stripping down to my bottom

[s calder]

I'm biting the bullet and stripping my hull to the gel coat (or barrier coat if there is one). Stripper at West Marine is pretty pricey, will regular paint stripper work (from Home Depot) or is it too risky to the gel coat? Any recommendations on a stripper (not the kind that jumps out of a cake). Also, can anybody recommend a barrier coat that comes in colors, preferably blue. I don't ever plan to paint my bottom again (I'm in cold fresh water) but I need a colored barrier coat to hide old blister repairs and such. Thanks for your input.

[bhartley]

Do NOT use regular stripper. It will disolve the gelcoat. Be sure to wear a good respirator, goggles and protective clothing!!!

I just stripped Pyxis' bottom using a razor scraper. I tried lots of different options on scraping/sanding, but for our boat the razor scraper worked best. It required pushing rather than pulling. There were many layers of paint and once the blade got up under an edge, all of the layers came off in large-ish flakes. I kept a tarp under the boat and swept up the "crumbs" after each session.

Sanding alone was very, very messy to say nothing of the noxious fumes. I can only imagine that the paste removers are even messier.

Once scraped, I used a RO sander to take off any remaining paint/barrier coat. You have to be careful scraping not to rush and nick the gelcoat with the corners. For me, a slightly dull blade worked best. The entire bottom only used 2 blades.

Bly

[Watermark II]

We stripped our ketch last spring and used Sterling 5F5 paint remover from the local hardware store ( recomemended by a boat restorer... I think about $15 a gallon). It took off 30 years of old paint 3 or 4 layers at a time using a 1-1/2" chisel.

For the barrier coat we used Interprotect 2000E which comes in gray. It covered all the repairs easily.

We are on a New Hampshire lake.

Andy
CD30K #2

[Boyd]

Hi All:

I too find scraping the easiest way to remove bottom paint. Try a variety of scrapers till you find the ones that work best. I found that one type worked best on horrizontal areas and others worked on curved. Letting the bottom dry out well helps as the heavy layers tend to crack up like mud. Sanding all of the bottom paine off before applying the barrier coat is critical.

Interprotect comes in both grey and white. The idea is you can alternate coats so you dont miss areas. Interprotect is actually quite soft, so you may want to put bottom paint on to give it some protection.

BTW nothing stays on the bottom of the keel.


Boyd
s/v Tern
CD30 MkII
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

[JWEells]

I just stripped my Typhoon down to gelcoat like you want to, but I did it the old fashioned way with a grinder. Here's a few before-after pictures:

http://web.mac.com/alpine.island/iWeb/J ... kjalf.html

I forgot to take lots of intermediate photos. Probably because I was in denial. The boat had decades of paint on it. The "Ahh, crap" picture is when I realized that my fancy Interlux stripper wasn't really going to get the job done. It never warmed up here enough between November and March for the stripper to work well enough (I live at nearly 6000 feet, and sail on a lake at 5100').

So I ground it down all the stinking way. Then I patched the occasional grinder fault (gotta love epoxy and filler). Faired the patches, and painted two coats of Petit Vivid. It comes in blue. You can mix it to make your own special shade of blue. I like black. It is a really nice paint for fresh water, and is fairly hard to the touch. I imagine it's going to hold up to my cold fresh water just fine.

[Gary H]

Last week I applied Interstrip and Peel Away on test strips on my Typhoon. I found the Peel Away to be more effective. MY paint is very hard and does not scrape off with a scraper only. Peel Away did not get me down to the gelcoat everywhere but it did allow me to scrape down to sound surfaces. I plan on using a primer and Hydrocoat and not messign with a barrier coat.

[JWEells]

I'm fairly new to this old boat business, so I was pleased that grinding it gave me the opportunity to really see the hull in extremely close detail. I would get to some spots on the hull where the gelcoat had gone all chalky, so I just kept grinding it down until there was nothing but sound gelcoat to be seen - and once or twice down to the roving. The epoxy+filler paste smoothed those over in the most lovely fashion, and then the Petit Vivid made all the multitude of my sins (and those before me) go away. Two coats really built up well, too. I hope it stays on forever. I don't ever want to do that grinding job again, and that's just after a 19 foot hull. I'd hate to do that same job on my ocean boat.

And then I did the bootstripe wth Interlux Brightsides. The old bootstripe was some variety of very hard paint, so I wound up sanding that away in the places where I wasn't going to make it the same dimension. Like above the rudder, the old bootstripe had been painted flared out to something around 9 inches. It looked a little odd. I painted the new bootstripe on at roughly 4 inches in that same spot. Details.

[John G.]

A very sharp 2 inch chisel does a nice job.

[Dalton]

and liked the 1" chisel the best. 30 years of paint. I kept a new file on hand and sharpened the chisel often. And cleanup is a breeze because it's a dry mess. You can only get so much off and then you must sand clean. I bought a Porter Cable random orbital sander to finish the job. One of the best tool investments I have made. I got the vacuum attachment for it and connect to a shop vac. This works well also. Of course for this phase I wore a full Tyvek suit, dispoasable gloves and respirator as well as goggles.