TRIAL OF SOY-GEL PAINT REMOVER. Tale of two strippers.
W-a-y past my project sanding days. Orbital Makita and Bosch disks didn't really
want to off the failed System3 WR-LPU clear coat... Looked around the web: found
this yummy SOY-GEL stripper. Local paint stores don't have it. Nor online marine or
paint suppliers. Got 2 qts - and a bottle of recommended EMERGE degreaser - from
Rockler ($70 incl S&H). Brushed it on thick as it would go per instructions, covered
it with plastic film, watched the surface crinkle in some places, but not all over... for
a couple days. Pulled the film, spent hours, a whole day, scraping the clear coat
and a little of the Aluthane off. Wash down with detergent and nylon pads......
Turns out this was stage one of the 'process'. (2qts for 44sqft of mast surface.)
The coating didn't turn into cottage cheese, as the product video shows. In places it
lifted bubbly skin of still fairly tough coating... and at others just ignored it. Now
committed (what nut house is this?)... figured I needed at least a gallon more gel.
Rockler took forever getting to me. Lo and behold: found it in McMasterCarr, who
delivered a gallon next day, pronto. ($90 incl S&H)!!!
Slopped on 2 more heavy coats, with 2 more episodes of scraping layers of sticky
skin that the stripper merely lifted rather than convert into that more appetizing
cottage cheese, magically wiped off with handfuls of towels the video shows. Each
installment also got scrubbed down with detergent and nylon pads.... The Soy-Gel
leaves a kind of oily residue. Used non-toxic Emerge degreaser after 3rd scrub down.
Realize we are talking about removing urethane. But it's advertised to easily do that.
Realized at the beginning that using a stripper would probably mean taking all coating
off, because the action of stripper is to degrade whatever it penetrates. Penetration
was and is an unknown. In this case: dashed expectations, disappointing experience,
a lot of work, lots of bucks. Been smarter to grind off the bloody failed LPU leaving
most of the Aluthane. Got taken again, by my brain pilot, who seems to be loosing it...
But it does show just how tough the metallic Aluthane is. That's one lonely thing.
Stripping paint asks for trouble. Depressing! ....this event also degraded ALL the
Lab-metal repairs on the mast! The naked and now reversed mast looks horrible,
quite literally, back to its original painful state. Old pits, corrosions, forensic voids that
Lab-metal compound transformed to like-new again, turns out nothing more than a
cosmetic facial... like those fem-crèmmercials on tv... same old face under the paste.
Alvin, an old welding products company (1950s), produces helpful cans of heat-proof
lotions and this particular rather toxic "metal repair" paste... I did have fun with it.
Even tho it's high heat paste,*it still is epoxy. Which Soy-Gel destroyed!!!
MECHAICALLY FILLING MAST TRACK HOLES
Used the compound to plug the hundred+ old sail track holes. None survived the
remover, all softened back to paste.>Using a #1 drillbit, found bright metal in
nearly all the old holes for a 1/4-28 tap - which cut 3 1/2 threads in the mast's 1/8"
thickness. Now plugged with a tiny disk of aluminum all-thread stud. McMasterCarr
came through with 1" 1/4-28 aluminum 6061 all-thread studs! ($6.61 for 25)
Piece of cake. {I know: seen that guy do it with a die on a long piece of all-thread!}
Art brushed epoxy into new-thread holes and ends of the studs, inserted each into
its final resting place, gave each 3.5 twists -- let them cure, ground them off flush.
Somewhere else on the planet 1" 1/4-28 aluminum studs are being used... for what?
Can not recommend Soy-Gel. Besides being a botch and odd performer, weeks
of work: on a boat, do we ever want to use a paint stripper that eats epoxy?**
It has that one good thing going for it: it's kind on your skin (found it does a good
job painlessly removing oil from the skin of my hands). It is a paint remover: clear
colored, nearly odorless, makes it easy to track. Gets on gloves and places like door
& tool handles, easy to pick up by accident, carry to other places, like eyes and
pets and food.
