[Public-List] Stripping Bottom Paint - Any Experience with Soy/Chemical Strippers?

[laserandy at aol.com]

So with the rudder well in hand, I have an evening and part of a weekend before the new paint goes on early next week.? Our existing bottom paint is pretty patchy.? Ann has been removing the obviously loose stuff fairly easily with a scraper, which leads me to wonder how well attached the rest of it is.? Also, with so many medium size patches of bare gelcoat vs. years of accumulated bottom paint where we haven't taken it off, the surface is going to be fairly irregular when we repaint.

I'm not particularly keen to sand all of it off, and the price I got for soda-blasting it is high enough that I'd just leave it as is.? So the question, has anyone successfully used any of the chemical strippers, particularly the soy ones which sound so much friendlier?

Would we be insane to even think of attempting this in just a few hours (a couple to paint the stuff on, a couple for it to work, and a couple to whisk away the paint swiftly and easily with a paint scraper)?

I searched the archives and couldn't find anything (although I may have been using the wrong terms).

Andrew