cheap copper powder, and another experiment

I have just spent a very interesting day with the folks at Coprotect and am going to visit the boffins at International tomorrow to research an in depth story about anti-fouling for March issue of MBY.
One of the questions I intend to ask is whether adding copper powder to Trilux makes it more effective (and if so why don't they do it themselves)? Is there anything else the assembled throng would like me to ask?
By talking to the scientists rather than the marketing folk I am hoping to get some straight answers.
TCM (and indeed anyone else who has experimented with various 'miracle cures'), could you e-mail or PM me a few words about your own successes and failures with both conventional and unconventional anti-fouling techniques.
Hugo
 
Matt

Are you going to make commercial quantities and offer it for sale, or are you too retired for that? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Thanks Duncan. What I really meant was whether the principle of adding copper to Trilux or indeed any other anti-fouling has the potential to make it better than a ready made variety using copper oxide and or other biocides. In other words what's the advantage of TCM's DIY mix over something straight out of the tin?
 
well I think he's trying to recreate a copper sheath rather than a chemical af - but without the glue, copper sheets and hard work this time!

not sure why he's using trilux as the base rather than a normal hard af?
 
because I tried loads of different paints and Trilux worked best, it contains Copper Thiocyanate as opposed to Copper Oxide (most paints contain copper oxide). Adding more copper to paint which contained Copper Oxide didn't make much difference but adding it to Trilux created a fearsome mixture /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
Put a thunderflash (a sort of large banger that the army uses to simulate a grenade) into a 4inch piece of steam pipe with the end blocked off.
Followed that with a baked bean can and stood back.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mike,

I'm having difficulty getting Thunderflashes, /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif have you any left over? /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
We used to lob them in a metal dustbin and slap the lid on. I've seen the bin lid clear trees /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Rick
 
What's colour gas? Chlorine is coloured; so is nitrogen peroxide, phosgene and many other gases, but they probably don't react to being poked by a flaming stick /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
I think the advatage is that with neat copper etiher it particle (powder) or sheet form, there is near-pure copper and then hence its oxide. With homogenous paint, they may well have copper compounds but these don't seem to oxidise as well or as much or as effectively - they don't go greenish or not very much as seen by even white a/f paint goes only a teensy bit greenish.

Of course, the other thing is that a 1kilo of copper in a litre of trilux is a whole load of copper. Miles more expensive than most paint - but still lots cheaper than copper protection such as the mosaic stuff (is that cuprotect?)
 
The mosaic stuff has long since been pulled off the market by Cuprotect after what their MD described as "some performance issues" caused by the grouting between the tiles. They now offer a more interesting system based on spraying copper powder (actually a 90:10 copper zinc alloy) onto a tacky epoxy resin. This gives an ubroken surface of copper granules. The theory sounds great and they have testimonials to support it although a journo on one of our raggy titles hasn't been so impressed with it on his boat. Both International and Cuprotect are very sceptical about the idea of mixing copper granules to a conventional anti-fouling claiming that it wouldn't improve the paint's the performance and might actually damage it. Then again, I suppose they would say that!

Any chance you, No 1 Moose and any other DIY devotees can give me a brief update on your latest results which I could work into my full report on anti-fouling in March issue of MBY.

Hugo
 
Yeah, happy to give an update. Having added 350 micron copper powder (fine as talc) to my International AF, I found I hadn't one single barnacle anywhere after a whole season.

Unlike last season where there were fields of them...

And here's the result shortly after painting - its gone greenish now!
54338533030713333a1db939eede5420d4ad56c461ae5923b05ed1f7.jpg
 
Copper report

Yep. I jetwashed existing surface, mixed approx 1 litre Trilux per 2/3 ish kilo copper powder and rolled it on. I mixed each litre or so as i went. Credits to moose#1 for the research, studgies for help with cleaning/sanding beforehand, and tico for the axshul painting. I think i got tyhe copper from fluorchem over the web, but they aren't the only suppliers.

I used black trilux and the overal effect when dried is like copperish metallic paint.

I think( from his pix and description) i may have lashed the stuff on with a bit less care and concemntration than Dave Snelson has done, but my excuse is that it was a big hull.

Season one no barancles. I mean, zero, like the day it went in. This is a fairly amazing result. Cos normally, in the med, - with boat moored hard up next to Monsieur Barnacle whose boat hasn't moved for 6 years and is at least an inch think with barncles - the hul underside is the colour of a rich tea biscuit with baby barnacles inside 6 weeks.

Season two just gone and still *nearly* zero barnacles. There are a few at waterline, scrapable in a few minutes.

One intersting (ish) issue is that there are a few barncles near metal thru-hull fittings even tho they are brozed and painted. I think the only explanation for this is that the copper wasn't allowed/encouraged to oxidize before relaunch and the earth bonding inhibits oxidizing and hence barnacles not totally resisted. There is obviouilsy enough metal-metal contact across the paint surface around these areas to allow (say) a square foot of crustacea to develop over a season. No actual barnacles - this was the hardier fine "coral".

The boat is coming out in Jan for other reasons - inspecting/renewing prop/rudder bearings after five years. But i confidently expect the barnacle count to be low.

But have the barnacles gone away? In other words - how am i so sure it worked? Easy. I still have to dive down once every 6-8 weeks to clean the props, lathered with barnacles just as before.

