Anti-fouling my prop?

[Bathdave]

I have a kiwi folding prop.which seems to be made of some type of composite.

My 'boat man' doesn't want to anti foul it, saying grease would be better.

The person I bought the boat from did anti foul it.

When I had her cleaned and A/F 'd last summer, I put some anti fogging oil on it

When she was lifted out a couple of weeks ago, the prop was quite mucky, and had some very small barnacles, and some growth around the rope utter.- six months of time in the water.

What would you do?

 

[Sneaky Pete]

I have a bronze prop it is undercoated and anti-fouled. It will have a very small amount of crud on it at the end of the season which is easily scraped off. If there is no anti-foul then a build up of barnacles or whatever will reduce efficiency of prop.

 

[duncan99210]

The Kiwi prop manual suggests that the use of antifoul is essential to preserve the performance of the prop. The boatman is following a long line of folks who rub all sorts of stuff on props with little effect.

 

[prv]

I tried the polishing and grease route when our Volvo folding prop was new (I didn't have much confidence in it, but easier to try polishing while brand new rather than after it's been painted).

We had a healthy crop of barnacles after a few months, I ended up swimming down with a chisel and scraping them off while anchored.

We paint it with hard antifoul now.

Pete

 

[yotter]

I have a 3 bladed feathering Kiwiprop on a Volvo sail drive. I use International Trilux on the prop and sail drive leg. Trilux is a hard antifoul and I understand that it is well suited for use on props (it is also non copper which is essential to prevent the alloy sail drive leg dissolving.
Angus

 

[superheat6k]

Trying the Seajet triple pack system this year. The base coat is a form of liquid araldite like epoxy. The top coat is simply two coats of Seajet emperor. I went for black as I consider this will be less encouraging of growth. Barnacles on the props have buggered my speed and fuel consumption by mid season the past two years - 1 Lanolin (complete waste of space), 2 hammerite special metal primer with a single coat of the same antifoul as used elsewhere - Micron CSC Extra 2 - all worn off but the hammerite was stuck like poo to a blanket, as were the barnacles to the hammerite - the props looked like a couple of round gorse bushes when the boat was hauled out.

 

[Dipper]

I'm going to try Velox Plus this year.

http://www.navigatorsmarine.co.uk/velox.php

I used lanolin last year which was such a complete failure that I struggled to motor 400m from my mooring to the crane for lift out.

 

[eddystone]

I'm sure Velox is the bees knees but I happen to have some Hempel Mille Drive and primer left over from when I had an outboard - any experience of using this on bronze props - and what about doing prop shaft as well - I've been warned off that?

 

[sailorman]

I'm sure Velox is the bees knees but I happen to have some Hempel Mille Drive and primer left over from when I had an outboard - any experience of using this on bronze props - and what about doing prop shaft as well - I've been warned off that?

i use Mille drive every year then add a couple of coats of hard boot top a/f, i do not get any growth
this is after 13 months afloat

 

[G12]

I'm going to try Velox Plus this year.

http://www.navigatorsmarine.co.uk/velox.php

I am also trying Velox for the first time this year based on Vyv Cox's recommendation. I bought mine from www.marinesuperstore.com and they were VERY nicely priced for half litre tins of primer and AF About £60 for both. I've already painted it on ready for launch. I was super clean with the prep and followed the instructions to the letter (Download them, they're not on the tin) so I'm hoping all will be well or at least better than last year that saw me making two swims with a scraper and wire brush.

 

[vyv_cox]

I'm sure Velox is the bees knees but I happen to have some Hempel Mille Drive and primer left over from when I had an outboard - any experience of using this on bronze props - and what about doing prop shaft as well - I've been warned off that?

That is the second time in a week that someone has posted a received warning about antifouling prop shafts. I cannot think of any reason why this should be so and I have been painting mine for 30 years. There are a couple of photos on the website of crevice corrosion on a prop shaft beneath either splashes of paint or possibly barnacles, but the shaft was found to be magnetically attracted, indicating that it is probably an inferior 400 series material.

In the past I have used hard and boot-topping A/Fs on props but found they eroded fairly quickly, which I have not found with Velox.

There is a possible slight bonus over having no growth, which is that a coat of paint may make the anode's work a little easier in reducing the area of galvanically active metals.

 

[xeitosaphil]

i'm going to try velox plus this year.

http://www.navigatorsmarine.co.uk/velox.php

i am also trying velox for the first time this year based on vyv cox's recommendation. I bought mine from www.marinesuperstore.com and they were very nicely priced for half litre tins of primer and af about £60 for both. I've already painted it on ready for launch. I was super clean with the prep and followed the instructions to the letter (download them, they're not on the tin) so i'm hoping all will be well or at least better than last year that saw me making two swims with a scraper and wire brush.

It sounds a great product and I hope it works, I’m sure it will if applied in the correct conditions.

You must have better weather down in Cornwall than we have here in Devon, because we haven’t had 20 degrees C for 3 hrs + since Midsummer last year?

 

[dnickj]

I have a kiwi folding prop.which seems to be made of some type of composite.

