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I was speaking with the guy whom refinished my Sea Lancer. In the process he treated the bilge (floor line to keel) with a product he called "Green Coppernell", or maybe "Green Cuppernell". Not sure. Anyone heard of this product? How does it compare to the expoxy replacement products?

This sounds like a wood preservative treatment chemical. There is a "copper napthenate" preservative that can be obtained. Most of these chemicals are restricted and can only be utilzed at licensed preservative treating facilities. The above mentioned type has fewer restrictions and can be obtained more readily.

There are many waterborne preservative treatments: CCA, ACQ, ACA, ACZA, AAC, CBA. Copper is a major component of most. Most do NO good unless it is in a presurre process. Meaning the lumber or plywood is placed into a treating cylinder that can have the chemicals forced into the cellular structure of the wood via pressure in a vacuum.

Andreas

thegammas wrote:I was speaking with the guy whom refinished my Sea Lancer. In the process he treated the bilge (floor line to keel) with a product he called "Green Coppernell", or maybe "Green Cuppernell". Not sure. Anyone heard of this product? How does it compare to the expoxy replacement products?

That sounds like the stuff I used to treat my fence posts. I think it is the same stuff used for green-pressure treated lumber. As AJR points out, it is not available to laypeople anymore.

Jim

Then I must have the wrong product - Dave (the refinisher) indicated that it was available at any hardware store, and that his Boat restoring buddies use it all the time. It's in the family of expoxy replacement treatments. I'll ring him back and get a better name. The question behind the question is can I/should I treat the bilge again this spring when I have the floors out.

If there is paint or varnish on the surfaces in the bilge, anything you pour down there will be difficult to permeate into the wood. Some will penetrate, but most will not be able to get thru the surface finish layers.

Andreas

The product you refer to is Cuprinol, which is a wood preservative that comes in two forms - green (copper naphthenate) or clear (zinc naphthenate). The green kind is a better preservative, but it does stain the wood green so is not what you want to use if the wood is varnished. There are other similar brands too, one is Coppo. Usually available in Home Depot, Lowe's etc. I used a preservative by Behr, Clear Wood Prservative, which is copper based but is clear in color so can be varnished.

Was just paging thru the April 1948 issue of "The Boating Industry magazine. On page 93 there is an advertisement for CUPRINOL preservative. It was made by Cuprinol Divsion, Darworth, Inc. at 2 River Street, Simsbury, Conn.

The ad featured the wooden sailing ship Charles W. Morgan at the marine museum in Mystic, CT . It said that all replacement wood items were treated with Cuprinol.

Thompson at Peshtigo and Cruisers, Inc. at Oconto pumped pentachlorophenol (PCP) preservative into the boat hulls prior to any finishing applications. They'd pump the stuff in - let it sit for a while and then pump it out into the next hull. This was a process they started in the early 1960s. Penta is the oily, stinky stuff used to treat power poles. It definately cannot be used outside of a licensed chemical treating facility these days.

Andreas

Cuprinol is still available in the US. Besides Home Depot and Lowe's (who may carry copper naphthenate wood preservative under a different brand name - look on the label for 1% or 2% solution of copper in solvent), Jamestown Distributors in Bristol, RI also have both types for sale - clear and green. The green type provides more decay resistance to wood. Their web site is http://www.jamestowndistributors.com and you can order from the website.