Good Directions 585ST Stainless Steel Eave Mount
The good:
- Welds are perfect on one I received and almost perfect on another one -- much better than on the Amazon photo
- Stainless steel body has zero magnetism, which says that it's high quality.
- The two set screws and 1/4" x 2" lag screws are also high quality stainless steel.
- Looks great at first glance (see below).
Not so good:
- With the first one I received, the mounting tube was not square to the base in either direction. If the base was mounted parallel to the ground, the weathervane holding tube would slant to the left. The top also tilted away from the mounting plate, as shown in the photos.
I got a second one and the top on that one is square to the mounting plate, but the the vertical tube slants to the right. Be aware of any slants before drilling all of the holes for the bracket. This is the one shown in the one bolted to a tool shed – notice the base had to be turned for the holding tube to be vertical.
- The inside of the vertical tube on the first mount I received had a bead of welding slag all the way down an inside seam. Since the mount will receive a 3/4" copper tube (nearly 7/8" O.D.), I would have had to to clean up the inside slag for that pipe to fit.
The replacement mount had NO slag so the 3/4" type L copper pipe fits into the mount to a depth of 5.5" with almost no play; the set screws weren’t used (caulked those screw holes); the 1/4" x 2" lag screws are supported by a 2x6 on the opposite side; the fitting just over the stainless mount is a 3/4" to 1" coupling, to shed rain away from going inside of the stainless mount.
Other:
- base is 4" square and the 1/4" screw holes are 3.25" apart in each direction
- tube is 7/8" inside diameter (.875")
- tube is about 1" outside diameter (it’s not perfectly round, so diameter varies slightly)
- tube welded to the base plate projects 5.25" to the far side.
- the vertical tube is 6.5" long.
Summary:
Upon receiving the first mount, I emailed Good Directions (see their web site). To their credit, they said to return it to Amazon and order one directly from them, which is what I did. The replacement is still not square to the base – although that tube was square looking at it from the side and there was no slag inside the vertical tube.
The materials in this bracket are excellent and it looks really nice, but the jig used by the Good Directions welder needs replacement so that new mounts are consistently square in all directions.
