stripping the bottom

[ebb]

Maybe around here it's getting too late in the season to think about a new bottom. Yet at the yard this weekend I saw a skipper. mate. and incredible energetic kid go thru absolute tedious hell getting multilayers of bottom paint off - they never succeeded.

I went over just when they were starting and said I'd used PeelAway too. But he didn't ask me about it, so I figured he knew what he was doing - he didn't.

>With a big wall-paper brush he put it on way too thin - wrong.
>bought it in one gal containers from WM = wrong.
>finished Sat eve (sort of, they ran out of paste & the paper cover) and came back Sun mid morning and began pulling the paper off - wrong.
>did not allow extra time for low temperature - wrong.
> worked without proper gloves and clothes - wrong.

I believe PeelAway to be the best method to remove bottom, which just should never be sanded off. It worked for me, but it was messy, it didn't peel off all in one thing like the literature. But it all came off in a marvelously awfull sodden pile of toxic waste - and what color remained on the gelcoat scrubbed off very easy. Ended up with a white bottom. And did not appear to have attacked the old polyester gelcoat in the slightest.

LAY it on 1/4" thick. You won't be able to, but try. Cover it entirely, get extra paper. Pick warm days and nights. Leave it on as long as you can, don't let it dry! Wear gloves and a tyvec suit with a hood (5 bucks!) if you work messy. 338 took 8 gals.

Check this out: I mean he was carrying around these dainty white gallon buckets when he was painting it on.

West Marine one gallon Peel Away...................$64.99
Extension for five one gallons........................$324.95
West Marine five gallon................................$249.99

Local paint store (special order)....................$107.44

Obscene rhymes with what?


[This stuff was invented to remove multiple layers of lead paint from 100 year old Victorians. WM says their specially priced PA remover is "specially formulated" for copper paint. The paint store stuff worked fine for 338.]

[Tony G]

Ebb
Was that 107 and change for ALL eight gallons...and the paper?

Bottom paint (removal) is just around the corner because its now cool enough to hold a 7 1/2" angle grinder all day and not overheat yet not too cold to freeze the beer. If indeed this peel away is a better chicken then maybe I oughta give it a try when it's warmer and use this cold weather for the grinding that has no alternative! Just remember Ebb, I'm behind you all the way Tony G

[ebb]

Hey Tonio, 5 gal pails. Mean you can't find use for a couple gallons extra? Bilge maybe? Rudder? A door at home? Gotta call a pro store, not a chain, some small business what gives a damn. They have to look it up, unless you live where they're restoring old houses. Who was it here (Dave?... can't find where we briefly talked about it) said he used freezer paper or wax paper? good for spots. I tried paper/plastic painter covers. The system stuff PA has works best to keep it moist. Nowadays you order extra. Should have some regular plastic for the ground, too. Because it's wet it's heavy, need real strong contractor sacks to haul it away. But then, maybe you can spread it out to dry in the sun??

The thing is you don't let it dry on the boat. Depending how long you let it work and how hot or windy you'll probably use the hose and that will really make you unhappy. If I remember: did it in sections, lift the cover off, scrape down the side to the keel, slide the goop away. or catch the scrapings in a garbage can lid, hose and stiff brush, or just keep it misted til you have the whole side scraped ready to 'pressure wash.'

Besides, if you have extra, there's always those damn spots that didn't come off the first time. Be lavish!


www.peelaway.com
is the company's web site. They have many PeelAways I see for the first time, including WM's special formulation. I'm sure I used PeelAway 1 - because I assumed there was just the one product. Maybe you can talk with a rep? Somehow it just got complicated. Maybe this is why it doesn't quite work as neat as it does on lead paint, this Number One. Maybe you can get somebody to say, oh, it'll work, just not as well as our 300% percent more expensive product we have developed for the marine market.

