Has anybody ever used Copperpoxy? How did it work for you?
Interested skippers will find google useful for research. The company website is particularly not useful and I heard a rumor that they had run into trouble. Copperpoxy is an epoxy coating (not a paint) that could be applied as a barrier coating to a prepared hull. Because it does not slough and is not ablative it is touted as environmentally friendly. I'm for that. It was not wallet friendly when I looked at it a few years ago. ($200/300 a gal ???)
Guys on the forums rate it as Fair, generally. Some say it is a cold water bottom, no good for the tropics. It was good keeping hard growth off but soft growth and slime acted as if it wasn't there. Many thought the process and expense wasn.t worth it. Environmentally friendly skippers gave it better marks - the soft stuff brushing off easily.
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Been working on 338's bottom. Have applied a white epoxy ungelcoat over the reworked hull, in the form of a potable water rated Novalac tank coating. When I learned how, the Third coat went on easy, cut with a little xylene. It took three coats to get a 100% barrier coat finish using a roller. Impossible to brush on.
Over that been rolling on Paul Oman's (epoxyproducts,com) answer to the stuff above - but you have to experiment with it - using his clear Low V epoxy and copper powder. I've got three coats of that on. And I think I'll just continue for a while. Again, it took getting to the Third coat befor it went on like a dream. The copper goes on SMOOTH and tight and level. The key is ambient temperature and amount of powder.
It gleams like a iridescent new penny and looks extreme. These coatings the way I apply them go on not too many mils thick. But rolling it on evidently is the only trick, we'll continue for awhile. Thin coats don't cover no sins. After six coats overall the factory incised waterline still shows. New WL 6" higher.
Since these are all epoxy coatings (not paint) it's all barrier to me.
So haul out COULD be nothing more than wet sanding and putting it back in the water.
The more coats the better therefor, right? One forum reported that when you do put ablative over it, that regular bottom paint works longer and stronger.
I bought the quantities in a package epoxyproducts offered, (may have doubled it) have probably enuf for Three coats on a 50' trawler. Copperpoxy advertises 60% copper (one guy called it "putty") - my personal extensively researched easy to apply formula works out at 25%.
Even if it don't kill everything under the boat, we had the satisfaction of admiring Alberg's beautiful BEAUTIFUL sculpted Ariel bottom dressed to kill. SO NICE!!
Anybody?
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