The ultimate propeller anti-fouling paint

Covering a propeller with grease is a crime in most of the world. It will create a slick as soon as you launch the boat.

 

A better coating is Lanoline. Ive been using it for years with good success. Lanocoat is the brand..a tub lasts for years.

 

Yes, many of our fishermen use lanoline on their props, and as long as the boat is being used everyday it works well.

 

Are we talking about the grease secreted by sheep glands or is there an industrial product using the same name?

There are a lot of sheep on my island, probably 4 or 5 for every human. Their lanolin keeps the wool from being saturated my rain; otherwise the poor animals would be unable to stay on their feet after a rain shower. Their wool is worthless because it is full of thorns, pollen, red earth, bark and ****. It seems lanolin does nothing against that.

 

Hi All My hulls have fine copper dust rolled on in very thin coats with epoxy (the copper settles and the epoxy goes off very quickly but on my 40 ft hulls done in several hours of aching back hard work. The propellers are aluminium and coated in propspeed. Water temperature goes up to about 31 deg Celsius, (bugger, this machine does not have a spelcheck), and all is OK so far.

 

CDK...yep, the very thing.....no barnacles on them is there.....see it works.

 

Just lanoline.

Im not sure what the marine store product Lanocoat is...I suspect 90 percent lanoline. It comes in a spary bottle and a tub . Both are handy around the boat. The spray is good for preventing corrosion on delicate pieces. The grease is good for preventing corrosion between dissimilar metals.

 

Engineer

From one engineer to another, did the Chromoden 2K work as an anti fouling paint for the brass prop?
Earl

 

Would it be a solution to have the prop gilded? Nothing much grows on gold...

 

Earl, let me put it like this.
Compared to bare brass the coating is certainly an improvement. After 6 months in the water, the props are still the cleanest parts under the waterline. But it is not perfect. Algae avoid the props, but very small barnacles are covering the surface. Most can be easily removed, others need real coercion.

The boat will stay at its mooring this winter; I will regularly check the condition of the props.

 

Nothing much grows on gold...is that true or just a thought...I do not know.

 

I share a building with a propeller shop here in Ft Lauderdale. The take mostly 36" and up props, and have been using propspeed for a few years.

It's expensive, but it works. Sometimes I see some burned off at the blade tips, and sometimes there's some slime or maybe one or two very small barnacles.

This in South Florida water where you can watch fouling grow in the time it takes a to drink a refreshing beverage. Temp peaked at 86f this summer, 84 today, warmer in the keys south of here.

 

In my experience marine life forms are quite indiscriminate about metals, except when there is galvanic activity. The buildup on stainless parts is much more severe than on nonconducting surfaces because there is zinc nearby, although I cannot quite fathom why.

Gold should work for organisms relying on chemical bonding like etching, but barnacles use something similar to superglue, that adheres very good on any metal including gold.

Last week another retired engineer gave me a tube of lubricant that may be useful in the combat against barnacles:
http://www.gannonoils.co.uk/images/stories/AGIP_Top_2000.pdf
It looks like ordinary grease but once applied it is impossible to remove without a solvent. I will coat an outboard prop with the stuff and check how it performs there.

 

copper antifouling

Hi mate,
How did the copper antifouling go?
I have some friends who used the much more expensive Coppercote and had mixed results, certainly not enough to make me feel like spending all that money.
I have toyed with the idea of doing what you did, but it would be nice to hear from you if it worked for you.

 

I've seen props coated with a waterproof, setting coating polymer sold as Marine Cable or Wire pulling lubricant that were clean on annual haulout. Was a bit more slippery than 'prop speed'. I don't remember the brand but I posted about it some years ago.

In these waters ( Tasmania) I recommend epoxying props and then antifoul with hard anti fouling and they usually always clean too.