How do you strip paint off of a fiberglass salon floor?
This spring I undertook to strip the ancient antifouling off our Sandpiper 565 (18.5 ft trailer-sailor). As part of that process i experimented with just about every possible means to remove paint from fiberglass - scraping, sanding, chemical strippers.
To save time i'll cut to the conclusion:
Use a soy-based paint stripper. I ended up with two products that performed about equally:
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Capt. John's Boat Brite paint stripper (I bought from West Marine)
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Franmar Soy-Gel (I bought directly from the Canadian distributer; there's also a stronger version called Soy-Strip that's more like Boat Brite)
Why am I recommending these?
- nearly no toxicity compared to other strippers. Not caustic either. Gloves are of course recommended but the stuff is merely a mild irritant to skin, not a health hazard. Bunny-suit not required
- doesn't have toxic fumes. No risk from stripper vapours.
- better for the environment than other strippers. Of course once the paint is removed the used residue is as toxic as the paint it now holds.
- takes a longer time to work, but remains removable for much longer as well. Works really well if put on and left overnight. Can be reactivated by water or a light second coat.
- easy removal. You can scrape, you can pressure-wash it off, you can use a wet scrub brush and loosen the gunk off enough to wipe off. I did all 3.
- easy clean-up: soap and water. No need to wipe down with acetone.
- most effective stripper. Compared to others i tried, this did the best job per application, and it left the least amount of paint traces. For me it usually took two applications/scrape cycles to completelyremove the old antifouling and get down to gelcoat.
- kindest to the gel coat. After stripping and washing, the gelcoat is smooth and shiny. No pitting, no loosening.
I also tried Star10 and InterStrip. These are solvent-based. They did work, and they are faster, but they weren't as effective per application, more hazardous to work with, and if you leave them on for more than a couple hours, can't be scraped off.
The soy strippers are more expensive than most others, but in terms of labour and hassle, I believe they do a better job with less effort, and ounce for ounce, the soy product will strip a larger area.
No I'm not a salesman. I learned this by trying everything else first.
