With high quality stainless steel alloys, thread galling and cold-welding can make the hardware seize and fail. Although most hams don’t understand why anti-seize is recommended, it is vital to lubricate all stainless steel nuts and bolts.
But don’t just take our word for it. Fastenal® is a major world-supplier of fasteners and associated hardware. This is an excerpt from Fastenal’s website:
“Thread galling is a common, yet seldom understood problem with threaded fasteners. Galling, often referred to as a cold-welding process, can occur when the surfaces of male and female threads are placed under heavy pressure. The frustrating aspect of fastener galling is that galled nuts and bolts may pass all required inspections (threads, material, mechanical, etc.), yet they still fail to function together.”
In precision machined hardware with National Fine threads, like antenna hardware, galling can occur even when finger-tightening nuts and bolts. Once a bit of friction occurs, cold welding will escalate to the point where the hardware will seize. Continued attempts to remove or tighten the hardware will exacerbate the condition, most likely causing the bolt to break.
Jet-Lube Pure Copper Anti-Seize, available from DX Engineering, easily solves galling problems with stainless steel hardware. Not only will the fasteners mate properly, you’ll be able to remove the hardware later without galling and breaking.
