Who adds extras to their antifoul?

[Wildrice]

Hi Alan

I may just add the copper powder on the next haul-out. Problem is finding places to haul without going hundreds of miles too get to a place that can handle a 23 ft beam.(not many lifts that I've found near Jacksonville. I think one of my problems is hiring divers to clean the bottom using their power brush which also reduces the amount of paint more quickly than hand scraping.

keith

[S/V Illusion]

It's good to remember that it is not how much copper is contained in the paint but how it is released, i.e., how it becomes available. Simply adding copper in any form although it may make you feel better, probably gives nothing more than a feeling it works better which is usually followed by some highly subjective "test" to confirm what you want to see.
Guess it's a sign of the times that we've become so cynical to believe the piant mfgs wouldn't have done any research to find a better mouse-trap if it were readily available.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by Wildrice

I may just add the copper powder on the next haul-out.

Simply adding "copper powder" (whatever that is) to a typical anti fouling paint is unlikely to produce results. For one, the copper component in anti fouling paint is a specific form of copper, usually cuprous oxide or another copper variant, not wire scrapings or garden store stuff or whatever. For another, what Alan suggested was to add copper to an epoxy resin, not anti fouling paint (this, BTW, is almost certainly guaranteed to fail.) A typical anti fouling paint is a complex matrix designed by chemists who (thoretically) know what they are doing, to leach cuprous oxide at a proscribed rate. Adding copper at random (whatever its form) is unlikely to improve the performance of that matrix.

To touch on Alan's suggestion, if you were to mix some form of copper into an epoxy resin and then paint your hull with it, what you'd have is an expensively painted hull that would have little or no anti fouling capabilities at all. For any anti fouling to work, the product must have a mechanisim to deliver the toxin to the surface of the product. This homemade version would not do that. It's likely that very little copper would actually be present at the surface. A modified epoxy paint or a copper-loaded resin (like Copperpoxy) are not simply epoxies with copper added.

[Wildrice]

Aldative paint should wash away exposing the new paint with the copper if the powder was properly mixed. Where would you obtain copper oxide powder. Remember we were talking of hauling a 23 foot beam boat, and anything that would prolong the time between haul-outs if even for a few months would be a bonus. Thats why I ask these questions before buying because I know someone has already been their and done that. Anyway have a nice day.


Keith

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by Wildrice

Aldative paint should wash away exposing the new paint with the copper if the powder was properly mixed.

If improving the performance of anti fouling paints (ablative or otherwise) was as easy as dumping in some copper powder and mixing it up, everybody would have been doing it for decades. I think you're trying to reinvent the wheel.

[Alan Wheeler]

I agree with many of the points fstbttms has made above. I should have been more clear in my original post. It was meant to be more tounge in cheek that what it appears.
The money poured into R&D by paint manufacturers is huge. The one that comes up with the "cure all" to anti-foul, is going to be the holder of the Holy Grail for Anti-foul. So far there have been many attempts, but no cigar.
As for the Epoxy/copper coatings. I just don't see that justification of cost vs effectivenss. IMO, from what I have seen thus far, it simply does not work. Or at least, it doesn't work well.
I just read a month or two back, yet another anti-foul idea that makes me scratch my head in wonderment. A large copper anode is attached and hung in the water at the bow and a cathode of something? at the stern. A current is applied and the copper migrates from the Bow to the stern producing a copper rich water environment around the hull to deter all flora and fauna and critters. Hmmmm, yeah..right.

[S/V Illusion]

Alan
Ever hear of a comedian from the U.S. named W.C. Fields?

[Alan Wheeler]

I have heard the name, but can't say I can place anything with the name. If you asked me if he was an actor, a writer or a comedian, I would have gone with the writer.
OK, so why do you ask?? and...do I want to ask you that question? I seem to feel something is loaded here :-)

[GordMay]

W.C. Fields was the American comedic actor (stage, screen, and radio), and alcoholic, quoted as saying:
“It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money.”
and
“Never give a sucker an even break.”

[S/V Illusion]

Alan
My point in asking about W.C. Fields was, as Gord correctly pointed out, that the paint mfgs would have already done it if additives were of any utility and putting anything in bottom paint implies this alchemist approach is nothing other than a feel-good solution only done by those to whom W.C. referred.

[hellosailor]

"I have heard the name, but can't say I can place anything with the name."
Wheels, I'm almost embarasssed to ask, but are you sure you are over 21? [vbg]

Perhaps you've also not heard of Mae West? Not the life vest, not the internet backbone hub, but the actress Mae West? A contemporary of Mr. Fields?

You really must chase down his movies on DVD, one of his classic lines was that he drank booze not water because "because "f-f-f-f-fish f-f-f-f-f**k in it."

[Alan Wheeler]

Wheels, I'm almost embarasssed to ask, but are you sure you are over 21? [vbg]

Yeah and I think that fact is really the problem. IT's not that I possibly haven't hear of W.C, it's more likely it is a memory I have trouble digging back up. I seem to remember now, does the guy speak with a rather strange, maybe essentric accent??

Hey now you have also brought up another interesting question. Why are those old Life jackets called Mae West. Is it a ligit name, or were they named after Mae West. Which brings to mind that if they were a "nicknamed" after Mae West the actress, maybe she was ...errrr...had good floation devices???

[Steve Pope]

Youve got it first time Alan, she was the Dolly Parton of the day!!
A thought on the antifoul, or back to the issue, why would the paint manufacturers want to make a longer lasting (better) product, it isn't in their interest as they would have to price it so high to maintain the huge margins that they already make that no one could afford it.

[AnchorageGuy]

Originally Posted by Steve Pope

Youve got it first time Alan, she was the Dolly Parton of the day!!
A thought on the antifoul, or back to the issue, why would the paint manufacturers want to make a longer lasting (better) product, it isn't in their interest as they would have to price it so high to maintain the huge margins that they already make that no one could afford it.

Ahhh, and yet another conspiracy

[Alan Wheeler]

Ahhh, and yet another conspiracy

Which, Mae West or making long lasting anti-foul?
I don't know why people keep thinking that manufactures don't want to make something that lasts because then they won't sell enough. The holy grail is to find the best. Trust me, people will pay. Just look at what people pay for Copperpoxy. It can cost around NZ$10K here in NZ to do the bottom and yet people pay it.