[marymandara]

Personally, I'm all for the grinder...with full skin (suit, gloves) and respiratory protection...and, of course, some kind of containment/disposal (Vizquene, shopvac). If a person is going to take it off abrasively, I highly recommend (if an adequate air source is available) the venerable 7" vertical polisher for the rough work and a 5 or 6" DA sander to finish off. Very fast, very clean, very smooth. We're using 40-grit here, mind you. The vertical polisher was/is long a mainstay in fiberglass and aircraft work. VERY low RPM (under 3000), very controllable and very effective. If you simply have to buy one new, Ingersol-Rand still make one and you can get it for a couple hundred bucks. I've managed to score a couple off of E-Bay for friends at less than 65.00 each, but it took a while until they came along in the listings as people who know what they have do not part with these. If nothing else, Harbor Freight is now selling a Hong's-of Taiwan knockoff for less than 40 dollars...I'm just not big on Taiwan/China/India anythings. You get what you pay for, after all.

The combination of the two above mentioned tools will easily allow a nice smooth bottom with no half-moons to fair in. Easy. Sweet!

If you are really into chemicals and do not like to grind, chemical strippers sound like a real good option. I've never used the peel-away product, mainly because of the cost, but again our man Ebb has come through for us with an answer to that problem. I will say, though, that I have seen bottoms where that stuff did not do the trick no matter how much was applied...took off a lot, but still needed sanding. God knows what kind of paint was on the two boats I am thinking of in particular, but it was tenacious.

Good old fashioned methylene-chloride based "aircraft stripper" works well, too, but you have to be careful to get a feel for how fast it will work on a particular bottom so as not to leave it on too long, and you have to be sure and rinse it VERY---VERY!---well, including scrubbing snot out of the bottom with a scotchbrite. It eats fiberglass just as readily as it eats paint if not moreso, and it tends to make a home in the surface porosity (hence the scotchbrite), waiting to wreak havoc with the adhesion of the new barrier coat and/or paint! Beware!

So much for chemicals...another option is to sandblast. Again, containment is probably a priority. I've seen some guys who do it with regularity who are very skilled and make it look easy...it really takes a careful eye and a good feel to do it well, though, and done poorly or heavy-handed it will dig holes right in there. Even with a really skilled man (figure of speech, sorry...I have absolutely no doubt that a really skilled woman...or even a really skilled hermaphrodite...could do this very well) doing it, there will be fairing to do later. I have never sandblasted a bottom before myself, but I think I could do OK as I have blasted other things plenty with a variety of media. I thought of doing this to the Triton as I do own a smallish "siphon-pot" type blaster, but figured it would take forever...the pro guy I've seen contract to do it in our yard has a rig that looks closer to a firehose!

OK...Here's the last bit. Ebb mentions powerwashing, and I should put this one in. Our yard has a VERY mean, gasoline-fired pressure washer...I have no idea how many PSI, but I am told by a co-worker that it really will take the skin right off of you. When fitted with the rotating-pulsing-jet nozzle (a shower massage for the inquisition?) it will, given enough time taken, strip an entire boat bottom of ANYTHING. We had one fellow with a 35' powerboat who actually wanted his bottom strippped this way. I'm sure it cost him dearly, but in 3 hours' time it was completely free of paint save for a few spots that needed a small bit of sanding to remove the last and most tenacious spots. If you have a really big, really mean powerwasher to deal with, you might give it a try. Wear your raingear...and your boots...and a mask (Cuprous oxide and TBT taste like crap and stain your teeth a sort of bluish color, and you will eat some if you do not have something over your mouth)...and definitely some serious eye protection.

Some amount of sanding/grinding is always going to come into play, so I will offer this thought as well. I see people all the time coming out from under the boat and Vizquene wearing respirators and tyveks...with bottom-paint-colored faces. If it is hot, you will sweat...and wet the stuff, and take it into your system. This is not good, and if you really do it good for a week or two may leave you feeling less than stellar. There is an old boat-plant trick for grinding 'glass of putting vaseline on your eyelids and below your eyes to catch the fine particulates...and you can give yourself a "barrier coat" of sorts by applying liberal quantities of vaseline to all the parts of your face not covered by your respirator or your suit's hood. You'll sweat it off after a while, but you can wash your face off with the nearest hose, dry and reapply as needed. Helps keep the yack off of your skin and hence out of your system, y'know?

