Stripping Off Old Bottom Paint

[Tom Bailey]

I need to strip the old bottom paint from my CD 28 sailboat down to the fiberglass, and start with a new barrier coat. One person told me to hire someone to sand blast the old paint; another person said that would be bad for a fiberglass hull, that I needed to use a chemical stripper under some kind of plastic envelope. Has anyone been thru this successfully? Any suggestions?



trbailey@gte.net

[Curt Smith]

In 1994-1995 I stripped off all of the bottom paint on my 1986 CD 28 powerboat. I went through the same set of questions you are now and finally got the name of a guy who sand blasts boat bottoms. After interviewing several "sand blasters" I quickly reallized that it is ESSENTIAL that you find a guy who has done this before... many times before.

Well the guy came to my boat, long pony tail, earing and all after canceling the day before because his 1950's vintage converted milk truck broke down on the way to my boat... well you get the picture.

For $400 (cash only of course) he did a BEAUTIFUL job. Every curve on the hull was carefully followed... he used a very very fine sand which left the gelcoat only mildly pitted but extremely uniform and prepped perfectly for painting.

After repairing several blisters and drying the hull for 6 months, I had a yard apply the Interlux barrier coat system and CSC bottom paint which has been just great.

There's lots more I could tell you about all this, but my recommendation is to forget sanding... forget chemicals... ask around for a guy who does this kind of thing and pray for the best. I got lucky and got a beautiful job for a reasonable price.

Curt Smith
Middlebury, CT.



besson@ct1.nai.net

[Steve Zigler]

I have stripped the bottom paint off of a couple of boats. My approach was to first chemically strip away the old paint as much as possible and then sand the remainder of the old paint off with an small random orbital sander. The easiest stripper I have used is Marine Peel Away (if memory serves). You apply the stripper (gel) to the paint, cover it with a fibrous paper supplied with the stripper, wait awhile and then pull the paper off with the old paint attached. It's main advantages are that (1) it does not harm fiberglass (according the manufacturer& my experience) if left on a long time, and (2) it doesn't contain noxious solvents like many other strippers. Incidentally it also works well on varnish. After grinding out areas of pox, I filled &faired with West System epoxy and then rolled on Interlux Interprotect Epoxy paint to finish the job.

[Tom Bailey]

I have been told that it takes a while for the hull to dry out after you strip the old paint off, before you put on the barrier coat. I live in Florida where it's pretty humid in the summer, but I'll be paying the yard 20 - 25 dollars per day while it's drying out. Any idea how long I should let it dry out?



trbailey@gte.net

[zeida cecilia]

After much researching and asking, I have also "sandblasted" the old bottom paint away from my recently purchased 1982 CD-33. Lots of pros and cons...though! Very important is to select the professional who can really do the job properly, otherwise, they can really damage the fiberglass. I ended up in a yard with a good reputation. they charged me $68 a foot !!! to sandblast the entire bottom... then fine sand it again by hand to make it really smooth. After one day of drying the hull, they applied the barrier/sealer/primer Interlux. With a West epoxy they filled every single little pinhole left by the sandblasting. you should have seen the keel at that time... it looked like hundreds of tiny patches of white shaving cream throughout the entire bottom... Then they put on 2 final coats of Trinidad 75 anti-fouling... At the end, when I saw it before she went back into the water, it was awsome, how good she looked. My hull had clusters of blisters... but they turned out to be PAINT blisters, from the old paint becoming loose from bad prior applications. Anyway, now I know I have a solid hull, painted properly, and hoping it lasts at least 2 years, because it was very expensive!... But all in all, it was the right thing to do.

In 1994-1995 I stripped off all of the bottom paint on my 1986 CD 28 powerboat. I went through the same set of questions you are now and finally got the name of a guy who sand blasts boat bottoms. After interviewing several "sand blasters" I quickly reallized that it is ESSENTIAL that you find a guy who has done this before... many times before.

Well the guy came to my boat, long pony tail, earing and all after canceling the day before because his 1950's vintage converted milk truck broke down on the way to my boat... well you get the picture.

For $400 (cash only of course) he did a BEAUTIFUL job. Every curve on the hull was carefully followed... he used a very very fine sand which left the gelcoat only mildly pitted but extremely uniform and prepped perfectly for painting.

After repairing several blisters and drying the hull for 6 months, I had a yard apply the Interlux barrier coat system and CSC bottom paint which has been just great.

There's lots more I could tell you about all this, but my recommendation is to forget sanding... forget chemicals... ask around for a guy who does this kind of thing and pray for the best. I got lucky and got a beautiful job for a reasonable price.

Curt Smith
Middlebury, CT.

zcecil@ibm.net

[Jeff Daniels]

Curt Smith:

Thanks for the info. I have been thinking of getting 25 years of paint off the bottom of my Cape Dory Typhoon. I live in West Hartford, not that far from Middlebury. Would you be willing to share the name of your blaster?

jeff daniels



jeffdan@courant.infi.net

[Jeff Daniels]

Curt Smith:

Thanks for the info. I have been thinking of getting 25 years of paint off the bottom of my Cape Dory Typhoon. I live in West Hartford, not that far from Middlebury. Would you be willing to share the name of your blaster?

jeff daniels



jeffdan@courant.infi.net

[Jeff Daniels]

Curt Smith:

Thanks for the info. I have been thinking of getting 25 years of paint off the bottom of my Cape Dory Typhoon. I live in West Hartford, not that far from Middlebury. Would you be willing to share the name of your blaster?

jeff daniels



jeffdan@courant.infi.net

[Derek Hillen]

Brad,

Was the water in your bilge fresh or salt? I had the same problem when I bought Galileo, a CD33. Turned out the water had leaked out of the V-berth water tank which had a crack in it. 24 gals of water in the bilge was a surprise to me also. I tasted it (really) but the bilge was so dirty I couldn't tell if it was fresh water, salt water or horse blood. I keep my bilge clean now!

Good luck.

Derek
"Galileo"

After a fantastic sail across the bay in 20+ kts on Saturday I checked the bilge for any surprises. Boy was I surprised! The bilge was about 2/3 full. That had never happened before. I pumped it out and kept an eye on it the rest of the weekend. No more water.

I've been stewing on this for a couple of days now and have only one guess (at this point) of where this water came from. Magdelana is a CD32 with water tankage overflow directed into the bilge. Yes, I topped of the tanks the time I was out. Sound plausible?

The only thing throwing a wrench into my theory is that my #1 battery was dead after leaving it 'on' so the bilge pump would have power in my absence. My theory there is that I have a 'real' problem un-related to the bilge, but connected to a short to ground somewhere letting the battery drain over the 3 weeks I was absent.

Anyone else have another guess? Had similiar problems? I'm new to the fleet and can use all the help you all willing to give!

Thanks,

Brad

galileo98@hotmail.com