Keel refinishing

[Fotoman]

I have a Hunter 34 and the keel is pretty rusted. It's pealing in many places. Since it's made of steel, I assume I have to buff it back to metal but I'm not sure what to do next. Do I just paint right over or should I coat it with epoxy or something else?

Thanks

[olepedersen]

I would sandblast and immediately put on coal tar epoxy, I do it on my northern boat about every 5 yrs. Oh immediately is within 20 min

[svHyLyte]

Sand blast it, Ospho and then fill and fair the voids with epoxy thickened with micro-balloons, wire wheel brush to shiny metal surface and then epoxy coat before painting. Following the foregoing you will only need to repeat for localized minor damage which seems unavoidable.

FWIW...

s/v HyLyte

[Fotoman]

Thanks. But waht is Ospho?

[captjcook]

Ospho is a phosphoric acid solution widely available in the states, I prefer Metal-Ready from POR-15 Inc. It leaves a preferable phosphate residue IMHO.
Jim

[jaga]

Do you guys remove the keel for this? Otherwise it would not be totally 'encapsulated with the epoxy, and somewhere (along the seam with the hull) you'd have an edge for potential moisture intrusion between the coating and the metal. I'm curious because I have a cast iron keel and have been wanting to do something like this. Just want to know the potential weak areas to make sure they're adequately addressed. Maybe this isn't an issue?

[svHyLyte]

In our case the problem areas have been in the lower 1/3rd of the keel. Never the less, we treated the entire keel and then laid a bead of caulking along the "smile line" at the keel stub-ballast keel joint before applying bottom paint and have had no problems in the area.

s/v HyLyte