Adding copper powder to antifouling

[pjwilliams35]

On Youtube, a guy on 'Sailing Britaly' tried making his own copper powdered antifoul paint.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by clakiep

The fisherman in Brazil use the cheapest rust-stoping paint mixed with lots of pesticides - Baygon. Can't tell about effectiveness, at least its cheap.

It ain't cheap if it doesn't work. And BTW- Baygon is highly toxic to fish.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by pjwilliams35

On Youtube, a guy on 'Sailing Britaly' tried making his own copper powdered antifoul paint.

He's only one of many.

[teamwork]

There is a lot more to copper coat than just adding copper.
Check with: copper coat USA
321 514 9107
The owner's name is Jim, he will be glad to explain the procedure.
Mine has lasted over 7 years.

[ItDepends]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Well when we used it, it would last 5 years without cleaning. If you went into harbors that count as the worst possible fouling, you would need to clean after 3 years, but once anchored out again you would be good to go for the 2 extra years. This was with 2.5 coats.

I now used Micron 66 and it wasn’t bad until we got into brackish water, which ruined it. Our gray water standpipe has a 1 yard diameter spot where all Micron 66 simply fell off because it’s all fresh water coming out.

Next experience will be ABC3.

I would postulate your memory is seeing the past through rose colored glasses.

Having spent the summer in the eastern Caribbean where tbt paint is legal and frequently used, nobody gets five years of useful life out of it. At our haulout the locals commented on how clean our hull was. We use a modern copper and zinc paint, and had not had it touched by a diver because it hasn’t been needed.

TBT paint has become a mythical beast with magic powers. In its day it was certainly the best available. It no longer stands head and shoulders above the best of the competition.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by ItDepends

I would postulate your memory is seeing the past through rose colored glasses.

Having spent the summer in the eastern Caribbean where tbt paint is legal and frequently used, nobody gets five years of useful life out of it. At our haulout the locals commented on how clean our hull was. We use a modern copper and zinc paint, and had not had it touched by a diver because it hasn’t been needed.

TBT paint has become a mythical beast with magic powers. In its day it was certainly the best available. It no longer stands head and shoulders above the best of the competition.

Correct, it has been made illegal everywhere now. When you see it used, it’s illegal. Also, it ain’t what it used to be. They now sell bags of additional TBT with it so that you can bring it to old formula potency.

I know you write this to discourage it’s use and in principle I agree to the ban. Not because it was bad in the past but because the number of boats out there has exploded and the amounts of TBT released into the environment became unsustainable. Before that time, I believe the 2-yearly paint jobs with 70% copper were worse than 5-yearly paint jobs with Islands-44.

[ItDepends]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

Right. And the copper content in commercial products has been going down for years.

I agree that professionals at the paint company know more than I. But they also know a lot more than politicians, pundits and marketing experts, who are pushing them to develop "green" products which don't harm any organisms.

Of course the whole point of bottom paint is to harm or deter organisms.

So, while the chemists work their magic to develop a product they can sell as bottom paint, we boaters want one which actually works as bottom paint.

We're left to figure out on our own how best to overcome the lack of all that copper the "experts" took out of our formerly-effective bottom paint.

If you want high copper paint, and you think that is the only measure of performance, SeaHawk’s Tropicote is 75% cuprous oxide. It’s legal in the USA, so all of you ranting about how regulations are driving down Cu content, please point out exactly what current regulations you are referring to…

We don’t use it because there are better performing paints out there. But if you think bottom paint is simple, here you go!

This thread is a real proof of the Dunning Kruger effect. Ignorance of the details of a subject give people a greatly inflated confidence in the level of their understanding.

[Franziska]

Tried to get ABC3 from their distributor in Spain. No chance, it's not sold in Europe.

They offer SIGMA ECOFLEET[emoji2400] 290 instead. Has anyone used that?

What do use folks use, who spent a season in the Med and than to the Caribbean?

Is there a paint around which can be still applied in a tide cycle = Less than 6hours drying before touching seawater?
We would paint in several tide cycles.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Correct, it has been made illegal everywhere now. When you see it used, it’s illegal.

Unfortunately, that is simply not true.

