn't get the rust off (you can buy
that chemical stuff from motoring shops) then paint it. If you replace
it you could paint the new one.


Or maybe aerosol smooth dark grey Hammerite?


When I recently upgraded to Sky+HD 1TB (?) the installer's manager also
attended - I won't bore you with the reasons why - and he insisted on
replacing my old dish with a new one "because it had gone matt and this
reduces the efficiency of the dish". I didn't challenge this because it was
costing me nothing except a bit of a mess where new holes were drilled into
the brickwork but it did strike me as a bit odd that an essentially metal
reflector will work better if the paint on it is
shiny.............................?

Chas

On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:32:22 +0100, "Chas Gill"
wrote:


When I recently upgraded to Sky+HD 1TB (?) the installer's manager also
attended - I won't bore you with the reasons why - and he insisted on
replacing my old dish with a new one "because it had gone matt and this
reduces the efficiency of the dish". I didn't challenge this because it was
costing me nothing except a bit of a mess where new holes were drilled into
the brickwork but it did strike me as a bit odd that an essentially metal
reflector will work better if the paint on it is
shiny.............................?

Would they have been able to charge extra for replacing the dish and
thereby making some extra money?

--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)

Twitto wrote:
: These are horrible, cheap, rust-prone things that cost Sky only about
: £3 and are designed so that you have to keep replacing them at the
: cost of a call-out.

But he just said that it *WAS NOT* a genuine Sky dish!!!!!! Just one off
eBay which was far more prone to rust than the Sky ones.

Hammerite and a brush

Peter Chant wrote:
Tim Jones wrote:

I thought of Hammerite, but doesn't this contain metal, and so likely to
interfere with reception?

I'd doubt if it would matter, the disk itself is a reflector. As long as
you are not painting the LNB.

Pete

Hammerite does not contain metal AFAIK, but it is also poor at
protecting against rust. Cars get a very hard life as far as rust goes
and hammerite is frowned upon. I can say from experience it does not
work at protecting against rust for any useful length of time, 6 months
at best.

A galvanised (hot dip, not electroplated) dish will last the longest,
preferably painted aswell.

As for protection or repainting, you could use galvanising paint such as
Zinga (96% zinc), but this will form a new dish (as it is conductive)
and unless you spray it, it may affect the S/N from the dish due to the
irregularities of brushing. However rust doesn't seem to affect it much
so maybe it doesn't matter. Zinga, or Galvanised surfaces can be top
coated after using an etch primer.

If you really want to do the job properly you have to strip all the
paint and rust off, and re-coat with at least zinc electroplate, primer
and a good top coat. However the rust may have caused pitting and that
again may cause problems with S/N.

Internal rustproofing material like waxol may not stand up to UV,
regular rain washing and may also collect dirt.

Frankly there are no easy answers and hopefully you can see that
re-coating a dish takes many stages and alot of hard work, if a new dish
cost £60 I would go for that. You are not going to do much good with a
brush and a pot of paint alone.

--
Tony

Mike Henry wrote:
: The two are not mutually exclusive; I'm sure it's possible to by the
: genuine dishes from eBay too.

Most certainly¬ But as other dishes in his area which HAD been installed by
Sky were *NOT* rusting it was a fair guess that it was a cheap copy!

Certainly more probable than immediately slagging off the quality of all Sky
dishes!

"Peter Duncanson" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:32:22 +0100, "Chas Gill"
wrote:


When I recently upgraded to Sky+HD 1TB (?) the installer's manager also
attended - I won't bore you with the reasons why - and he insisted on
replacing my old dish with a new one "because it had gone matt and this
reduces the efficiency of the dish". I didn't challenge this because it
was
costing me nothing except a bit of a mess where new holes were drilled
into
the brickwork but it did strike me as a bit odd that an essentially metal
reflector will work better if the paint on it is
shiny.............................?

Would they have been able to charge extra for replacing the dish and
thereby making some extra money?

--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)

I assumed at the time that they bill Sky for all "necessary" work done and
that this little "extra" would have been added on. I paid nothing more than
the standard install fee.

Sky dishes are painted steel. In general, the newer they are, the
flimsier they are.
The older centre-mounted type are very strong and mount solidly. You
can tell them, apart from the centre rear mounting on an L shaped
tubular bracket, by the smaller (or rather,thinner) arm for the lnb.
Dont assume that letting them change one of those for a new one is
doing you any favours. The newer ones with a sideways rear arm which
"swings" are much flimsier and logic says that they cannot be mounted
rigidly. A strong wind or an accidental knock will almost certainly
knock them off beam even if the installer did bother to tighten the
bolts.
The main reason that they change them is that newer LNBs supplied by
Sky do not have the small plastic adaptor supplied to allow them to
fit the older dishes. I wouldn't be supprised if the installer can
claim more on a call-out if they change the dish as well.

Triax make a range of fibreglass dishes which are not that cheap but
they will stand almost any weather conditions.