My 'boat man' doesn't want to anti foul it, saying grease would be better.

The person I bought the boat from did anti foul it.

When I had her cleaned and A/F 'd last summer, I put some anti fogging oil on it

When she was lifted out a couple of weeks ago, the prop was quite mucky, and had some very small barnacles, and some growth around the rope utter.- six months of time in the water.

What would you do?

Hi I have the same prop and I A/F the blades with whatever I am putting on the hull and give all the Stainless bits a good coating of waterproof grease - find this has worked for the last 5 years

 

[greggron]

I'm going to try Velox Plus this year.

http://www.navigatorsmarine.co.uk/velox.php

I am also trying Velox for the first time this year based on Vyv Cox's recommendation. I bought mine from www.marinesuperstore.com and they were VERY nicely priced for half litre tins of primer and AF About £60 for both. I've already painted it on ready for launch. I was super clean with the prep and followed the instructions to the letter (Download them, they're not on the tin) so I'm hoping all will be well or at least better than last year that saw me making two swims with a scraper and wire brush.

Ditto - going this route too - Vyv better be right

 

[G12]

It sounds a great product and I hope it works, I’m sure it will if applied in the correct conditions.

You must have better weather down in Cornwall than we have here in Devon, because we haven’t had 20 degrees C for 3 hrs + since Midsummer last year?

Prop painted at home in the same warm environment that I do all my varnishing in.


I should also add that it's single pack paint so as long as you don't get any condensation on it at night then you're only going to suffer with long drying times.

 

[RichardS]

I have a 3 bladed feathering Kiwiprop on a Volvo sail drive. I use International Trilux on the prop and sail drive leg. Trilux is a hard antifoul and I understand that it is well suited for use on props (it is also non copper which is essential to prevent the alloy sail drive leg dissolving.
Angus

I've used Trilux 33 on both my prop and on the saildrive leg for several years now, re-coating every 2 years. It loses it's white colour and goes greenish quite quickly but it works well with just a coating of slime. Mediterranean marina.

Richard

 

[ianj99]

I have a kiwi folding prop.which seems to be made of some type of composite.

My 'boat man' doesn't want to anti foul it, saying grease would be better.

The person I bought the boat from did anti foul it.

When I had her cleaned and A/F 'd last summer, I put some anti fogging oil on it

When she was lifted out a couple of weeks ago, the prop was quite mucky, and had some very small barnacles, and some growth around the rope utter.- six months of time in the water.

What would you do?

I sprayed my Kiwi's blades with Prp o Drev - about 6 -8 coats (took the blades off to do it and regreased the posts), and also sprayed the hub as well. After 21months continuous immersion the blades are clean, but there were a few barnacles on the hub but but none preventing the blades from feathering.

I painted the engine water intake with some left over Trilux boot top and this seemed to work the best so will spray the blades with the remaining P o D and brush paint the hub with Trilux this month.

If you don't AF the blades, you'll regret it - doesn't take many barnacles to reduce the prop efficiency and lose you a lot of speed.

 

[xeitosaphil]

Prop painted at home in the same warm environment that I do all my varnishing in.


I should also add that it's single pack paint so as long as you don't get any condensation on it at night then you're only going to suffer with long drying times.

That's a great idea, I never thought of that, I thought you were doing it in a boat yard which is not the ideal conditions to do it in this time of year, temperature wise.

I used a silicon/ epoxy product last year and will be interested how it performed when the boat next goes ashore for antifouling. If it doesn't perform well, I will possibly try Velox Plus as an alternative having seen the responses on this post.

Thanks for the tip and heads up

Philip

 

[G12]

That's a great idea, I never thought of that, I thought you were doing it in a boat yard which is not the ideal conditions to do it in this time of year, temperature wise.

I used a silicon/ epoxy product last year and will be interested how it performed when the boat next goes ashore for antifouling. If it doesn't perform well, I will possibly try Velox Plus as an alternative having seen the responses on this post.

Thanks for the tip and heads up

Philip

I used an epoxy/silicone product a few years back. Despite careful preparation the epoxy primer as well as all the silicone was missing from the prop at the end of the season. I can't remember the name of it now - might have been Pellerclean or something like that. The other major downside was that it made the propeller sing. Sounds a lot like shaft whine but was the prop. This stopped during the season as the product fell off....

Won't be using it again..... I hope the velox works because I reckon for £60 I have enough for about 5 years.

 

[xeitosaphil]

I used an epoxy/silicone product a few years back. Despite careful preparation the epoxy primer as well as all the silicone was missing from the prop at the end of the season. I can't remember the name of it now - might have been Pellerclean or something like that. The other major downside was that it made the propeller sing. Sounds a lot like shaft whine but was the prop. This stopped during the season as the product fell off....

Won't be using it again..... I hope the velox works because I reckon for £60 I have enough for about 5 years.

That's the stuff Pellerclean , right PITA stuff to use with it's crucial over coating times and mixing ratio's. will be glad to here if Velox plus is a success or not, as it also seems better value for money if it works?

Philip