OK, there's all of the commentary I could possibly chime in with on bottom stripping. Maybe even a quarter's worth!



Dave

[ebb]

Hey Dave, well, I like to think sometimes about bucking tradition.

Those folks that inspired me to post this thread would have killed themselves with any other method. Absolutely. Maybe that was the real motivation, rather than environmental. As it was they had absorbant work clothes on, which got soaked - and one time near the give-up point I looked over and saw they all were covered with the multicolored stuff hair to toe, hands & arms covered with the gunge., except the female who I reckoned was a bit smarter than the males.

The Alpha could have hired the yard locals to do it as he really did not have the knack for it. In this case it had to be his first time for a bottom. These days you can admire a guy for diving right in - but a better indicator of a fool is if he can't dress for the job or take care of the crew. Have to read the product instructions carefully and follow them to the letter.

No, you might have any combo of bottom on an old boat. I guess I was lucky with 338, using the PeelAway.

Grinding off bottom paint IMCO requires a pro. You need a positive air-flow full face mask and to be taped in to your suit. I've seen the idiots, completely blue or red, grinding without protection. Their Darwin Award will be an oxygen tank and a shorter life. There is never adequate protection at the yard here, I'm often breatheing somebody else's fumes & toxics, and my own, and we're downwind from the freeway, and I sometimes forget to put a mask on when mixing cabosil. My huevos are shrinking.

Consider PeelAway. Add a day.

[commanderpete]

This is what I've heard:

Peel Away 1 is not recommended for fiberglass.

Peel Away 6 is O.K. and available at Home Depot.

Peel Away 7, West Marine Peel Away, and Peel Away Marine Safety Strip are all the same thing.

Peel Away 7 is supposed to be a little stronger than Peel Away 6.

I also read somewhere that the most important part of keel to keep smooth is the leading edge-- the first two or three feet from the bow.

I bought a telescoping pool brush to rub the bottom of slime during the season. This way I don't have to jump in the water. I don't use it much since I'm kinda lazy.

I use the Micron Extra slime blocker bottom paint $$$$$. But, I don't think it works that great.

[ebb]

Where you heard that C'pete?


I have just called Dumond Chemical (number from the web site for PeelAway) and, they say.....

THERE IS NO PROBLEM USING PEELAWAY #1 ON FIBERGLASS.

Unless you have a problem spending less money. Number 7 is also OK to use on fiberglass. It is a special wallet formulation for peeling dolars.



There is in the April 'Sail' a short piece called 'Stripping Secrets' that mentions some more chemical strippers and asks some yard foremen what they use. Also lists some estimates, self and pro. No, what I would call, 'practical' information.

It will only increase your resolve to do it yourself if you haul at a yard that will let you do it, and not make you buy a 'marine' stripper from them retail!


PeelAway also makes a stripper for boats that already have an epoxy barrier coat. Don't know the cost, it is expensive no doubt. I would call the company anyway and ask if PA #1 will work. 338 has had extensive epoxy work done below the waterline since I stripped the old layers of bottom off. I would call first if any "upgraded" boat needed stripping again.

[commanderpete]

Research beats rumor anyday.

[Theis]

My Ariel had no barrier coat and I took it down to the raw epoxy using chemicals. What I recall being alerted to just before I started the project is to be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the stripper works on fiberglass. A conventional stripper from the hardward store, from what I was told, will go right through the gel coat, as I recall, and present a problem no one wants to have. I stuck with the WM stuff and it worked just fine - and I don't think it came to $100.

Now as to the barrier coat, nothing seems to get that stuff off, including a sander. It stays on (I haven't tried chemicals).

But how about this for a new problem. Recently I have found various places where the gel coat, underneath the barrier coat, forms little bubbles of water. When the boat is hauled in the fall, the "bubbles" ranging from 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch in diameter can be popped, and water comes out. Apparently there is water trapped inside the hull that gets to it and, not being able to get through the bottom paint, pops the gel coat. This year it is a particular problem with the aft end of the keel, where water has been trapped for years in the foam filler.

