Stern Drive blasting

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Rick D

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OK, I found a shop that does bead blasting on stern drives.... so I will probably have him strip and then I will recover using alodyne, primer and merc black this fall... followed with antifoul in the spring before launch. Couple of questions.... the holes for the sea water pickup... I had barnacles on the holes this year and scraped them off.. but no doubt some of the pieces fell inside the drive where the water is picked up. Is using a vac to suck them out satisfactory?

The bead blaster guy will be sealing those holes off. How do I prevent barnacle growth from occurring inside that area and how do I check to see if there are barnacles inside that area?

Is there any reason to separate the drives before blasting? Raw water impellors were changed this past summer so they don't need to be done again. OK to blast (and paint) as an assembled unit?

Alpha 1 Gen 2

Thanks,
--Rick
 
Rick,
What I do to try and prevent growth inside the water pick up is to spray the Trilux inside from underneat the water pump base. I do this while I have it all apart during the seasonal water pump replacement. It seems to prevent growth in there.
Rob
 
You could try to get any loose pieces out by back-flushing the water pick-up through the opening at the top of the drive. I used Trilu on my outdrive this season and was very dissappointed with the results. There were almost no barnacles on the entire bottom of the boat (which was painted by the marina using an unknown brand and quality of paint), but there were quite a few barnacles all over the drive and transom housing, which were apray painted by me using Trilux. Interestingly, the top six inches of the drive, which I didn't paint with Trilux because I thought that that area sat above the water when the boat was at rest, had no barnacles on it. It was painted with Rustoleum gloss black paint! I can't figure out why the Trilux-coated section gave such poor results. Hy
 
I have good results with Trilux on my drive. I didn't have good results when I painted the drive with Rustoleum. It's not made to be submerged all the time. I use Mercury phantom black, then Trilux over it. No barnacles, just some alge.
 
I used two cans of Trilux per drive... and my results were disappointing. Others have said the brush on Trilux is a better choice... while others have said they have had good results with a Petit brush on. Haven't decided between the two but it definitely won't be the spray can form of Trilux in the Spring.... I can't imagine the results being worse than what they were.

The Petit ablative bottom paint did an amazing job on the hull... not a single barnacle.

--Rick
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rick D

I used two cans of Trilux per drive... and my results were disappointing. Others have said the brush on Trilux is a better choice... while others have said they have had good results with a Petit brush on. Haven't decided between the two but it definitely won't be the spray can form of Trilux in the Spring.... I can't imagine the results being worse than what they were.

The Petit ablative bottom paint did an amazing job on the hull... not a single barnacle.

--Rick

Click to expand...

Where you are is probably much more salty than where I am. We are 30 miles north of the GWB and the water is only brackish. This summer with all the rain there was no salt here so no growth on drives. During dry years the salt moves up and we do get some growth. Maybe why it works better for me.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rick D

Click to expand...


If you can get the drive down to bare metal, you can paint them with Prop Speed and NOTHING will grow on them. I did that on the foot of my last boat and it worked great.
 
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