James,

I know of an oak building not so far away where, although s/s bolts were used, the posts sit in galv 'shoes'. The galvanising on the 'shoes' has been attacked and they have rusted after under 2 years.

I know little re s/s in buildings, but have some knowledge re replacement motorcycle parts, where different grades were available for different uses.

Nick

Use hex torx screws

My experince using oak is to use normal wood bits and drills, just make sure they are sharp.
Oak will blunt everything quite quickly, so need to keep checking.
Use a normal circular saw but make sure its still square if its been used already if you want nice square cuts

A while back I had to replace some oak frames on my boat they were only 30mm square so this may not work for you, but an old boat builder gave me a great tip: get hold of an old bicycle wheel and cut the spokes out to the length you need heat one end and flatten it and hey presto a drill bit to make a pilot hole in oak! it really did work for me a bit Heath Robinson but saved me a fortune in drill bits.

What they all said.
Decent quality stainless parts. Galvanized not good... You don't want Zinc around that tannin.
V.sharp tools.

All screws to go into pilot holes (never into plain timber).

Should be fine and extra setup expense repaid in lifetime.

Think about finish you want. Left to itself outside oak will silver. Alternatively you can oil it. Or you can laquer/varnish it tho I wouldn't.

Auger bits for cutting bolt holes. Slow drill speed. Reversible drill in case the auger sticks. Side handle to protect the wrists. Twist drills are fine for pilot holes.

If using stainless screws get proper wood screws with a tapering shank (i.e. fatter at the head end). The modern sort with parallel shanks are inclined to shear at the head if too much torque is applied.

Galvanized is OK for concealed metalwork but use a generous layer of bedding compound (a polyurethane mastic is good) between the metal and the oak to inhibit corrosion. Same for galvanized bolts - give them a good coating of bedding compound before driving them home.

Silicon bronze is best, of course, for all fastenings and metalwork.

Posted By: gustyturbineYou are correct. Stainless varies greatly in quality. You get what you pay for for the most part but check the grade you are being sold,

Can you be a bit more specific?

My limited understanding: the usual grades are A2 and A4. A2 is stronger/less brittle but A4 is more corrosion resistant in weird applications. Would I be right to guess you'd be better to use A2 for external oak?

If you look at an online supplier like:

http://www.westfieldfasteners.co.uk/ScrewBolt_M.html

they use the terms A2 and A4 for the main grades.

According to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stainless_steel#Types_of_stainless_steel

these correspond to the 304 and 316 grades, respectively.