Coppercoat - what next?

[Gwylan]

We have Coppercoat, it has done 10 years, but getting a bit tired.

Do we pucker up and splash out on 10 litres of Coppercoat? How much does it cost? Hard to find our from the web site and no obvious dealers in UK. Asked for a quote and expect I will need a sit down and a cup of tea when it arrives.

Is there another supplier?

See that I can buy Copper powder from West but that's not cheap. Still have to get the resin to apply mix with the powder. That does no look a cheap option.

Suggestions for next step?

 

[Tranona]

Just give them a call. They sell direct. The price will depend on how much you buy, but just for the CC without the epoxy primer it may not be as much as you fear, even compared with a high performance conventional AF. Most of the cost when starting from scratch is in the preparation and labour for application.

Surely its a no brainer if you have had 10 years service out of the current coating?

 

[Yngmar]

£75 per litre plus VAT in November last year, direct from AMC. Best get the paint rollers and any primers from them as well. They do boat show discounts.

If it's still thick enough, you can just gently sand it to expose fresh copper again. I assume you already knew this and are at the point where you've sanded through it and have to renew though.

DIY is very possible. I'm just writing about my experiences with it here (part 2 following tomorrow).

 

[Gwylan]

Thanks for that. Surprisingly it seems that the West system option works out about £750. Amazing, no collusion I'm sure.

And I cannot complain about 10 years of not buying antifoul and all that. Mildly interesting that antifoul has still not been been banned.

 

[Daydream believer]

My Hanse has Copper Coat - which is useless. My squib has Copper Tec & some of the squibs on the moorings next to mine had Coppercoat. We have to haul out at least every 4 weeks to get the film off the hulls but from comparison I would say that the Copper Tec on my squib performs very slightly better than the professionally applied Coppercoat on the other squibs; of which there were 4 but now all gone. At the time Copper Tec needed less coats ( but seemed thicker so, from memory, used the same amount) & was marginally cheaper, but not by much. Having 1 less coat made it easier to apply.
If I did it again I would go for Copper Tec.
I used Copper Coat ( A West system) from Wessex resins 17 years ago & it failed miserably. Weed seemed to thrive on it. Wessex were sympathetic & they gave me another complete kit for free. I applied it then decided before launch that i did not want to risk the hassle, so put antifoul paint over that. So I never did find out if the latest version worked.

 

[Neeves]

I understood CopperCoat was brand name of AMC and buying something similarly named from someone else does not suggest it is necessarily the branded product.

Maybe Daydream you could clarify.

Based on RKJ's own experience with his own yacht the entire Clipper fleet was coated with CopperCoat, from AMC. Usually when they arrive in Sydney they need be lifted and re-anti fouled (with conventional AF) this year they were not even lifted. They are obviously well used - but examination showed no fouling at all.

Jonathan



Jonathan

 

[mariadz]

We have had coppercoat on our last two boats in Ipswich and have been really pleased. Like a previous response, we have had weed on it but this has gone quickly when we have used the boat so no complaints from us.

 

[MagicalArmchair]

I applied Coppercoat over my old Coppercoat (the old coat had been there for some 15 years before I applied mine). No primer required, I abraded the old Coppercoat (careful doing this, lots of PPE), and applied straight over the top. Some, err, eight years later, its still going strong. Talk to Ewan at Coppercoat, they are good guys, very helpful and will give you plenty of their time to help. Old fashioned customer service.

http://www.albinballad.co.uk/technology/coppercoat/

 

[duncan99210]

We reapplied CC to our boat three years back on to a 14 year old coating. AMC advised keying the existing coat with 120 grade paper before applying the new coat in accordance with their recommendations. The keying took twice as long as applying the new coating. The whole job on a 40 foot boat took just on a week: 4 days keying, 2 days applying main coating, 1 day patching after the props were moved by the yard. I seem to recall that we needed nine litres of CC: we got a LIBS deal at £640 including delivery.
We used Screwfix rollers, discarding them frequently. A friend lent us a mixing gizmo for the drill to take th effort out of mixing the resin and copper: well worth it.