So, i will be reapplying some more copper-laced trilux! And a few more coats at the waterline. This time i will also spray the dried paint with mild acid, to force the oxide layer before relaunch.

AND...i may be in a position to try another experiment - see another thread for copper plated propellor, ahem...

Oh and Cuprotect withdrew their product did they? - yet the same industry poo-poohs other ideas even though proven. Harump. Cuprotect were pretty darn full of their mosaic idea a while back and it was no good! Whereas we're realistic bout trilux-copper - it'll last 2 seasons (so far) mebbe three, Dave snelson yet to report.

Also note that DIY copper -laced trilux means whatever it wd cost to splatter your hull with Trilux -it costs only 2-3 times that in materials for copper-trilux mix. Compare this with the so-called professionals (wrong last time around) several of whom have had second thoughts or gone bust - but whose treatments cost about TEN times the price of the diy powder option.

For big powerboats like over twenty metres, a lift scrub and jet wash costs £1000-£2000 and for decent performance some boats have to do this 2-3 times a season. It is this saving - in number of liftouts - is where it's at. Yep ok, performance as well, but that not quite so visble as the invoice from the yard.

Now, i know that some claim their gear will last 5 years. I say - hm. Cos the high cost of those treatments mean that it had jolly well BETTER be 5 years. In fact - 5 years is a bit marginal cos you don't get yer money back unless you always employ gentleman antifoulers and if it only last three years it's about par on costs. Check their figures - but i reckon you only get your money back if in the five years - there are few if any lifts. 5 years between lifts! Most boaties will feel uncomfy about leaving boat in for such a long time - it may well be advisable to lift for maintenace of props, anodes and so forth, even if hull clean, as we're doing.

NOTE also - each time you lift the strops on even a 10 ton boat let alone 50 footers at 15+ tonnes or 70footers at 30+ tonnes - are at such tension that they will strip any covering under those strops. oh yes they will. So there's a bit of weakness eh, for each lift too, even the initial relaunch. So it *can't* be perfecty perfect just as the mosaic thing could never be 100% - antifouling is necesarily a bit of a lash with unevenness, strops, lumps of wood under the hull - hence not an exacty perfect-pure craft like woodwork. Drive over some bit of wood and oops - the stuff left on had still better work. Might epoxy be so physically strong that it all comes off in one skin? Paint isn't. And there's still the rudders and props to clean.

Cheap and Quick and Dirty is the way imho - and that means Trilux-copperpowder mix.



BTW, poster "talbot" may have pix of my earlier (failed) atempt at copper - completely copper plating the hull undersde with self-adhesive plates of copper foil. Amazing to look at in raw state, we had people making visits to the yard and so many questions that i eventually said it wasn't my boat and we knew nothing about it. Apparently this works for a small, smooth sailing boat which tops 7 knots. It doesn't work for 30knot powerboat and the water forces at work at stern and bow must be truly incredible. The self adhesive was so strong that you could make a 10mm overlap to stick together two or more pices of copper foil (we used reels of the stuff, cut lengthways 30cm to be manageable, and about 100 microns =0.1mm thick and 4inches wide) and could play tug o' war with them stuck-tgeher bits without them coming unstuck. But the hydraulic forces must be severe - even with much careful sticking on raw grp, and rollering down hard wevery darn square inch - seawater pulled them clean off, esp[ at bow and stern and even destroyed the copper itself, in places leaving half-sheets of copper ripped away whilst the remainder of the same piece was still stuck to the hull, torn apart as though the copper was a slice of cheese. Amazing. So er anyway - that doesn't work. Or at least, it didn't work on a biggish powerboat. I think thise weakness of big lumps of copper explains why some use copper nickel. But that won't produce pure copper oxide, so erm, it might or might not so solidly resist barnacles. After all, bronze doesn't work and that's 90% copper innit! It needs to be that copper-oxide greenish patina. A big % copper content is no issue- it's that oxide the critturs don't like, or so it seems so far.
 
Re: Copper report

Thanks guys. This is very useful. TCM can you confirm which anti-fouling you were using before this mix and whether anything else has changed since. In other words are you certain that neat Trilux painted on in suitably thick layers would not have had the same effect as the Trilux/copper mix?

I guess one of the questions I am struggling with is if it's really as simple as this to make a better anti-fouling, why haven't International or any the other big companies who spend millions on research already done it? They claim it's because it adds expense without making it more effective.
 
Re: Copper report

I didn't use trilux before. I used some "hard" antifoul, forgotten the name. Most if not all the neighbours have plenty of barnacles, but not me.

Don't struggle too much with the notion of "industry scientists" failing to come up with this idea. Being a scientist in industry is rubbishly paid, and hence full of the very dimmest science graduates or even non-graduates who learn traditional methods and have a fistful of reasons why things they've never tried just won't work. Even when they do work, like this does. 3-d Earth, television, japanese motorcycles, electronics, computers, deep-v hulls, you name it, there are always more scientists and experts with vested interest in existing older-established ideas saying what a rubbish idea the new idea is - instead of saying ooh, interesting. I wonder how often the ipc journos, paid to mooch around boat shows, poll readers, absorb new ideas have *ever* been consulted by marine industry types. Not much I bet?
 
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