Coatings at lower temperature

johnniet

johnniet

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Jul 12, 1999
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This isn't actually for a knife, but where else would I turn? ;)

I want to try coating the blade of a kayak paddle with something that would keep water from sticking to it. Normally, drip is a big problem, and we put "drip rings" on the paddle shaft to keep the water out. That helps some but our hands still get pretty wet.

My dad had the idea of putting a teflon coating on the blade. That might get pretty scratched, but if you don't abuse the paddle it should last a long time. Now I'm wondering if there's a way to put one of those special coatings on--TiNi or something similar--that would protect the paddle and help water to slide off.

What coating do you think I actually want to use here?
What process might work for this? Paddle blades usually have some combination of nylon, fiberglass, and plastic.

Would any of you brave souls be interested in trying this yourself?

[I forgot one other thing. This will be used in salt water--a lot. I don't know if that makes any difference.]
 
Hi John!

How about blueing the paddle? It's inexpensive and you can even do that yourself.
But be careful, that stuff's hazardous: wear gloves etc. Just follow the instructions on the can and if there are none, ask the guys over here.

Blueing is actually a form of "corrosion", but since it only affects the surface, it keeps the metal underneath virtually rust-free. You gotta re-blue it from time to time since it tends to rub off rather easily (it doesn't scratch as readily as Teflon though).

Edit:
I just realized that you seem to be talking about coating non-metal parts of the paddle...AFAIK most coatings that can be applied to steel (Teflon, blueing...) can't be put on plastic.
 
"Paddle blades usually have some combination of nylon, fiberglass, and plastic"

I would think it will needs to be some sort of spray. Some of the gun sprays, Pam cooking spray, fishing reel lube. What do I know? You may have to do some tests on your own.

Maybe a better drip ring a really big one one?
 
I'm not going to be a real help here, but salt water carries a lot of abrasives in suspension, anything you use should be able to be reapplied without a lot of trouble.
 
Hm...good point about suspended abrasives in saltwater. Right now I'm trying a form of snowboarders' gel (it works pretty well BTW--I don't know exactly what's in it, but it's "highly flourinated"). But I had the naive thought that it would last longer on a paddle than it does on a snowboard...

Does anybody know more about the Argonne "super-slick" coating? The process they describe here doesn't sound good for paddle blades, but at one time they were using a chemical deposit process that might be suitable for plastics.

Tim--thanks for the response. Yes, I'm talking about the softer "blade" of the paddle. The shaft on my
(cheap but good) paddle is made of aluminum, and it's already very good about not picking up water. I checked this and all of the drip seems to come from the blade.

Bruce -- what in Hell is the second thing in that picture?
A pistol with Swiss Army tweezers in the end?
A knife made to look like a gun?
Either way, it looks pretty darn cool!
 
There's a spray coating that we used to get at lumber yards, sorry I don't recall the name. But we used to spray it on skilsaw blades when we were cutting cca lumber, it made the blades cut cleaner and not gum up from the sticky saw dust. You could make a bunch of cuts after applying it and letting it dry, before you would have to reapply. I would think a saw blade cutting cca would have a lot more wear then a
paddle slicing though water so it should last for quite some time on a paddle, but what do I know. :confused:

Good luck

Bill
 
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