antifoulong a prop

[rob]

I have tried antifouling my prop (2 bladed folder) with mpx, normal hard antifoul, still the old dreaded fouling keeps coming, thus reducing speed under power.

This year I'm trying cleaning and polishing my prop and then smearing all over with grease. Has anyone tried this, and to what effect?

Rob

 

[Gaffer]

I have not tried grease, but it would soon wash off I would think. Having a folding prop would suggest that you have a sailing boat, and I expect that you do not spend days at a time under power as the power boats do, therefore you could use a standard antifouling. There is some eroding antifouling which would be suitable for this because although it is eroding, it is not speed and distance through the water which makes it erode, it is time and to a lesser extent water temperature. Therefore with the use of this your propeller will stay cleaner than with the use of the hard antifouling. Of course this is assuming that your propeller is not aluminum due to the copper content of the eroding antifouling. Speak to the antifouling manufacturers and ask them what what makes their antifouling erode, speed and distance through the water, or time............

 

[Chris_Stannard]

Grease did not work for me. This year I was going to try Lanolin, receommened on a thread some time ago, but could not get any in time so have tried black lead which was also recommended.

Chris Stannard

 

[TimLamb]

I kept a close eye on antifouling threads recently as I've just antifouled my first boat, I also searched for previous theads - I'm pretty sure that black leading was mentioned several times - try a search.

Good luck

Tim

 

[kgi]

you could consider taking your prop into a good plating shop and have it copper plated, that would solve most of your problems, its not that cheap but it does work very well, just make sure your zincs are good.

 

[castaway]

I posted a question about copper plating a prop a few weeks back. Got quite a few answers but none based on real time experience.

Have you actually had experience of this? If so where did you get it done etc. is there any possibility of elecrolysis problems?

Thanks Nick

 

[johnsomerhausen]

I've tried them all.... Polishing, lanolin, Desitin baby cream (with zinc oxyde which is supposed to be antifouling), teflon spray and always got fouling, some more extensive than others. I've now used "Trinidad" hard antifouling by Pettit Paints (65% coppeer oxyde) and it seems to give the best result to date.
john

 

[dickh]

I have tried MPX and found it's not any good - (2 bladed fixed prop on a sailing boat) - and the shaft anode wears a lot quicker. This year I removed the prop, cleaned it up with a fine sanding disc and highly polished it with rubbing compound followed with autosol metal polish - I usually scrub the boat mid season so will have a chance to see if this is effective.

 

[brianrunyard]

I wouldn't think copper plating would be advisable for an aluminium prop, for the same reason that antifouling paint containing copper shouldn't be used.
Any scratches that exposed the aluminium would cause galvanic corrosion between the aluminium prop and the copper plating, soon no prop to worry about.

Brian


Brian
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/brunyard