I had a welder do a repair on the exterior of the house on the main deck of a tug. It was a piece of new steel that was about 10" square and it had light surface rust 2-3 days later so we put Corroseal on it to treat the rust. We forgot to go back and paint it until about a year later and it was still pristine. This boat didn’t spend lots of time in salt water, so I’m not sure how it holds up to heavy and repeated salt exposure (maybe one day I’ll test that), but I think it’s an amazing product overall.
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the thing about rust is that it starts on the microscopic level, It’s hard, especially on a large area or with workers of dubious integrety to get steel down to a level one can be certain there is NO RUST on it. in fact, I’d argue it nigh impossible but many of you probably have more time dealing with paint and rust than I plus those paints we used at sea were pretty good, even better before they took the lead out of it!!!,
Even now, retired, I’ll put rust converter on things, wait a day or two before painting.
as for Ospho, It did a quick job of making the ships color come back before seeing the continent again, deck gang used a roller to put it on and the fire pump to wash it off much of the time. As I recall it took some paint with it, not much.
Corroseal has a finish similar to latex paint and will last without topcoating anywhere a latex paint would.
The use for these products is when there isn’t sufficient time for proper surface preparation and system application. Roughly 7/10 Corroseal applications will fail in my experience but that gets you significantly farther ahead than doing 1/10th of the work that can be done in the time allotted.
The fact is that it’s cheaper to repair steel than maintain impeccable coatings. Maintaining a neat looking appearance is an important part of good seamanship. Products like Corroseal can bridge the gap between unprofitable paint maintenance and a vessel that looks like shit with the corresponding crew attitude.
oh man, I’ve seen, most of us have seen some bad looking ships. One sometimes wondered how the heck they stayed afloat or what it looked like down below. fire hazards etc. I chiefed one processor the sea main had so many patches on it you knew you’d be heading or the rails if a few of them popped. what’s that stuff you tossed on a leak and it’s harden in short order, even under water?
Splash-Zone I believe. We also held old boats together with Red Hand and a lot of elbow grease.
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Underwater Devcon. . . . I have used it on a condenser or two. . . .
thx, it reminded me of splash zone which i’ve used, i probably used devcon too but anymore couldn’t tell you the difference between the two.
my memory thinks i’ve seen more cans of devcon than splash zone?
and red hand, been a while since i’ve seen that name!
I believe you can still get it. Intergard 822 Red Hand Putty (Parts A & B).
any of this stuff, and i mean ALL of it i’d have to order on line as there is no way any store outhere in flyover country has it nor has even heard of it but i will be getting some corroseal, i think the shelf life on that stuff is … unopened maybe 3 centuries?
though i’ve seen plastic jugs of it with the top corrosealed almost shut and clumps coming out?
I have used rust converters and have yet to find one that really works satisfactorily. We scaled the deck, applied rust converter in accordance with instructions, applied epoxy primer(formula150), then non skid.It looked beautiful. The only thing left was the outer edge of the deck to be painted over the primer with deck gray. we had a heavy dew that evening and while making my rounds on watch started to pull off the masking tape. Along with the masking tape came the nonskid and primer. Even though the converter dried to a hard black layer, it remained water soluble and dissolved when the dew soaked through the primer and spread under the newly applied non skid. I have not used converter since.
Many epoxy primers are not compatible with rust converters. Topcoating the rust converter with a single part product like Petit Rustlok is necessary for proper adhesion.
All in one day?