[Public-List] removing bottom paint

[crufone at comcast.net]

Roger, 

Well there are bottom jobs and there are bottom jobs................... 



My only experience was with a 1966 23 foot Seafarer with similar underbody as the Alberg 30.  Bottom had not been done for many years and after the power washing there were large areas where the bottom paint was up to 1/8 inch thick,and some areas with perhaps only one thin coat left in place.  If I remember your boat was pretty smooth/uniform on the bottom. 

I used three primary methods to remove all the previous bottom paint. 1st was a 1" wide steel stiff putty knife, sharpened frequently using a file to produce a blunt square edge. This worked well on the areas where the old paint was extremely thick. The caution is that it is very easy to gouge the hull, even if you are careful. Next I used Peel-away, a stripper mfg. by Dumont. This product uses a film over the stripper to help reduce the evaporation of the stripper and keep it in concact with the hull. This only worked with fair results. One advantage is that the stripped is cleaned off with water not a solvent. The final removal was done with a dual action orbital sander hooked up to a vacuum. I wanted to go down to the original gel coat and also had several blisters to open and repair. When I did get down to the gel coat I did notice several areas of original defects/voids in the fibreglass lay-up. These were able to be repiared along with the blisters and previous poor repairs. 

This was a very long labourous process........................if I were paying a yard to do the work I would have never been able to pay the cost. 

Michael #133 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roger L. Kingsland" <r.kingsland at ksba.com> 
To: "Alberg 30 Public List -- open to all" <public-list at lists.alberg30.org> 
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2011 3:19:08 PM 
Subject: [Public-List] removing bottom paint 

Hi All, 

  

PO said (which I will confirm) a “bottom job” was done to good old #148 
which I assume means going down to FG and resealing the hull.  Problem is 
several coats of bottom paint later there is a lot of pealing and rough 
spots. 

  

And thoughts on getting large sections (perhaps all) of the bottom paint 
off?  If paint remover, what type and how many coats are typical.  Has 
anyone used the applied sheets of paint remover?  Has anyone tried soda 
blasting, which I understand is more gentle than sand blasting?   

  

Any suggestions most appreciated? 

  

Roger 148 

N 40° 27.8344'  W79° 57.9831' 

  

_______________________________________________ 
These businesses support your Association: 
http://www.alberg30.org/store/A30supporters.html 
Please support them. 
_______________________________________________ 
Public-List mailing list 
Public-List at lists.alberg30.org 
http://lists.alberg30.org/listinfo.cgi/public-list-alberg30.org 

 1300157190.0