Hammerite on keels of the "dead Centaur"

[dylanwinter]

not a natural fetler

Sorry, painting the keels? I thought you were made of better stuff than that! A quick pass over with a spade to remove the worst of the barnacles and a lathering with the cheapest antifouling money can buy, or better still, you can blag.

As you say, you have 12 weeks left to prevaricate. These should be spent sailing your chosen victim back from whatever windswept nook you find her, not in working on the thing! After all, it only needs to float for a season or so and it will have persisted in much its current condition for the best part of twenty of the last forty years, another season won't make much difference.

Should the keels leak then it may be worth gluing a strip of rubber over the joint or something equally cheap and quick. Mine leaked quite badly when first relaunched after years ashore, but took up fully after a few months. They had been previously dropped & reinforced etc. but Westerly originally did the real job of sealing on a bolt-by-bolt basis with hemp etc, not relying on the mastic twixt hull and keel that seems to be the vogue nowadays.

I am not a natural fettler

I don't mind faffing with small boats in my garage when the weather is too bad for sailing but driving three hours to sit under a boat in a dusty yard while others go sailing is not for me

so applying five coats of various unguents is not going to happen

I would prefer it if the rust does not show too badly through the AF though when I take pictures of her sitting on the bright white sand of one of those lovely Hebridean beaches.

As for time...I have 12 weeks to find the right boat or for her to find me

I shall know it when I see it - I am learning a lot about Centaurs - there is a lot of information out there (much of it conflicting of course)

and the money is now in the bank ready to be handed over to the bloke who is sellling up.

Once I get the boat I aim to get it onto the water asap

I would love to do some winter sailing in the solent before heading North with her....

D

 

[Scarboroughsloop]

Gez Dylan, if that's your only issue (rust showing on pictures), just take a small tin of antifoul with you and a quick 2 min job on the keels on the beach and she's fine for filming.....

Of course the big problem with all this is lack of boat - someone somewhere surely must know of one.....

 

[Gordonmc]

I wouldn't bother with a wire brush.
The Zirconium flap-discs will shift rust pronto and won't send bits of wire hurtling all over the place.
I second the suggestion of using Owatrol. On my bilge plates I gave the steel with surface rust a coat of neat Owatrol then a 50-50 mix of Owatrol and old paint (oil-based) I had left over from another job.
It lasted until I sold the boat, about four seasons.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Sounds worse than it is, just a byproduct of making gas out of coal and ending up with coke ( not the recreational variety) and tar. About £30 a gallon if memory serves. Ebay is lacking in this department clearly....

In the early 70s, I briefly worked for the Coal Tar Research Association. The main business (at the time) of that organization was checking out replacements for coal tar which was a by-product of gas production. CTRA no longer exists! At the time, natural gas was being phased in, and coal tar was becoming unavailable for things like roads, leading to a switch to asphalt, the by-product of oil refining. Asphalt is seriously different from coal tar; the only similarity is that they're both black sticky stuff! Coal tar has a high concentration of phenols and such-like, giving it strong biocidal properties; asphalt has no such properties.

The point is that gas production from coal is long dead and gone, so I'd seriously doubt if gas tar is still available in anything but very small quantities used in chemical manufacture.

 

[Fantasie 19]

I use 60 grit linishing pads on grinder does serious damage to scabs you need good mask and eye protection especially with old antifoul get it as flat as possible and finish off with a rust converter I use vectans. Dont bother with deep pitting unless you are a racer could use International Watertight expensive but probably the best.

Don't disagree with any of the advice, but if you are going to go for drills. grinders and all the rest.. have a thought for your boatyard neighbours, and stop the stuff drifting away on to their boats...

 

[Bilgediver]

Just working out some costs

it seems that one way or another the keels on whatever I buy will need the loose rust removing - my weapon of choice is a rotary wire brush on a drill

I then need to cover them with something that will hold the rust up for a year

Hammerite?

or something else

it has got to be quick and simple - no faring, sanding, fairing, sanding etc


update on the Centaur seeking

Boat 1 in the film was a Pageant

Boat 2 has been re-engined

Boat 3 -the owner has my phone number but has not called

Spindrift - the bloke would rather let it die in the yard and end up in a skip

there are a couple of others I am persuing remotely - one in North Norfolk the other in Essex

The first boat in the video has a non Centaur mickey mouse rudder.....?????????????????????


You need something more than a wire brush for scale removal and forget about Hammerite and get Primocon and slap it on!