Bye bye Soy-Gel.! But it did not touch the Durafix repairs. Notably, that white
death oxide disaster above the shevebox where the curved tang for foresail blocks
originally fastened. Mast metal... just gone. In that space, created an awkward fill
using 730F aluminum alloy sticks and Mapp gas. Embarrassing to see it revealed
again, yet looks like the alloy managed to 'weld' the sides of the missing track-flat
together... like it bridged to good aluminum on each side. Nothing will attach there.
Mid mast, two large Lab-metal filled holes also fell out. Have an idea (o-oh!) how
to get them filled... permanently with Durafix.
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**All paint removers are bombs. Destroy everything down to the ground. Some
are fast, some slow, some are advertised as gentle on the original gel-coat. We
are well past that issue now. Most skippers have removed all their old bottom paint.
And then waterproofed the old gel-coat with an epoxy hardcoat barrier. There are
dozens of removers. Toxic, caustic, new gen -- all chemical. There is no chemical
stripper that will not attack epoxy. >>There's one: DumondPeelAway, which I
once used on litlgull's bottom... life changing experience never to be visited again:
Red can PeelAwayMarineStrip (NOT "SafetyStrip".)...watch your colors....is the
non toxic, non-carcinogenic, zero VOC, non flammable stripper that will non remove
epoxy barrier coat, if you don't leave it on too long. PeelAway paste is troweled
on, covered with 'laminated paper', which combines with "30 coats" of any paint.
That is then troweled off. But some areas must be done over, not all comes off.
Ran out of paper-film, plain plastic doesn't work as well. Days, weeks...real bulky
mess under the boat.... the result, if you did put down black plastic under the boat,
is like dealing with a couple dead horses. If not toxic, it looks toxic... heavy, sloppy,
slimey, sodden, disgusting mess... that has to go to the dump, if you disguise it.
Then you hose and scrub down, neutralize with Citri-Lize and hose it again. $$$$
Ariel bottom wetted area = 250sqft = 5gal + extra paper. (Had to get more...)
Two gallons troweled on the Mast may have been more sane... doubt it.
Nobody on the web likes PeelAway -- except Practical Sailor -- who in 2006
compared it with nine others using a one square foot(!) layout sample for each....
on an actual boat with "several layers" of anti-fouling. Practical Joke for the DIYr .
google: Past Adventures With Chemical Strippers - Practical Sailor. Half fast!
The yard requires a vacuum sander - this method probably is the cleanest (not
the quietest) way yet -- requires expensive equipment and young arms.[/I]
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*Alvin Lab-metal MSDS http://www.alvinproducts.com/
"Section 2 Hazard(s)......................................... ...... Aluminum Powder 51.98%
.................................................. ............................Methyl Ethyl Ketone 9.77%
.................................................. .............Toluene (Haps) 8.94%" = 70.69% "
(separate can...Lab-metal Solvent:.............................. 52% toluene, 48% acetone)
70.69%...no mention what the remainder is. Somewhere in the lit we see this clue:
"there's no need to mix two parts of the repair paste". Regular Lab-metal repairs can
be powder coated to 425F. Also available, is a separate super heat resistant Lab-
metal that will take over 1000F!! Because of this durability, the missing binder didn't
register as a one-legged epoxy to my po' little gray cells... Never mentioned in the
MSDS, the Data Sheet or Brochure that the missing percentage: 29.31%, is actually
non-hazardous epoxy or epoxyester... which !@#$%! SoyGel sucked the life out of..
WOW, do I make a mess of things!
http://www.alvinproducts.com/ Just above JayLeno click: Powder Coaters Click Here.
You'll find a YouTube and a couple important tips about solvents, the product tag is
'epoxy putty'. Find lists for its uses, but nowhere does it say what can be coated
over Lab-metal. "Acetone & MEK will soften hardened Lab-metal." Both of these
are ketones. Ketones are the hot side of solvents and lacquer paints: the aromatics.
Aliphatics, generally not as lethal and by default may be OK, enamels & coatings
that use mineral spirits, VM&P naptha & hexanes. Gasoline and kerosene also aliphatic.
__________________________________________________ __________
"Writing, I explained, was mainly an attempt to out-argue one's past;
to present events in such a light that battles lost in life were either won
on paper or held to a draw." Jules Feifer
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