I am about to haul my 30T out and have the hull sandblasted so I can start anew with a barrier coat and bottom paint. I know I have a few small blisters as well. Is there any advice regarding my approach? Any special instructions I should givel the sandblaster?
- Status
- Not open for further replies.
Why sandblast?
Dennis: Why would you sandblast a perfectly good boat? If you just need to get the bottom paint off, I think a soda blast is what is called for. I think that you are going to remove gelcoat with the sandblasting process. As far as the few blisters, they can be easily fixed by just opening them up letting them dry and doing a small patch. I am not an expert in this area so I too would like to hear from some others on this subject.
Dennis: Why would you sandblast a perfectly good boat? If you just need to get the bottom paint off, I think a soda blast is what is called for. I think that you are going to remove gelcoat with the sandblasting process. As far as the few blisters, they can be easily fixed by just opening them up letting them dry and doing a small patch. I am not an expert in this area so I too would like to hear from some others on this subject.
B
Bryan C.
Agree with Steve
What is the a problem with your hull? If the only thing wrong is a few small blisters on a 10 year old boat, IMHO that does not justify major surgery or sandblasting. Putting barrier coats and stuff like that sounds good and are often recommended by yards eager to do the work, but there are questionable benefits and some risk and a lot of cost. For example, a "barrier coat" sounds like a great idea, but it doesn't necessarily keep water our of you hull (gets in thru the inside or humidity) and so doesn't necessarily prevent blisters. And there have been lots of cases where the new coating wasn't prepared correctly or interacted with solvents in the fiberglass and resulted in a much bigger mess. My boat is 12 years old and has 10-12 dime/quarter sized blisters, and I just leave them. I'll keep my eye on them and patch them if they get too big, but for blister repair the cure can be worse than the problem. For more info there are some good articles at http://www.yachtsurvey.com/.
What is the a problem with your hull? If the only thing wrong is a few small blisters on a 10 year old boat, IMHO that does not justify major surgery or sandblasting. Putting barrier coats and stuff like that sounds good and are often recommended by yards eager to do the work, but there are questionable benefits and some risk and a lot of cost. For example, a "barrier coat" sounds like a great idea, but it doesn't necessarily keep water our of you hull (gets in thru the inside or humidity) and so doesn't necessarily prevent blisters. And there have been lots of cases where the new coating wasn't prepared correctly or interacted with solvents in the fiberglass and resulted in a much bigger mess. My boat is 12 years old and has 10-12 dime/quarter sized blisters, and I just leave them. I'll keep my eye on them and patch them if they get too big, but for blister repair the cure can be worse than the problem. For more info there are some good articles at http://www.yachtsurvey.com/.
J
jim logan
Sandblasting bad
Most of the literature on blister repair says that sandblasting is very bad as a blister or paint removal method as it breaks the glass fibers and surrounding laminate and allows water to "soak" into the hull easier, thus causing the very problem you are trying to eliminate.
Most of the literature on blister repair says that sandblasting is very bad as a blister or paint removal method as it breaks the glass fibers and surrounding laminate and allows water to "soak" into the hull easier, thus causing the very problem you are trying to eliminate.
A
A.L. ("Jim") Willis Pres of ISLAND GIRL PROD.
Barrier coat
My Gulf 32 had an epoxy barrier coat. WHen hauled in Honolulu 3 years ago I had no blisters except for a faint "rash" that showed up after several days of drying. This seemed to be very superficial. These were sanded and more barrier coat put on. However, I did have some significant (large) blisters where the water line had come above the barrier coat (the boats leans a bit because of weight of batteries). THese had to be fixed with Polvinyl stuff from 3M, barrier coated and the water-line was raised to cover the origial boot stripe and painted with green bottom paint. This is the best example that I know of how well barrier coats work. But you may not need to do much more than removing the old bottom paint. Jim W
My Gulf 32 had an epoxy barrier coat. WHen hauled in Honolulu 3 years ago I had no blisters except for a faint "rash" that showed up after several days of drying. This seemed to be very superficial. These were sanded and more barrier coat put on. However, I did have some significant (large) blisters where the water line had come above the barrier coat (the boats leans a bit because of weight of batteries). THese had to be fixed with Polvinyl stuff from 3M, barrier coated and the water-line was raised to cover the origial boot stripe and painted with green bottom paint. This is the best example that I know of how well barrier coats work. But you may not need to do much more than removing the old bottom paint. Jim W
L
Lambert
Sandblast!!??!!
I had to chose between sandblast and shaving and I would suggest shaving. (sorry for my english, I am french) Shaving is the removal of the gelcoat whit a machine that (shave) the gelcoat only. It make a nicer job, nicer finish. Less work to do after. Because sandblast leave the fiberglass whit a lot of finishing to do. It's more expensive shaving, but I would recomended more than sandblast.. Good luck. Lambert.
I had to chose between sandblast and shaving and I would suggest shaving. (sorry for my english, I am french) Shaving is the removal of the gelcoat whit a machine that (shave) the gelcoat only. It make a nicer job, nicer finish. Less work to do after. Because sandblast leave the fiberglass whit a lot of finishing to do. It's more expensive shaving, but I would recomended more than sandblast.. Good luck. Lambert.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.