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I'm over in the Seattle, Washington area
again and I got a chance to talk to a neat guy that sprays Rhino Liner type
coatings on truck beds and many, many other things. There mobile spray
unit is out spraying allot of boats inside and out/top and bottom.
No matter whether they are made of wood, metal, fiberglass, or carbon fiber
composites. I'm trying to verify if antifouling paint will stick to the
coatings but I suspect it will. The guy said they use a special two part epoxy
primer before they will put the main coating on and they won't guarantee the
final coating if they don't apply this primer. He said if I'm going to
sandblast metal surfaces to remove rust, that it's best not to apply
my own primer but just bring him the surface to coat the day I sandblast or they
can use the mobile unit and come to you. If I use Rattleguard of the like they
claim it's self etching and can go directly on bare metal, which would save
allot of time and money and you wouldn't have the chance for cracks to get in
your primer coating from expansion/contraction of the sub
hull.
If you want to spray your own coating
with a material like Rattleguard or the like you'll need a high CFM compressor
or you can combine two or more smaller compressors together to get the CFM you
need. Usually 5 hp combined or a total of 15 CFM will do the trick. Make
sure you use check valves on each line coming out of each of your compressor's
if you tie them together and put your water separator at the end of the first
leg of air hoses. That will get the most water out.
I got a small sample of some material they sprayed with a
very light texture, and with extra air pressure too the spray gun they can get
the material almost as smooth if you like. They can match just about any colour
you want as well as having the it in white. You can add a lite
dusting of sand, crushed walnut shells, and other type materials in the surface
for greater traction. This type of coating would give your sub a little
insulation value, make it quieter, give you a flexible coating that wouldn't
crack with all the expansion contraction of a metal hull, and give you heavy
duty scratch protection on your outer hull. Most of the time they apply this
type of coating about a 1/4" thick or thicker on truck beds and it stands up to
allot of abuse. You can walk on top of your sub barefoot and it won't be as hot
or cold to the touch. Just like when they started putting foam rubber grips on
nail guns. If you left the nailgun on the roof during lunch on a hot summers day
and then went back to work, it was very hot.
When ever I would talk about some of my big ideas to my
grandfather he would ask me if I had two penny's to rub together. Here is
my two penny's and a thin layer of black Rhino liner material that was sprayed
on some heavy duty plastic as a texture test before they sprayed a truck bed.
The material is tack free in five seconds and so
they need to use a special tape that has a piano wire in it to cut the edges
where you want the coating to stop. I plan to mostly use and self apply
Rattleguard that cures much slower, so I don't need the wire
tape.
The Rhino product they claim will hold up very well if
you spill diesel fuel, gas, acetone, and even lacquer thinner on it and let it
sit.
We did a little fire test on a piece of Rhino coating,
and then I did it again and put on video, then posted it on
YouTube.
It will burn and maintain it's own flame once it gets to
a certain temperature just like the dashboard of your car. So don't use it
right next to an engine, it's exhaust, or other high heat areas. I have a
friend that sells a number of different fire retardant paints for homes and
perhaps he will know of paints for engine rooms and firewalls. The same
fire retardant paint he sells for homes may work. If you coat say a 2"x4"
piece of lumber with this paint and then put a aggressive flame to it, the paint
foams up into a char pillow and doesn't let the wood get to hot or let
it burn. That's the sort of thing I want on the inside of a pressure
hull in a engine room so if a fire starts and goes on for a while it might not
weaken the fire wall separating the engine room from the rest of the sub as well
as it might prevent collapse of the pressure hull if under
pressure.
This video clip will give you an idea of what it would be
like to have your skid plates on your sub coated in a Rhino type
coating.
I've heard of this kind of coating being applied 1 inch
thick on aggregate hoppers used to process gravel, to protect the underlying
metal plates that make up the hopper, and it worked great. I was planning
on using 1/2" to 1" thick black UHMW plastic for my landing gear and there sides
but now I'm considering using the spray on type polyurethane type
coating.
I was telling the guy that sprays Rhino liners about my
plans to sandblast the inside of a K-250 pressure hull so I could then have it
Rhino coated and was asking him what I should do about the backsides of the
support rings since they can't be sprayed with the coating with the size of gun
needed to spray Rhino. He said to just use some Sikaflex sealant and just
coat them using my fingers while wearing latex gloves. Sikaflex is a slow
cure version of Rhino liner coating. When he does repairs on old Rhino
liner coatings that got a deep scratch or section removed, he uses Sikaflex and
a sponge to get the texture right and then uses there Rhino Shine product to
make the rest of the original coating look like new again. Now I don't know
exactly which version of Sikaflex he uses, but I would guess from what I've
read it's the 221, 252, or 291. Because I plan to use the slow cure
Rattleguard I can use that instead of Sikaflex for the hard to get to areas of a
sub using latex gloves or a short brush.
This is the link to some data on Sikaflex for marine
uses.
And this is the standard Sikaflex adhesive product line
data.
Sikaflex®-221 is a high-quality multi purpose non-sag 1-c
polyurethane sealant.
Sikaflex®-291 is a one-component, low viscous, medium
modulus, polyurethane-based sealing/adhesive compound. This all-purpose grade is
used for general sealing applications such as deck hardware and
equipment.
Sikaflex®-252 is a polyurethane adhesive with extremely
high thixotropy and high strength.
Sikaflex®-292 is a one-component, thixotropic, high
modulus, structural, polyurethane-based adhesive system. The product is used for
a wide range of bonding applications, deck-to-hull bonding and bedding of
chainplates, through-hull fittings and toe rails. A high viscous, high strength
adhesive, Sikaflex®-292 can replace rivets, screws, welds and other mechanical
fasteners in building and repairing boats of all types. This remarkable product
is designed for use on a wide variety of marine substrates. It seals and bonds
in one step.
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Being that I come to the submarining field from being a
avid aquarium hobbies, I've seen allot of different sealants use to bond
aquariums together both for home aquaria as well as commercial aquariums
like Vancouver Aquarium and Sea World. The company called All Glass
Aquariums for some years now has been using allot more black high quality
silicone sealants as well as a number of other companies. I like the look of the
black sealants and they look allot better then the clear sealants after a number
of years, since the clear soaks in dyes from medications, turns green allot of
the times and just starts to look nasty. I bring this up because I've installed
a number of view ports on a hyperbaric chamber and I've seen a fair number of
sub view ports as well, and I think they would look allot better over time
with a black sealant. I highly suspect that the large viewing glass and/or
acrylic windows at public aquariums are sealed to the frame works with a
polyurethane type sealant like Sikaflex-292. Also looking at the S1-01 sub
here in Seattle, I was thinking Paul Moorhouse used a Sikaflex type sealant for
the top conning tower acrylic tube window.
Here is a UV resistant flexible window sealant for marine
applications that might be a good choice for submarine view ports.
Sikaflex®-295 UV is a fast curing, one-component,
flexible, high performance polyurethane-based adhesive for bonding and sealing
of windows and portholes. Sikaflex®-295 UV is suitable for all types of organic
(PC, PMMA) windowpanes. Its high degree of UV resistance also allows the use of
the system as a weatherproof sealant.
Regards,
Brent
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