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Hi Frank, I have loads of pictures now of all sorts of saltwater and freshwater boats that have been coated top and/or bottom with Rhine type urethane coatings with great results. Whether it be steel, composite, aluminum, or wooden boats. Besides most are subs live most there lives high and dry in the garage. Those type of coatings can be strayed smooth if the application calls for it. I would be coating the whole outside of this KL-250 of mine if I wasn't painting it yellow. I don't know how well epoxy paints will adhere to the urethane type coatings. They have colors to choose from, but my personal experience tells me to stay away from the lighter colors, since they can get marked up easily and even in some cases obtaining a yellow tint after being in the sun awhile. With the steel being hot dipped galvanized, hot spray zinc coated, cold galvanized, high zinc epoxy, or the like that with a thick 1/8" to 3/16" urethane coating over your steel ballest and drops I suspect will do the trick. A company in Missippi called Tyler Industries makes very large tub boat forklifts that have plain steel parts going into saltwater on a regular basis and they don't have to primer the metal. They do still need to respray the coating from damage from the boats. I've done a test and I can easily sand off the Rattle Guard brand urethane coating if the need arises. The owners of the Rattle Guard brand of urethane coatings said that with there brand, all surfaces with 1/8" or more should be totally water tight from water coming in thru that urethane surface. I was thinking of just welding on some 316 SS tabs and/or bushings into drilled holes in the steel plates to connect them to the sub. Those SS parts can be coated as well. I can't seem to get a straight answere from those that spray these type of coatings as to whether steel boats that are coated with these type of urethane coatings need anodes to protect the main hull of the boat or not. I would expect the urethane would be a good electrical insulator to prevent electrolisis if thick enough. Regards, Szybowski From: ShellyDalg@aol.com Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:55:59 -0400 Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Recycling Lead To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org Hi Brent. I wonder how useful that "plasti-dip" stuff would be on a saltwater boat. I may give it a try. As for lead versus steel, well, one of the great things about lead is it's so easy to melt and pour into specific shapes. My lead ballast will be poured into "bricks" that fit the curvature of the bottom of the hull. With nuts embedded in them so I can bolt them down. The drop weight lead will be poured into a steel "keel" with the drop socket mechanism also embedded in the lead. Remember that we need an extra drop weight just in case we have to drop one, and then use the spare to retrieve the first one. That adds up to a lot of lead!
Frank D.
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