Well, I've never seen Vactan do that before

[BlueStringPudding]

I've used Vactan for years, it's always been straightforward. Yesterday, having spent several days sanding down a 6-10 inch strip of roof (many layers of blue antislip paint), plus the handrail above it, and the blue frame around the the boat sides, I applied Vactan. (There had been a LOT of rust, especially on the roof).  The Vactan went on the same as it always does. A few hours later when I went back indoors, the Vactan was dry and everything looked normal. However...

 

This morning I came outside to find all my red and cream paintwork, and even the window frames stained with dirty blueish streaks. I've given it a scrub with a wet broom, but it doesn't come off. It's totally b*ggered. And I'm rather upset about it. This is about 25ft of cabin side. 😲

 

Any ideas why this might have happened? I've never had Vactan run like this before, and certainly not hours after drying. I would like to avoid this happening again coz there's plenty more rust to tackle. 

 

Also, if anyone has any tried and tested methods of how to safely remove the blue streaks from my red paintwork and signwriting, that would be great. I've got a horrible feeling it's permanently fooked 😕  

[Tracy D'arth]

It is permanent I think.  Perhaps it rained or a dew in the night?

 

There is vinyl in Vactan.  Try Tcut?

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Wow. That’s a shitter. 
I like using vactan but never had that. 
Did you slap a load on? 
As above ^ I can only guess you had a bit of rain. 
I don’t know how you’d remove that without taking off your paint at same time. As you know it dries to a hard tough surface. Sooner you attack it the better. 

 

 

[David Mack]

Thats not nice!

I'd be tempted to try something like a plastic pan scourer, but there's always the risk of scratching (or indeed rubbing through) the top coat. A lot of work to do the whole cabin side though.

[BEngo]

9I am with Tracy . If soap and water won't  shift it you need a mild abrasive.. Rather than T Cut  which is quite aggressive, try Farecla G3.  You really need a polisher and sponge mop to  put it on, used at a fairly slow speed with a blue or pink mop.  You can probably hire a sander/polisherand Scrrewfix or Toolstation do the mops.

 

As a starter though,  if you have some car polish like Autoglym or Turtle wax, try that.  It will be hard work by hand but will show whether the muck has soaked in far.  Then you confidently rent a polisher to do the rest.

 

N

[Higgs]

The colouring (bleeding) is coming from the oxidised layers of the paint, of the blue and white surfaces. However, I would also expect the red to have run, but can't see that that has happened. Cutting or polishing back might help. 

 

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by Higgs

[Tracy D'arth]

The rust killing ingredient is of course phosphoric acid. This will affect the paint without a doubt.

[Dav and Pen]

I have had something like this happen when I used Vacatan on the top of the cabin side where there was rust under the joint between the roof and the sides. Didn’t notice that it had run until later in the day when I could see light black streaks on the white cabin side. Tried to wipe them out but in the end had to sand and overpaint. 

[BEngo]

25 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

The rust killing ingredient is of course phosphoric acid. This will affect the paint without a doubt.

Is it??  The last 3 letters of the name and the web suggests the active ingredient is tannic acid/ tannin based with a vinyl carrier which gives the primer effect

 

N

[Tracy D'arth]

15 minutes ago, BEngo said:

Is it??  The last 3 letters of the name and the web suggests the active ingredient is tannic acid/ tannin based with a vinyl carrier which gives the primer effect

 

N

My mistake, it is tannic acid.  I use phosphoric acid neat for rust killing, I am confused.

 

If it is tannic acid scouring with hot water may lessen the damage.

[Slow and Steady]

"Vactan is a complex mixture of a vinyl acrylic copolymer and tannic acid"

https://www.performance-chemicals.net/vactan

I think it's fooked and will need over painting, it looks stained.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Slow and Steady

[BlueStringPudding]

1 hour ago, Slow and Steady said:

"Vactan is a complex mixture of a vinyl acrylic copolymer and tannic acid"

https://www.performance-chemicals.net/vactan

I think it's fooked and will need over painting, it looks stained.

 

I think you might be right  I've now tried a sponge scourer with Ecover spray on one area of the red/cream paint.

 

And on another area, a Swarfega-like gritty-textured handwipe. But no joy with either. Some of the blue colour comes off onto the handwipe but the red/cream paint looks equally stained underneath. The roughness of the wipe at least got the blue stripes off the window glass! I had resorted to using my thumbnail to scratch them off, but it was knackering. 😃

 

Any thoughts on whether it's possible to get the marks off the silver coloured window frames? If So, what with? 

Edited May 9, 2022 by BlueStringPudding

[Stroudwater1]

1 hour ago, BEngo said:

9I am with Tracy . If soap and water won't  shift it you need a mild abrasive.. Rather than T Cut  which is quite aggressive, try Farecla G3.  You really need a polisher and sponge mop to  put it on, used at a fairly slow speed with a blue or pink mop.  You can probably hire a sander/polisherand Scrrewfix or Toolstation do the mops.

 

As a starter though,  if you have some car polish like Autoglym or Turtle wax, try that.  It will be hard work by hand but will show whether the muck has soaked in far.  Then you confidently rent a polisher to do the rest.

 

N

 

Farecla G3 is Definitely the way to go as  the paint is  pretty oxidised anyway. It may work well and will save a big paint bill. You maybe fine to do it by hand, its not as tough as you think if you do section by section over a week or two. 

