Saving the best for last (bottom paint removal)

[walt]

Well... I did a sample small paint area on the bottom of my previously ablative painted hull with Petit Vivid (as suggested here by Sumner) and within about two days, I had an area which looked like the paint had blistered.

So at least in my case, this is a good fairly fast way to find out if the new and old bottom paints are compatible.

So I have to remove the bottom paint - which I am SO happy and excited about. :Liar::Liar:

Ive already done a fair amount of sanding on the hull over the last three season to make it smooth but now Ive pretty much got to get it all off.

Looking at past post, seems that people have used Muriatic Acid and also Phospheric acid. I understand that you can get Muriatic Acid at a hardware store? West Marine had a gallon of some very toxic looking bottom paint removal stuff for about $28 per gallon (dont know what nasty stuff is in the can).

I may try the hardware store stuff - put it in a plastic spray bottle and spray area's of the bottom with a plastic tarp under the boat - then hopefully scrape of what I can. After I'm done, rinse with water and then finish off with sand paper.

I cant wait to get started!!! Is this a reasonable plan???

 

[Sumner]

Walt that is a shame. You might want to check out the posts going on now on the Ask All Sailor's Forum....

http://forums.macgregor.sailboatowners.com/showthread.php?t=116013

Maybe another option is looking for another bottom paint that is compatible. At this point I might just buy one of the cheaper ones and power wash the bottom and scuff it with a scotchbrite pad..............

http://www.google.com/products?sour...esult_group&ct=title&resnum=3&ved=0CDIQrQQwAg

.......... and then paint.

When you sanded did you ever sand through to the gel coat? Is there either a primer coat or barrier coat under the bottom paint? I would sure hate to sand into the gel coat and maybe open places where blisters might be a problem in the future even if they weren't in the past. If I sanded to that point I would (and we are doing this) spend the $120 for 2 gallons of the Tuff-Stuff ........

http://www.bottompaintstore.com/Tuff-Stuff-High-Build-Epoxy-Primer-2GL-KIT-1284-2GL-KIT.htm

.....and get a barrier coat on and be done with that. You have a lot of work ahead of you I believe and if you do that work why not take the one extra step and not worry?

Which ever way you go document it as there will for sure be others in the same position down the road.

c ya and good luck,

Sum

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[Maine Sail]

Walt,

Acids won't do much other than to eat the copper out of the paint and leave behind the carriers. A dedicated paint stripper or just razor blades in a scraper (what I use) will be the easiest. Acids are not paint strippers but they will eat the copper out of the paint..

 

[MrBill_FLL]

maybe try Acetone? or MEK?

fwiw, muratic acid is sold at any pool store, pretty cheap... (cover the trailer!)

also, fwiw, I found a blue (sprayed) layer between the gelkote and the fiberglass. if you see blue, you are thru the gelkote.

 

[derfus]

You can use sanding pole that is used for drywall on the bottom. I have used it to sand airplanes in the past. Works good to get under places that are hard to reach and it's easy on your back. The pad is rubber backed and the head rotates to stay level with the surface.

 

[Justin_NSA]

Pettit makes a Tiecoat that, as i understand it, is designed to help bind Pettit products to other coatings.

I just got my $60 quart of Pettit Vivid black to touch up my hull. Then it's into the water and back to sailing! woohoo!

 

[walt]

Thanks for all the posts, useful to me. I went to the hardware store and about the only paint remover which didn't have warning against using on plastics/fiberglass/gellcoat was some water based stuff called Motsenbockers lift off. Its a thin gel and is applied with a paint brush.

Ive used it a bit already and it seems to work reasonably well with a scraper - but I have no other experience to compare against. The scrapings are easy to collect on a tarp under the boat which is nice since the paint/paint dust cant be good to just wash down the gutter.

Ill still have to do a fair amount of sanding.

When I complete this, I may rename my boat:

"PETTIT VIVID"

That way, I wont forget what type of paint is on the bottom.

 

[Nik]

I came across a thread a few years back about using Easy-Off to remove paint. I used it to remove the "old name", it worked like a charm. Now, here is the next question at hand. EO is basically Sodium Hydroxide (LYE) in a paste propellant form. Could one use a LYE paste and do the same thing? It didn't seem to hurt the gelcoat in the least. YES!!!!! LYE is very nasty stuff and great caution would have to be used with proper PPE. What do some of the more experienced folks think of this? About $35.00 for a 50# bag, that would make a heck of a lot of paste.

 

[Justin_NSA]

If anyone is interested, Pettit provides a compatibility chart that tells you if/what you need to do to prep your hull. As I mentioned in a thread last spring, since I didn't know what was on boat, I wet-sanded it off before applying the Vivid black.

 

[walt]

Ive scraped a bunch of paint off and am now sanding.

One thing also which has been extremely useful in sanding is Justins note about "wet sanding".

I'm using regular sandpaper but have a hand held spray bottle with water in it. Ill wet the area I need to sand first. The sand paper gets all gummed up fairly fast but I get no dust. Spray on more water and then use paper towels to wipe. Ive got pretty much no dust to deal with and all the old paint is contained in the sandpaper and paper towels. Ill probably use 10 to 15 8x10 sheets of sand paper and a roll of paper towels but its well worth it not dealing with the dust and I'm pretty much totally containing the old paint.

The wet sanding is a great tip.. still lots of work but WAY less mess...