Propeller -- Paint or Polish?

[Dockhead]

Mine has always been polished, or to be more accurate, wire-brushed, but in any case bare bronze.


But I get lifted at least twice, and usually 3 or 4 times a year. What about a boat on a long long distance cruise where the hull might get cleaned underwater, but it might be a year or more between haulouts? Is it better to paint?


Grateful for comments.

[mvweebles]

I used Petit prop paint on previous haul/paint. Relatively inexpensive but didn't seem to do much. Last haul I took out a second mortgage and went with Prop Speed. Worked exceeding well - growth was easily removed. Despite expense (easily over $300 for a single prop), I'm a buyer

Peter

[rslifkin]

I've been using Pettit Black Widow on my props and shafts. They now sell it with a primer as their "Running Gear Guardian" kit, so I guess they also decided it was good for that use. It's a pretty slippery hard paint, but unlike something like Propspeed, it has antifouling properties rather than relying only on being slippery.



I'll know on Tuesday what my props look like after this season. Last year, after 6 months in fresh water, I had no zebra mussels on any of the running gear, no vegetation, none of those weird growths I see on a lot of boats around here. Just a light coat of slime on the shafts, rudders, struts, and trim tabs (wiped right off with a bare finger). Props were completely clean to the touch.



The first year, I had a few spots that didn't adhere great, so this year, I stripped everything back down and used Primocon instead of the Pettit zinc primer. We'll see if that helps the situation. The paint held up great wear-wise though, the brush marks that I didn't polish out fully were still there on the prop tips, etc. Basically no detectable wear at all.

[beetle]

I put the Black Widow slippery paint on the bronze prop, cleaned and primed as per Petit's tech support guys and instructions. It lasted three months of use and then zero value after that. No value there for me.

[dougweibel]

I've been using PropSpeed going on 5 years. It has done great on our running gear for as long as it remains in good condition. You need to clean it gently. It is fairly fragile and getting more than two years out of a coating is tough. Our last application went three years but it was severely compromised at that point.