Bottom paint - Bronze fittings

[CamB25]

I pulled the boat back to the shed for the winter season. Still wrestling with family health issues that require regular trips to North Carolina, so I'll probably end the season with the one splash. I have 1001 things to work on to finish the boat anyway.

I have a bronze through hull for raw water supply and a bronze-bodied transducer. Looking for best practices. Do I need to bottom paint the bronze? If so, do they need to be primed, or can I simply scuff the surface and apply the bottom paint (Seahawk Cukote)? What do you do with these?

Thanks
Cam

[Yannis]

There’s copper in bronze, right?

[Tony Meola]

I have been using Petit water based bottom paint and you can paint the transducer with it. For the bronze thru hull, I use bottom paint or Petit Zinc in the spray can for antifouling. I have had good luck with the Petit Bottom paint.

[CamB25]

any primer layer, or just apply?

[Joseph Fikentscher]

Cam,

I use Petit spray for props. I spray the intakes and up into them to keep barnacles from inside the clam fitting.

[John F.]

I use the regular West ablative paint and it works fine. I used Petit for years until it cost about 3x what the West stuff costs (on sale). I don't paint the running gear, and just paint right over the bronze thru-hulls. I of course don't paint over the transducer. Its worked fine.

[Tony Meola]

Cam

I put the paint on the bare metal, no primer. Never had a problem. I know they say use Interprotect or something like that, but if you get barnacles and have to do any scraping it comes off anyway. Also for us up North, the boat is not in long enough for the paint to really wear off.

The Petit Zinc for props is the only paint I find really holds onto the props. I still get wear at the edge of the blades, but since I have been using it I don't have any growth on the props. I use straight bottom paint on the shafts. It lasts but I still get some growth on them and the struts. Nothing bad but I always have to give them a quick scrape in the fall. What puzzles me is that my intakes stay perfectly clean with just the bottom paint on them. I think it has to do with how the water pass's around the shafts versus how it hits the intakes. Must be more of a washing action on the water intakes.