New bronze 3 blade prop

[iseadreamer]

We have been six month cruisers for 21 years. Our propeller is base painted with an epoxy enamel first to avoid the copper in the antifouling paint damaging the prop. Then we paint ablative paint two coats. Our propeller is always cleaner than the boat bottom and the only paint wear is at the very edges of the prop. We can get three seasons with Pettit Ultima SR-60 without needing to redo the prop either. That is in Mexican waters

[Cheechako]

Some things I have tried on props:
-On my catamaran I tried a full can of silcone spray on one prop, put on one thick coat, wait, another coat etc.
-The other prop I hand rubbed with Lanolin. As you may know lanolin is pretty unaffected by water, hard to wash off your hands, even with detergent.
On this experiment the lanolin worked maybe a tad better than the silcone spray. But neither were great in rapid growing barnacle waters.

The problem with bottom paint, even on the bottom, is it doesnt stop growth as well as it kills growth once attached. So if you have large dead barnacles on your prop... no great help.

There is a great answer, and I'm surprise that service isn't out there. I worked in Aerospace and after returning to work after a 1.5 year cruise, I decided to put teflon (like on frying pans) on the prop. I was able to do this as we had parts and an oven that required teflon coating on the airplane. We had the teflon material left over because it was hard to buy in appropriate quantity and everything like that in Aerospace had a date after which you cant use it. So it was either going to hazardous waste disposal or on my prop! Yu spray it on and bake it.
Unfortunately I was back in Northern waters at that time and barnacle growth is slow up there, but it did seem to work. Too slippery for anything to stay on.

[glcalahan]

Very interesting...

[Jim Cate]

I'm surprised that no one has lauded Prop Speed or Prop Gold coatings. After many years of farting around with various bottom paints, greases and other home remedies, I switched to Prop Speed, self applied. It works far better than any of the other methods I tried. Little growth of any sort attaches, and that that does attach can be wiped off with your hand. We get 18 months to 2 years service from each application. The last two times I've used Prop Gold instead, only because my source of small quantities switched brands. Can't tell any difference between them so far.

However, if you do decide to go with epoxy undercoat and hard antifouling, don't let the epoxy set up and then sand. The normal practice for underwater applications is to apply the a/f to the epoxy when the epoxy is just tacky to the touch. This provides a much better bond between the two systems than the method you describe.

Jim

[glcalahan]

I will look at all three!!! Thank you!!

[John L. Cwierz]

Yes my dear friend. STP ADDITIVE. Best regards, John.

[glcalahan]

Thank....wow...who'da thunk it?? Didn't know they were still on the market!