Hello, new guy with a blasting question.

Good morning, My name is Paul and I have purchased a Biloxi Style Lugger "Trawler". *She is 65' long, wooden hull with seaflex applied. *I bought it after a fire had pretty much destroyed the cabin area and I have lots of smoke damage. *Has anyone used a soda blaster to clean smoke and soot damage. *Thanks *I will try to attach an image. *

swampu wrote:Has anyone used a soda blaster to clean smoke and soot damage.**

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Not for internal smoke and soot removal. It will make more mess than you are currently looking at. to get a*sample of what it will do, fire off a dry-chem fire extinguisher in one of the affected spaces ... a small one for your own sake.

There should be several flood, smoke and fire damage contractors advertising in your local Yellow Pages. Call one of them for an estimate.

Beautiful boat, I'm sure she'll clean up real nice, where will you be keeping her? We usually cruise through the Biloxi area a couple of times a year. Maybe we'll see you out on the water.
Steve W.


-- Edited by Steve on Monday 25th of July 2011 08:26:30 AM

The first picture does show the smoke damage or at least the blacken windows.*
*
I would hire a Ready Labor temporary help, cheap labor, and have them remove what can be used and wash the interior down.* Might take several washings.**When the interior is as clean as they can get it, tape off and seal/paint the entire interior. Most of the clean up is grunt work and elbow grease.* ******

Having dealt with a couple of fire cleanups in businesses on land I'd avoid the professional cleanup guys like the plague.* That's as bad a racket as marine mechanics.* All they're going to do is wash it with the cheapest labour they can hire, which you can do yourself.* Then they'll paint everything with some kind of a smoke sealer which is really just a glorified primer but you probably need to get some professional advice from a paint shop on that item.*

Absolutely no reason to pay for any professional services IMHO.* And I've never seen soda blasting used in that situation.* Pressure wash and hand scrub.* One thing you may want to do is rent an ozone generator and let it run for several days to eat up some of the smell.* Probably do that after the big cleanup.

*


-- Edited by bobofthenorth on Monday 25th of July 2011 02:47:42 PM

Great advice!
Thanks for the compliment Old Stone.

RickB, I did contact serve pro and they said they would clean and paint but recommended the blaster, I called a local blaster and he said it would be 8k to blast it from stem to stern. I am hoping to rid the smell and charred wood for less than that. To rent a soda blaster is about $1,000 plus the media (another grand)

Steve, I keep her in Biloxi Bay at the mouth of the Biloxi River. Hopefully in the spring we'll be taking weekend trips to the Barrier Islands. I would like to hear from you when you do pass though.

Phil/Fill, I may be leaning toward the manual labor/scrubbing of the boat. What is your opinion on spray foam? I also thought about spraying foam between the "floor joist" sorry I'm a contractor not a yacht man and nailing tongue and groove up and then sealing. I just really want to get the smoke smell out, the cabin is not bad but the bilge area which runs the length of the boat is pretty bad in some spots.

Bobofthenorth, I think you are right. As RickB said it may create more of a mess than it accomplishes in the clean up. Plus there is a section between the ceiling of the bilge and the floor of the cabin. All the blasting I do will not get into that area. Maybe I can wrap all the "floor joist" with some wood, box them in so to speak.

Thanks guys for all your help and I will try to get some better pictures tomorrow.

There was an article in PM magazine about a Grand banks Alskan. Guy said in the article that the key was to clean and paint everthing in the interior to seal it and prevent the smoke smell. His had a lot of rebuilding of main cabin and it turned out nice. Larryw

If you can not clear/reach places, the best is to seal it in.* You can seal using foam, ceiling texture, foam and or/paint.* We had a small fire in the office and all they used as a bug sprayer pump can and soap water, and a ton of absorbent pads.* Then they re tortured the ceiling and painted primed the walls.* Most of the hard surfaces that did not abosorb the smoke and soot whipped clean.*
*

We bought a condo, but never moved off the boat, because of my ex wife and keep peace with my present wife.* Long story.* It looked like it had a small fire as the wall/ceiling/floor where dirty/grey, so we bought it for less and 50% of its value.* Hired a friend of a friend, gutted the entire condo, nothing was left but the bare walls and bath tub, washed down what we could, tapped the windows, doors, rented a paint spray and sprayed 30 gallons of primer sealing every thing including both of us.

RickB wrote:
There should be several flood, smoke and fire damage contractors advertising in your local Yellow Pages. Call one of them for an estimate.

That would be my advice also.

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*

Concerning the Alaskan (DeFever if I remember right) Larry mentioned in the PM mag, we tied up next to the boat once in Deep Bay north of Vancouver.

The owners/restorers invited us aboard for a tour.

The boat was in partial restoration at the time, but progressing nicely. All the clean up had been done, systems restored and cabinets and built-ins were being put in then.

I seem to recall an oil based primer, maybe an industrial version of Kilz used to seal things up. I know such products work well for covering smoke stains on land based repairs.


here is a pic of that boat then