 

[Daydream believer]

I understood CopperCoat was brand name of AMC and buying something similarly named from someone else does not suggest it is necessarily the branded product.

Maybe Daydream you could clarify.

Copper Tec is not copper coat - if that is what you are getting at- but is a similar product. It just seems to work better on my squib than copper coat does on squibs moored around my squib.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUVx_C0FRNc

 

[Gwylan]

Well got a call from CopperCoat and a reasonable price for a package deal for enough to recoat.
Really cannot complain, still cheaper than 10 years of anti foul.
Await warm weather to take on the job.

 

[coveman]

We reapplied CC to our boat three years back on to a 14 year old coating. AMC advised keying the existing coat with 120 grade paper before applying the new coat in accordance with their recommendations. The keying took twice as long as applying the new coating. The whole job on a 40 foot boat took just on a week: 4 days keying, 2 days applying main coating, 1 day patching after the props were moved by the yard. I seem to recall that we needed nine litres of CC: we got a LIBS deal at £640 including delivery.
We used Screwfix rollers, discarding them frequently. A friend lent us a mixing gizmo for the drill to take th effort out of mixing the resin and copper: well worth it.

Am I right in reading that it should be applied with up to four layers but applying wet on tacky, which presumably means a single person would have to get their skates on or enlist the help of a few willing friends with rollers.

 

[VicS]

Am I right in reading that it should be applied with up to four layers but applying wet on tacky, which presumably means a single person would have to get their skates on or enlist the help of a few willing friends with rollers.

Or do it in manageable sized sections:

If the vessel to be treated is too large to be painted with all coats in one day by the workforce available, simply
treat a manageable sized section – apply all the necessary coats to this section from start to finish in one day,
before proceeding with a further section at a later date.​

 

[Daydream believer]

before proceeding with a further section at a later date.[/INDENT][/INDENT]

I left the keel & rudder, plus the support patches to the second operation

 

[Yngmar]

Or do it in manageable sized sections:

If the vessel to be treated is too large to be painted with all coats in one day by the workforce available, simply
treat a manageable sized section – apply all the necessary coats to this section from start to finish in one day,
before proceeding with a further section at a later date.​

Or just skip the tea breaks for a day. I did my 40 footer in 9 hours on my own. Packaged sandwich and grim determination. Just posted part 2 of my Coppercoat story.

 

[MagicalArmchair]

Useful write up! Thanks for taking the time to post.

 

[coveman]

Excellent write up and goes to show that time taken to do the job properly pays off.
One wonders when complaints are made about the success of Coppercoat whether this is directly related to poor application.

 

[MagicalArmchair]

Excellent write up and goes to show that time taken to do the job properly pays off.
One wonders when complaints are made about the success of Coppercoat whether this is directly related to poor application.

We had one in Chathams yard. I think that one was due to amine blush, so epoxy base coat goes on, probably assumed to be blush free, not washed, Coppercoat goes on and then promptly falls off. Whoops!

 

[duncan99210]

Am I right in reading that it should be applied with up to four layers but applying wet on tacky, which presumably means a single person would have to get their skates on or enlist the help of a few willing friends with rollers.

We did it as a pair, working on half the hull at a time. The resin goes off in about 45 minutes or so at the temperatures were working in (mid twenties, Greece in April). So you need to choose an area that you're comfortable with being able to do in that time, mix a batch of resin and apply it. By the time you've finished the coat, it'll be nearly ready to apply the next coat. Short breather, mix next batch and apply. We applied four coats: that happened to match the quantity recommended by AMC for the boat. If we'd applied thinner coats, we would have needed to keep adding coats until the recommended quantity had been used up.

 

[Gwylan]

We did the last job, supervised by a fibreglass specialist. She mixed and two of us piled the stuff on. Took one side each.

Worked quite well and as people say, by the time you get to one end it is time to get the next coat on.