Black bottomed girls

[Sixpence]

I believe that in years gone by , wooden hulls below the waterline were treated with black bitumen paint before the days of nice white plastic . Is this an acceptable form of treatment for a plywood hull , seems to have worked fine for a lot of older boats . So what is the panels opinion ? Does it act as a good waterproofing ? . Does it also act as an antifoul ?

 

[kirielad]

Can't speak for wooden hulls, but a guy in our sailing club has a twin keel Westerly - he just scraped the old coating off the keels and slapped on a tin of Wickes bitumen paint!! He reckons its every bit as good as any 'modern' coating he's tried - and a darn sight cheaper (and looks good too I have to say).

 

[Sixpence]

Thing is , I've already got gallons of bitumen paint and I've seen others too so I'm tempted to use it

 

[Captain Coochie]

Mr Sandy Scott of Eel Pie Island ( may he rest in peace) used to swear by the stuff and he was ye olde sea dog .
I know of one clinker built beach boat that was coated in it and was afloat for years and also Forbsies sharpie if i remember correctly had it's bottom coated with it . As soon as he scraped it off it sank /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Mudplugger]

Reliably informed that the reason most of the "old gaffers" and smacks and barges, survived was due to the amount of bitumen used! but I suspect that the anti-fouling characteristics probably lacked a certain something.

 

[Sixpence]

Poor old Forbsie , where is he when I need him /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Sixpence]

To be honest I'm not too worried about anti foul

 

[fishermantwo]

Not too sure about covering the whole bottom with bitumen. Locally the owners of older boats like myself use bitumen mixed with garden lime. Lime is added to the bitumen till a putty like mixture is achieved and this is used as a filler on the underwater sections. Gribble wont go near it.

 

[Captain Coochie]

Lime makes sense . Burns like hell that stuff .

 

[Sixpence]

Sounds good to me , and I'm only thinking of using to the waterline not above , someone wants a royal blue upper hull , and it's not me

 

[Lakesailor]

Royal Blue! Say No!
Too light for a bulbous hull like that. Blakes True Blue is much more the ticket and not as dark as Navy or Flag Blue.

 

[Sixpence]

I think I've won that argument now thanks to your input , she's now thinking about making it an almost black blue so what is the darkest blue without actually being black ?

 

[Lakesailor]

Flag Blue, Interlux Paints

 

[Sixpence]

Bloody hell I'm not telling her that , far as I can see that IS black

 

[rogerthebodger]

When I lived in the UK the marine ply cabin crusers I rebuilt used black bitumen paint filled with a fiber material to seal the ply panels to the wood frames and black bitumen paint over the botton upto the water line. I heated the paint before application to allow it to soak in better. This was in fresh water (river seven and the midland canals) and worked very will once the smell had gone and SWMBO stoped complaining

My current build in steel I am using epoxy tar below the waterling. I think there may be H&S issues in the UK but not here in South Africa.

 

[Lakesailor]

Nip into a chandlers and get some Blakes and International Paints product books with the colour patches in. Looking at them on-screen isn't a very good indication.

For instance: this is True Blue

and so is this

 

[Sixpence]

Nobody yet has mentioned H&S so I'm presuming it's not a problem

 

[Sixpence]

Top pic looks like the colour I'm after , do I dare tell her I'm on the forum in the daytime though /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[rogerthebodger]

Well when I said before about using epoxy tax some one in the UK said it could not be used due to H&S issues

 

[Sixpence]

curious , nobody has said a word and I'm sure somebody would have jumped before now , and if fishing vessels are using it I don't see a problem