 

 

[Slow and Steady]

The problem is that acid etches. I feel your pain. If your windows are anodised hmmm. If they are lacquered, hmmm, if they are plain aluminium you should be able to use metal polish. I guess you'll have to try a few things and see if they work. I hate anodised windows with a passion! I had to paint mine.

 

I wouldn't have seen that coming either, it's a good warning for others. If there's a lesson here it's to get some paint on rust treatments straight away.

Another vote for Farecla G3 on your oxidised paint. No point messing with lightweight polish.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Slow and Steady

[BlueStringPudding]

2 hours ago, Higgs said:

The colouring (bleeding) is coming from the oxidised layers of the paint, of the blue and white surfaces. However, I would also expect the red to have run, but can't see that that has happened. Cutting or polishing back might help. 

 

 

I've not applied Vactan to the red or cream painted areas, only the blue. Any horizontal streaks in the cream would be accidental from the edge of the brush. The vertical streaks are coming from the blue above, trickling down over the cream and red, which haven't bled. 

 

-----

 

I mentioned to Tree Monkey yesterday that I thought it was strange that the Vactan hadn't turned all the roof rust a blue-blackish colour. Much of it remained brown last night, even though the Vactan had dried. I thought maybe it was because it's an old bottle of Vactan, it had possibly lost some of its potency. But this morning, all the roof rust has been converted to blue-black. So I suppose while that happened overnight, it produced all this horrid juice that's run down everything and dried on it. Maybe with the addition of rain or dew.  Who knows? It looks a feckin sight, though. 😕 

Edited May 9, 2022 by BlueStringPudding

[PeterF]

As noted above, Vactan is based on tannic acid and the reaction with rust forms ferric tannate (iron tannate) which is a dark blue colour. Sometimes if you work oak with steel or wire wool the tannins in the oak react to form ferric tannate which discolours the oak or if you get rusty water on your oak. The remedy for this is the application of oxalic acid as this 'bleaches' the ferric tannate. I have used oxalic acid on my hatch liners when rust water got on them with some success. I have no idea if oxalic acid would work for you given that the colour is bound up in a polymer film. I also have no idea what oxalic acid would do to the paint.

[Higgs]

37 minutes ago, BlueStringPudding said:

I've not applied Vactan to the red or cream painted areas, only the blue. Any horizontal streaks in the cream would be accidental from the edge of the brush. The vertical streaks are coming from the blue above, trickling down over the cream and red, which haven't bled. 

 

I get the running effect on my boat, when I give it a good wash after long periods of neglect. If yours is not bleeding as I thought, I can't say I'd expect to see that effect from Vactan. I hope some polishing back will help. 

 

 

[BlueStringPudding]

So, here's a question: how do I prevent this from happening again when I de-rust the rest of the boat?

 

I'm not sure what I did wrong. Like I said, when I left it about 4 or 5pm yesterday, the Vactan was already dry and clear (no longer off-white colour), little of the rust had yet turned blue-black though, and there were no dribbles at all. By this morning: Title scene from a horror film. 

 

I can't leave the remaining rust untreated forever (as tempting as that may be) So what can I do differently next time? 🤔

[MtB]

This is all very distressing not only for the state of your bote but because until now, Vactan has always seemed to me the perfect rust treatment. Easy to use and very effective.

 

I'm wondering if the nanny state has made the manu reduce the amount of tannic acid in it, leading to it needing to dry far more slowly. Or something.

 

Have you considered contacting the manu technical dept to see what they have to say about 1) what exactly happened, and 2) how to avoid it happening again, and 3) what if anything can be done to recover the red paint now messed up? 

 

Sadly I fear they will deny any knowledge, insist it can't happen and it must be All Your Fault.... but let's live in hope they don't! 

[Tracy D'arth]

^^^^^ THis^^^^  The manufacturers will be the folk to ask how you sort this mess and why it happened.

[Slow and Steady]

1 hour ago, BlueStringPudding said:

I thought it was strange that the Vactan hadn't turned all the roof rust a blue-blackish colour. Much of it remained brown last night, even though the Vactan had dried. I thought maybe it was because it's an old bottle of Vactan, it had possibly lost some of its potency. But this morning, all the roof rust has been converted to blue-black.

That sounds like it dried before it had a chance to convert the rust, then the dew last night wet it enough to complete it's job but it also ran down your paint because you weren't standing there to prevent it. It was sunny and breezy yesterday?

[Guest]

2 hours ago, MtB said:

This is all very distressing not only for the state of your bote but because until now, Vactan has always seemed to me the perfect rust treatment. Easy to use and very effective.

 

I'm wondering if the nanny state has made the manu reduce the amount of tannic acid in it, leading to it needing to dry far more slowly. Or something.

 

Have you considered contacting the manu technical dept to see what they have to say about 1) what exactly happened, and 2) how to avoid it happening again, and 3) what if anything can be done to recover the red paint now messed up? 

 

Sadly I fear they will deny any knowledge, insist it can't happen and it must be All Your Fault.... but let's live in hope they don't! 

 

Alteration of the formula was the first thing that sprung to my mind when I read BSP's original post. Its happening a lot often resulting in a 'safer' but less effective product.

[tree monkey]

It might be worth noting the "it's an old bottle of vactan"  before peeps go too far down the changed formula rabbit hole.

I suspect this bottle is very original 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, tree monkey said:

It might be worth noting the "it's an old bottle of vactan"  before peeps go too far down the changed formula rabbit hole.

I suspect this bottle is very original 

 

Then most likely something has deteriorated during storage.

[tree monkey]

Just now, The Happy Nomad said:

 

Then most likely something has deteriorated during storage.

That's my suspicion