Gel Coat Cleaner

[Tom B]

After sanding 25 years of bottom paint off my CD25 this past winter after pulling the shrink wrap off the boat I was greeted with layers and layers of bottom paint dust mostly in the cockpit. After a good wash with water and soap the stains of bottom paint dust remain. Does anyone have a favorite cleaner that will do the job?



tomb5050@aol.com

[Tom C.]

After sanding 25 years of bottom paint off my CD25 this past winter after pulling the shrink wrap off the boat I was greeted with layers and layers of bottom paint dust mostly in the cockpit. After a good wash with water and soap the stains of bottom paint dust remain. Does anyone have a favorite cleaner that will do the job?

X14 will sometimes work when others don't. For more serious stains some people swear by Y10. Ajax and a soft scrub pad is what I try first.



TomCambria@mindspring.com

[Ken Cave]

For outside work, I have found that StaBrite Deck Cleaner works best on about anything out there (and my boat is parked near three refineries!!(Anacortes, WA)

Just wet the deck down, squirt this stuff on the deck, use a SOFT brush and brush it around, wait a few minutes, then rinse it off.It not only cleans off the grime, but seals the deck in the process.

This stuff is the next best thing to sliced bread!!

Costs between $4.00 to $7.00 for a quart, but will last a season!

Hope this helps

Ken Cave



bcave@whidbey.net

[Glen]

The last time I had my boat hauled it was in the yard about 2 weeks and got covered by bottom paint dust that was being ground/sanded off of other boats. When I sprayed the boat off, a lot of the blue/black dust washed away but left the entire deck very stained. One of the guys at the yard gave me a bit of solution that he said was an acid wash...told me to put about a tablespoon in a bucket, brush on the boat and immediatly rinse. It worked like magic! I have no idea what it was, but he said not to get the undiluted stuff on anything because it would react similar to battery acid. Now for the scary part...I only had time to wash half of the deck before it got dark...that night it rained and the rain washed the rest of the stains off of the deck.

Any slightly acidic wash should work about the same.



glen@cambio.acomp.usf.edu

[John R.]

For outside work, I have found that StaBrite Deck Cleaner works best on about anything out there (and my boat is parked near three refineries!!(Anacortes, WA)

Just wet the deck down, squirt this stuff on the deck, use a SOFT brush and brush it around, wait a few minutes, then rinse it off.It not only cleans off the grime, but seals the deck in the process.

This stuff is the next best thing to sliced bread!!

Costs between $4.00 to $7.00 for a quart, but will last a season!

Hope this helps

Ken Cave

Ken is right, that Starbrite yellow "Deck Cleaner" is excellent stuff. I've used so many different strong acid based cleaners over the years I figured I tried them all. I had a problem with diesel exhaust suit (sp?) from fire trucks that stained my deck badly when my boat was docked near a fire boat and the fire department used to park their trucks when servicing their fire boat and leave them running. The stains were terrible in my deck and I tried everything from On/Off to oxalic acid based powdered cleaners to solvents to compounds to wet sanding. These things barely affected it. I tried the Starbrite stuff and it took most of it out with the first wash and the remaining trace after the second wash. It's all I use now and the decks are always super white.

[Tom B]

Thanks for all the input just picked up some Starbrite deck cleaner



tomb5050@aol.com