Plasma sprayed plastic bottom?

[hellosailor]

The ash tray is full, time to get a new car.


You know, why worry about cleaning the bottom when you can buy a clean new boat?
(G)


The piston coat sounds pretty much like generic Teflon material. It all (all) is "goop" that gets baked to set it, same same as it was applied to your frying pan or anything else. The trick is, not many vendors will just sell you a single pint (or gallon) they'd rather offer you their "application services" and charge for the entire job.


On a prop, I'm told that normal cavitation will pick it off the ends of blades and then start it decaying back from there. But if that piston stuff isn't priced like gold...it might be worth trying anyway.

[a64pilot]

Cavitation will eat even a stainless steel prop, I doubt we see much if any cavitation on a sailboat prop, although as one guy said, if you throw her into full reverse with good forward speed, OK then I see cavitation.

Been since 1981 since I did the piston Kote, but it came in small pint cans I think and couldn't have cost all that much or we wouldn't have tried it. Whether it worked or not was impossible to quantify.
We bead blasted the pistons to get them perfectly clean and to prep them before application.

[TFrere]

I like the idea of a plastic bottom coat. However, I would think an epoxy barrier coat is nearly the same concept.


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[fstbttms]

Practical Sailor panned the stuff:

Tefcite Coating Fails Static Panel Test at 1 Year

Our quest for new antifouling paints recently took us into the world of long-life spray-on coatings promoted in the commercial-shipping industry. While the spray-on, thermoplastic composite powder Tefcite may work well on a ship that’s moving at 13 knots for most of its working life, it failed surprisingly fast in our static panel tests.

Tefcite Coating Fails Static Panel Test at 1 Year - Practical Sailor Print Edition Article

[Tefcite Coating]

I've heard of the plasma sprayed anti-foulant boat coating and have tested the product in the San Francisco Bay Area for ~4.5 years. The product appears to be performing as claimed in my testing. It's very durable...I let it foul for month with hard growth and was able to scrape it all off without damaging the coating. Happy to talk more about it...Zach

[Tefcite Coating]

FYI..the Practical Sailor testing in FL was not performed with a Tefcite plate provided by the manufacturer - so you know. It was provided by a licensee in FL and the company that makes Tefcite does not know where he got the "Tefcite" powder that was sprayed and tested.

Practical Sailor finally (last week) responded to a message asking them to re-test a Tefcite plate provided by the manufacturer so stay tuned.

[Tefcite Coating]

In response to Tefcite being "like an epoxy barrier coating" - I'd say yes/no.

Tefcite is a barrier coat that that protects fiberglass from hull blistering, however, it's a thermoplastic NOT a thermoset (like epoxy paint). IT would be like comparing carbon fiber to wood, yes they are both composites, but they are made from two different materials.

It's a barrier and anti-foulant coating combined into one coating, using a single application.

I cannot mention my website in my response, but if you Google search Tefcite, their is a lot more testing information than Practical Sailor offers.

[Tefcite Coating]

We have plasma sprayed plastic and powdered copper metal to steel, fiberglass and carbon fiber boat hulls.

[Tefcite Coating]

It's actually not Teflon at all, it does not work by being slick - Tefcite works because of the the copper metal powder, that's is what gives it it's anti-foulant properties. The use of a thermoplastic not a fluoropolymer (i.e. Teflon), gives the coating it's durability and resilience against sea salt corrosion due to it's resistance to absorbing water on it's surface.

Also it's a powder not a "goop" is sprayed on thin and you must build the coating. Your right, it is more expensive, but if it last 30 years, then all you have to do is hull out and clean it, not hull out and re-apply paint. A typical ~40ft sailboat would take dawn to dust to clean and re-launch, eliminating the need for drydock fees, hazardous chemical disposal costs, and degradation to the environment. Seems like a win-win to me.

[Tefcite Coating]

The Peryton sailboat has had the Tefcite coating on it for 29 years. Tefcite was originally applied to the boat in Ft. Myers FL, and then spent over 16 years in New Orleans...where real biofouling happens every day. They cleaned it by hydroblasting the fiberglass hull for ~30min, then re-launched the boat the same day. Pretty hassle free.

[hellosailor]

I'm confused here, as usual. PLASMA spraying involves basically trickling metal DUST into an acetylene torch flame, turning the metal dust into metal plasma, which then condenses and forms new metal on the target material.

AFAIK you can't do that with plastics, they don't form plasma. They just combust.

Powder coat with plastics yes, but plasma? Really??

"Tefcite is a thermoplastic composite coating also referred to as a powder coating." Oh, Google is my friend. So much for that one.

Comes with a ten year moneyback performance guarantee, from a bonded or insured source too, no doubt. (Should be easy, with that 30 year track record.)

[Tefcite Coating]

The problem with Teflon is if you vaporize it turns in to HF gas which is the worst type of fumes.

Yes, they can spray plastics. It's not trivial endeavor and there is a lot of physics but it can be done with a variety of thermoplastic powders.

[hellosailor]

Yes, they do "spray" plastics.
The point is, no one PLASMA sprays plastics. Plastics are normally used in powder coating. Totally different.
So when someone refers to plasma spraying plastics, that's a red flag that says the person may not be technically intimate with the product and process.

[Tefcite Coating]

Well, I spray plastics with a plasma spray system. The technology came out of military aerospace so it's not something that you can buy off the shelf - it's custom/proprietary.

The use of a plasma is a more "pure" heat source compared to induction or flame spray. It's a matter of the melting point of the polymer and getting the powder in and out of the plasma with enough time to melt but not vaporize it.

I'd beg to differ that I'm not technically intimate with the product and process since I'm the one that does it. Happy to discuss it further - I find it fascinating.

Hope that helps.

[fstbttms]

I have had multiple conversations with the Bay Area Tefcite rep, Zach Hall (whom I presume is "Tefcite Coating.") He has provided me with pix and video of his product. It does seem to perform as advertised. So far, that is. I am not ready to yet recommend it to any of my clients that they use Tefcite, however.