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Adding paraquat to antifoul paint?


SanFran

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I heard thru the grapevine that adding paraquat to antifouling makes it an even better brew. More resistant or longer life than just the antifoul. After a google search it seems that just a tablespoon will cause death... (note to self: dont drink the stuff). Anyone tried it... in antifoul? How much to add? etc

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Talk to any old DOC (Forestry) workers about the stuff. I wouldn't go near it. If all these things worked so well I suspect the paint companies, with all their R&D, would include it in their product.

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There would be a trail of death left behind you in the water as you sailed along. Not to mention the Smell. It is nasty nasty stuff. We used it to kill everything and anything in the Paddock before sowing a crop of Clover. I am not sure you can buy it today, maybe wrong. But it was nasty nasty stuff and one you took great precaution with. I had a friend that died from the stuff. He drank a cup of it by accident. Quite how still baffles us, but he did and no it wasn't Suicide. It really was by accident, in a tea room of all places. He thought it was his coffee going cold and just sculd it and then realised what he had done.

Also, it's water based and won't mix with Solvent based paints. But it would to the new generation of waterbased antifouls.

Anyway, Antifoul is all about detering the Plants and animals from growing on your Hull, not killing them once they are there. We also have to realise that underwater life work very diferently to Land based. Things like Pepper and Chilli and so on don't work on a plant nor a Shellfish gluing itself to a Hull. The idea is to make the surface something they can not adhere to, or such that they a repelled befoire they adhere and that the surface has to be able to do that actively and effectively for at the very least, 12months and preferably far longer. Which means a controlled release. Simply adding something like a liquid poison would leach into the water in a concentrated non-controlled manner.

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so if you wipe down the hull by scuba once every say, 6 months, will the effect last longer? I say this as logically once attached its easier for another "thing" to lacth on next to the first???

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back in the 70's there was a guy who lived in russell, a fisherman called jingle bells of all thngs who did just that and.......got his girlfriend/ partner to pop it on for him no idea if it was 245t or 24d that was mixed or what the result was though or if she's still alive

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Seriously Wheels? In the tea room? What the hell was paraquat doing in there? :shock:

 

It's not so unreal though, as a guy in our club who shall remain nameless - mostly because none of you know him anyway, mixed some glue up and put it in a mustard squeezy bottle, didn't use all of it and put it in the clubs kitchen fridge to keep overnight. That evening after a race at our world famous (in Whangaparaoa anyway) after race bbq the sauces were brought out including this bottle and two other identical bottles. A kid had his sausage with bread and epoxy glue, as being a kid he didn't notice a small detail like the wrong colour or smell or anything. He ate 2 mouthfulls before it his home that it didn't taste right. I can't remember if he was taken into hospital to be pumped or whatever, I do remember that he was ok.

 

But what dumb bastard puts glue or paraquat into an area where food is being served?

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I figure that organisations like International and Altex have a much larger R&D budget than I have so I'll leave the innovation and product development to the likes of them. If adding chilli powder or cayenne pepper to antifoul was so effective, I'm sure it'd be a standard component of antifoul preparations.

 

I would suggest that the absence of chilli powder from antifoul speaks volumes.

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Paraquat is still readily available - and its used a lot still. Specially in no tillage planting. I use it regularly and have done for many, many years. Its toxic, yes, but not as toxic as a lot of the insecticides used. Its really only particularly dangerous in concentrated form, in diluted, ready to spray form its not too bad at all. It has many positives - one of the main being that its half life once sprayed is measured in minutes, as contact with bark, soil etc renders it harmless ( and non toxic ). As with any toxic spray, taking care in the handling, mixing and application is sufficient to ensure your health is not effected.

 

The actual active is often available as a powder, and in certain applications, you mix it with spraying oil prior to mixing the brew with water and surfactant. So it should be mixable with an oil based antifoul. However, not sure I would like to be putting it into the water, specially in areas it could concentrate such as a marina.

 

I believe that the true reason Paraquat got such a bad name was that it was used extensively as a suicide method - a rather successful one as drinking the concentrated solution surely would result in death. How someone could mistake it for tea, I am uncertain, as it has a strong chemical odor, and I have never seen it any color other than blue. Bright blue. I know many, many people, farmers and contractors, who have handled thousands of liters of the product to no apparent detriment.

 

Strangely enough, its available to anyone to purchase - not needing a hazchem handling cert to buy or carry, but it does require such for application in a dispersive manner ( I just read the label on a bottle )

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I figure that organisations like International and Altex have a much larger R&D budget than I have so I'll leave the innovation and product development to the likes of them. If adding chilli powder or cayenne pepper to antifoul was so effective, I'm sure it'd be a standard component of antifoul preparations.

 

I would suggest that the absence of chilli powder from antifoul speaks volumes.

And what good is there for the paint companies if AF lasted 10 years a coat?

 

I AFed my steel always working and moving barge every 4 years. My nor your yacht won't last anything like that.

 

Conspiracy?? I think so :)

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Yeah, but your steel barge that was always moving and working didn't (and doesn't) demand the kind of surface that most yachties insist upon for their boats. Ablative paints that ensure a slippery bum for racing or hard antifoulants that preserve a smooth surface with the thinnest and lightest applications are what they're trying to achieve because that's what their customers are demanding.

 

A crappy old steel barge with a 2" thick layer of antifoul applied by a gorilla with a 6" brush probably would last 4 years ... and even if it was a bit lumpy, who would know or care? :wave: :wink:

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Are we painting a boat's bum or making dinner here?? :wink:

 

Is it called 'Grinna's dinna's recipes'? & may we have some more suggestions, Please?? Grinna are these with or without garlic?? Try using - A hydrolyzed anhydride hydrophilic co-polymer semi ablative antifouling without tin or copper. It will last 2 to 3 years without touching it at all especially in NZ water temperatures, as it did in Sydney back in the mid 70's. Ciao, james

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