bottom jobs.....

[albin43]

the bottom of my 1981 albin has never been striped. it has about 8 layers of bottom paint on her. when i had it surveyed the man told me there wasnt any moisture and I wouldnt have blister problems...

usally around here the marina sandblast the bottoms with patriot blast then grinds out the blisters and applys interlux 2000E then sprays bottom paint. if infact i dont have blister problems I dont want to open up the bottom with that aggressive of a media. has anyone ever used aqua strip or something similar? Id like to get it down to the original Gel then epoxy paint the bottom.

let me know what you all have done

thanks

 

[JAT]

Honestly... I have never used a liquid stripper... But I have talked to people who have and they tell me its a very mess and laborious process.

Sand-blasting is not good....and it tends to mess up the gelcoat ..... You might want to see if anyone in your area does bottom stripping by shooting or blasting baking soda.....its far gentler on the bottom, but the results are are better.

On the other hand... I would wonder, if the boat has not blisters, and if the bottom paint is intact and in good shape, not peeling, etc.....why remove it....?

When you say "epoxy paint it" are you meaning putting an epoxy barrier coating....or changing from an ablative paint to a hard epoxy?

 

[Phil Fill]

I agree if there is nothing wrong with the paint/bottom why strip/sand it off.* We owned out trawler for 15 years, and all we have done is pressure washes it, sanded/repaired a few blister and applied another coat of paint. I prepping the hulls I plaster board sander/grader you can buy at most dirt hardware stores, and/or a 60 grit orbiter sander to get the dirt/flakes off that the pressure washer missed, to prep the hull, but not to sand the paint off.

 

[Datenight]

We did ours last year. It took my brother and I 27 hours total to strip the bottom with a paste stripper and then sand smooth.

We used regular Zip Strip because it is agressive and can be neutralized with water. The marine stuff in my opinion is worthless. We would lay it on thick, wait 15 minutes then scrape it off with a 1" Red Devil scraper. Joe and I are third generation flooring contractors and can fly with a scraper kept razor sharp with a file. We did test with the stripper first to be sure we could neutralize it and that it would not burn through the gel coat as we had been told it would. I could not fing any documentation that it would burn through gel coat despite searching. Worked for me.

After sanding we barier coated with Interlux, one coat Aquaguard green and three Aquaguard red. Compliments fron the yard on the total job AND how clean the bottom was in October when we came out. Was not the worst boat job I've everdone.

Rob
Datenight
37'Sedan

 

[FF]

WHY would you want to go thru all this?

Cleaning the prop and keeping it clean with Prop Speed will increase the fuel milage far more than a smppth polished racing sailboat style bottom.

The chance of damage far outweighs and possible gain.

If the boat doesn't have the POX by now , it will never get it.

 

[Peter B]

Totally agree with FF there....only to add I got talked out of using Propspeed last time, and regret I did. Next time I'll have that too. As he says, if it ain't got pox now, it never will. Mine has a bit, but it is unchanged in 8 yrs, so it stays...... boat still floats.

 

[Fotoman]

Looks to me like you have more important projects on the burner. I would not touch that now unless there is a problem. Spend more time and money on your decks and things you will actually see and enjoy.

 

[albin43]

fotoman, you sound like my dad

 

[Max Simmons]

I went through the same dilema. Ended up renting a Fein sander attached to vacuum. 2 days to sand 5 coats of paint off. I used a mechanics rolling stool, tyvek jumpsuit and a respirator. Think I lost 5 pounds in the process. I didn't get them all off, but to a fairly good point to re-paint.* I saw maybe 3 or 4 blisters.* They've been there this long, (20yrs?) so I didn't worry about them.

 

[Tom.B]

Eight layers? Is that all?

I think it's not worth the effort until you have another problem to address. I mean, what is the end game to taking the paint off down to the gel coat? IMHO, you're wasting your money. Just put another coat of paint on it and get back to boating. Boats like trawlers can handle FAR more coats before anything like this should be done and I am told that it really never needs to get done if you are using ablative paint. It doesn't build-up that fast year-over-year.

 

[albin43]

what i have is just ugly, i understand you dont see alot of it. but around the waterline just below the stripe the ice has pulled alot of paint off and it looks like trash. its not something i would be doing this season due to lack of funds but its deff on the to do list