Bottom Paint Removal

andrewaia · Post by **andrewaia** » Apr 12th, '10, 20:58

I suppose I do not have to but....there are many coats of paint on the bottom of my boat and I would like to remove it. What has your experience been removing bottom paint, sanding, scraping or stripping? They are all equally nasty, so which is your preferred method of removal?

Jeff and Sarah · Post by **Jeff and Sarah** » Apr 12th, '10, 21:08

I am a huge fan of Soy Strip- it's safe to apply without gloves (though becomes toxic when the paint softens) and scrapes off easily. A relatively quick wipe down with Acetone will remove the remaining blush on the hull. I did a J22 in 6 hours by myself, which I think is relatively fast to go from bottom paint to gelcoat. I did not have several layers of paint and primer to go through though. I've recommended Soy Strip to a couple friends and they've all had similar success.

David van den Burgh · Post by **David van den Burgh** » Apr 12th, '10, 21:08

You'll find several responses to similar questions in the archive. For my money, a quality scraper is the ticket.

Good luck.

Klem · Post by **Klem** » Apr 12th, '10, 21:10

If you really want it all removed, a lot of people like getting the hull soda blasted. If you are not planning on barrier coating or want to do it yourself, a really sharp scraper works reasonably well for most of it and sandpaper will finish the job. Another option is to use one of those 8" disk sanders with some 36 grit on it.

BubbaThePirate · Post by **BubbaThePirate** » Apr 13th, '10, 08:11

I second the Soy Strip. It works like a charm. Just lay it on as thick as they say, cover it with plastic and wait as long as they say. Invest in a good quality putty knife, it will come off like butter.

Then sanded the hull down to gel coat. I went through in a couple places but I have some other f/g work to do as well so this is not a concern for me.

Steve Laume · Post by **Steve Laume** » Apr 13th, '10, 08:47

Like every thing in life, I think it depends on your situation.

I hand scraped a Ty and a CD-30. It is one of the times you would much rather own a Typhoon.

Some areas peeled right off with a very sharp chisel and I had to struggle with others. A combination of dry scraping and soy stripper might be a prudent way to proceed. There were entire sections that would have taken more time to apply a stripper than it took to scrape the paint down to gel coat. There were other areas that I should have used a stripper as I labored hard with the chisel.

A very sharp one inch chisel with slightly rounded corners will be your best friend, Steve.

Bruce Bett · Post by **Bruce Bett** » Apr 13th, '10, 12:45

I used soy strip to remove many layers of paint on Malinche. It worked reasonably well. I had to do several applications. I found that if I let it sit too long it would dry and the gunk would begin to re-harden. Later I heard reports of another fellow in my marina who applied the stripper then covered it with plastic for a long time. Reportedly it worked very well for him.

The Soy stripper may not be toxic but the bottom paint sure is. I was careless about not replacing a torn rubber glove. My palm swelled up like a ... I don't know ... it was amazing. It stayed that way for a couple days. I survived though.

Bruce

andrewaia · Post by **andrewaia** » Apr 13th, '10, 19:06

Thank you for telling me your experiences, I did remove paint from the first boat I had but it was almost falling off anyway and I used a sander/grinder it wasn't to bad until I got to the cast iron keel, wow what a cloud of toxic dust I made...I am surprised my neighbors did not complain...I used a respirator and covered up as much as possible but I did have itchy arms for a couple days the mixture of the paint and sweat not a good combination. I am seriously considering an environmentally safe stripper thanks for the input!

John Stone · Post by **John Stone** » Apr 13th, '10, 21:06

I just stripped the bottom paint from my CD-36 last week--all the way down to the barrier coat. I have never had very good luck with chemical strippers. So, I did it with a combination of a Makita VS 8" grinder and 36-40 grit PSA disks; a Porter Cable 7335, double action, right angle RO, VS grinder and 40 grit PSA disks; and a scraper. It took 20 8" 36 grit disks, and about 120 5" disk. The disks ran about $120 from McMaster-Carr. It took two days or a total of about 10 hours of grinding.

I wore a 3M 6000 series Full face respirator, a Tyvek hooded paper suit ($6.00 from Jamestown Distributors), and gauntlet style work gloves. The hull looks great. For pictures go to my daily log and scroll down to 8 April: http://www.farreachvoyages.com/dailylog.html

I was tired when I was through but it was not that bad.

Good luck.

john walden · Post by **john walden** » Jun 14th, '10, 09:38

Any more info on soda blasting? Costs?

BubbaThePirate · Post by **BubbaThePirate** » Jun 14th, '10, 09:59

I don't want to impune on anyone's skills but I have a hard time thinking that one could stop at the barrier coat with 36 grit on an 8" grinder.

I know I would sand right through mine, so I'm not spending the money on a barrier.

Todd

MFC · Post by **MFC** » Jun 14th, '10, 10:48

john walden wrote:Any more info on soda blasting? Costs?

They seem to range pretty dramatically. I got quotes from $800 to $2500.

Jeff and Sarah · Post by **Jeff and Sarah** » Jun 14th, '10, 16:58

A friend of mine had his boat blasted and from his experience, it's all about the angle the blaster is held to the boat. The blasting media should just skim the surface. He said he looked at a few jobs the guy had previously done before actually hiring anybody and was ultimately very happy with the results. The angle was something I hadn't thought of before and I'm sure like all things in life, some people are just better at it than others.

Dick Villamil · Post by **Dick Villamil** » Jun 14th, '10, 20:56

If you use VC17 there is no paint to remove - just a top coat every year however with the ablating type of botom paint I have used a 2-3" paint scraper to get the loose flakes off (place a tarp under the boat first). After all the loose paint is removed you can then rsort to 40 or 60 grit wet or dry and keep it wet. No dust and it works fine. Then you can either put on a barrier coat or just add bottom paint. It was easier to do my Typhoon since It had a lot of old bottom paint on it. After the wet sanding took the rest of the old bottom paint off, a random orbital 60 grit made quick work with the rest. I have done this method on a 24, 27 and 34 foot boat and they all cleaned up pretty good - no toxic dust.

John Stone · Post by **John Stone** » Jun 14th, '10, 21:48

Todd,
I was not worried about stopping at the original barrier coat, since I was going to add new barrier coat anyway. To do that, all the paint had to come off since barrier coat won't stick to bottom paint. I only added barrier coat since it had it on there anyway. I guestimate about 20 percent of the original barrier coat came off during the grinding but the vast majority of it was very tough. I wouldn't have put more on except it already had barrier coat.

Happy Sailing.

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