What should I use to paint a rudder?

[GilesC]

I've just had to dry out a my rudder as the old paint coating had started to fail in a few places. Having taken the offending parts back to the wood, I don't know what to re-paint it with.
Could I just coat it in epoxy, or would exopy be too stiff to allow the natural flexing and expansion of the wood? Would sheathing it with some glass mat and exopy be any better? Is there any paint alternative out there that would provide a long term reliable coating?

Any advice gratefully received!

Giles

 

[ccscott49]

Any good epoxy wood primer would do as a base coat, then whatever antifoul you normally use on it. You dont say what its on, is it normally just painted or antifouled. I would be tempted to take it all back to bare wood, then rebuild the paint sytem with the epoxy primer thenan undercoat, before the antifoul/paint. The specific wood epoxy primers are flexible enough for wood. You could sheath it, but why?

 

[owendo]

For what it is worth i hav ejust hd to replace the aft part of my rudder. while at it i stripped it all back to wood(oak) .
i did the following
2 coats metalic gray primer
fill and fare with epoxy filler
2 coats international undercoat
3 coats of international antifould primer
so far one coat of Jotun self polishine atifould( because i had it left over)
i will when launch time comes give it a coat of whatever i use on the rest of the boat. Time will tell if it has worked.

I wild not bother to sheat it as the water always manages to get between the sheat and the wood.

Best of luck


Mike Woodhouse
Vertue V17