[ben2go]

I have attached the SDS below for the brand "CopperCoat". I know of several people that have added copper powder to epoxy using the SDS and so far so good for them.


There's also some good info on this site about copper powder and antfouling.
https://copper-powders.com/index.php...rine-coatings/


I have no first hand experience. Check out Sail Life on youtube. Mads has had branded CopperCoat on his boat for several years with good results. However, he has been in mostly colder waters so far.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by ben2go

I have attached the SDS below for the brand "CopperCoat". I know of several people that have added copper powder to epoxy using the SDS and so far so good for them.


There's also some good info on this site about copper powder and antfouling.
https://copper-powders.com/index.php...rine-coatings/


I have no first hand experience. Check out Sail Life on youtube. Mads has had branded CopperCoat on his boat for several years with good results. However, he has been in mostly colder waters so far.

For every anecdote about a good experience with Coppercoat or success creating a homebrewed version, there are an equal number of unhappy disaster stories. Personally, I find copper-loaded epoxies to have poor anti fouling properties.

[I14]

I am a (semi-retired) paint and resins chemist. I make my own cuprous oxide rich antifouling paint and I also make my own silicones based foul release (slippery and soft) coating as well. I don't sell either so my incentive is to make the best I possibly can to get the longest effective life, my formula is very similar to other commercial offerings so I reject the inference that in the main they are made to fail early, each manufacturer wants to out-perform their competition and sell more that way. No doubt 'cheapos' are available but you get the performance you deserve. The OP says he wishes to add 'copper' to his current AF paint, does he mean metallic copper (like in Coppercoat and similar) or does he mean cuprous oxide? I assume the former but to get that to work very high levels are required as seen in the commercial offerings. To incorporate any dry powder into paint high shear mixing equipment is need to de-agglomerate the particles, this is way more than a paint stirrer on your drill. If the powder is not deagglomerated it is not bound in adequately by the binder and is less effective as a 'clump', will basically just wash off. An earlier poster also observed it would be very thick, all formulae have to be balanced for powder, binder and solvent content, if you add extra powder you upset that balance and decrease performance. Formulators strive to get the best balance of cuprous oxide to binder to give the longest coating life combined with best AF effect. An earlier poster attached an MSDS of ABC#3, it is very similar to all the others. Of interest is the declaration of Ziram which is a pesticide and will be there to improve AF efficacy and in particular deterring the 'brown slime' that you see first prior to organisms attaching on your boat. Lead and lead monoxide (litharge) are also declared at very low levels. I suspect any higher levels would be illegal as lead and oxides are banned except as a trace compound, you can't buy red lead primer anymore. It may be effective as an AF ingredient at tiny levels but I would think the Ziram is doing the work to back up the cuprous oxide. Also the sulphonamide will be effective similarly to the ziram.

[billcrowley]

I don’t see any mention in this thread of the CopperCoat brand of anti-fouling underwater bottom paint, which is fine copper powder carried in an epoxy-like medium. I have had it on the bottom of our Newport 30 since 2017. It is berthed on the Carquinez Strait near Vallejo, CA, and sails primarily on the SF Bay and its tributaries (salt and brackish water). This coating is holding up very well, and requires less frequent bottom cleaning than other hard-finish bottom paints in my experience.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by billcrowley

I don’t see any mention in this thread of the CopperCoat brand of anti-fouling underwater bottom paint, whi is fine copper powder carried in an epoxy-like medium. I have had it on the bottom of our Newport 30 since 2017. It is berthed on the Carquinez Strait near Vallejo, CA, and sails primarily on the SF Bay and its tributaries (salt and brackish water). This coating is holding up very well, and requires less frequent bottom cleaning than other hard-finish bottom paints in my experience.

Coppercoat was mentioned in this thread several hours ago.

I have cleaned boat bottoms in the Bay Area for almost 30 years, I have a strong opinion about Coppercoat. It is not a positive one.

[phil23]

It would be of no benefit and the down side is you risk creating an antifouling which when applied will "cake" and adversely affect adhesion. Heard them all Round Up, anti fungicides, weed sprays, chilli powder etc etc etc added to antifouling if these things really worked they would have been utalised by the manufacturers as much cheaper than the antifouling addatives used today.