Nothing I am worried about, but it is a pain to grind out the soft spot, refingish the "dot" with a barrier coat several times to build up the thickness, and then refinish.

Any comments?

[ebb]

Capt Theis,
Solsken, #82, is an older one in the fleet. Being fresh water, hauled in winter, and subject to freezing - could there be cause for the blisters here?
We know all polyester boats have water in the laminations all the time. A hauled boat might have water collecting or staying in the lower part of the hull. The water comes into the hull from the pressure of the boat in the water. In a older boat. we may have blisters caused by stress rather than modern age (1980 on) blisters caused by a number of reasons but generally by water soluable chemicals in the polyester - stress coming from gelcoat/mat swelling and comtracting differently and separating at weaker points causing water to collect. The water picks up acid then from the laminate and swells. Maybe freezing contributes to your problem.

Here's something interesting:
The acids in the bubbles attack the polymer chains which can "break off links which are then dissolved in the liquid. This reaction is ester hydrolysis (don't we feel better having a name for our disease? ebb) It is self perpetuating because the addition of the broken link to the solution creates additional acid which leads to more attack." A much slower process than the 'modern' blisters. Although it was not clear from the paper as I scanned it if this has been observed in a 45 year old lamination. This is very close to a sugar cube scenario. I would (and am) doing everything possible to extend the life of 338 by barrier coating outside and in. outside with at least 3 coats of epoxy.

Read all about it from Doctors Rockett & Rose "The Causes of Boat Blisters" at
http://www.daviscoltd.com/nams/Docum...er_Report.html

It's worth reading.)

[Theis]

Those were the very things that went through my mind when I was deciding in 1995 whether or not to rehab the vessel. Yes all those things are right, and, for the timid, he would flee at the sight of an older boat.

The original hull did not have the barrier coat (the conventional wisdom was that the gel coat was waterproof - a barrier), and I did not have the problem in those days of bubbles on the surface. Apparently the mositure inside could get out without popping the gel coat (and the bubble is not any deeper than the gel coat, but it is filled with fluid).

But the boat had 17 years on the trailer to dry out - except for water that accumulated in the bilge from rain - before the barrier coat was applied. And yes, it was exposed to23 years of freezing and thawing with water in the foam in the keel and in the bilge. As for stress cracks, when I took all the paint off, they were there - on one side - and had been of some concern. But there is no leakage through them, and a random examination did not show that the cracks went further than the gel coat (cracked just like it was topside, but not as bad.

But through all that, and with no TLC, these gel coat pops (which I understand are very common) never happened before the barrier coat - and even then it took three years. And their location is very localized, but different locations each year. Now they are just a PIA - fortunately they don't form a line - like they would if the hull were cracked.

I guess no one else has had the problem.

[Hull376]

Peter,

We have another experiment going on my boat. It was out of the water for a year, and I had all the bottom paint sanded off, and even had part of the top layer of the gel coat removed. Moisture meter indicated a dry laminate. Then had it all re sealed by rolling on 5 coats of vinylester instead of epoxy barrier coat. The resulting finish is not absolute perfection, but its better than adequate. My gel coat had a lot of small spider-webby looking cracks, and in some areas, there were pin holes below the top finish in the gel coat that appeared as the gel coat was sanded. The vinylester filled them all in. I posted a few pictures last year. I think we all decided they weren't blisters, since they didn't get to the surface, but looked more like a less than perfect application of the gel coat when the hull was laid up. I think ebb thought they might have been caused when spray gun applied resin during the build process. Anyway, I'll certainly be looking things over quite closely when I get hauled next Nov. for a new coat of bottom paint.

[Theis]

Keep me posted. I think my barrier coat is vinyl as well, not an epoxy. I have to read the article that EBB brought to my attention. There are a lot of pages to go through, but it seem interesting. I'll be looking forward to how you fare.

[ebb]

There's John down at the yard. he's taking the bottom off his project with a 2amp Porter Cable (SlickSander?), a fairly small and fairly light random orbit with the motor on top using five hole paper. There's a fitting out the side what connects to a vaccum with small diameter hose that doesn't weigh anything at all. He insisted I try it. Not bad, I'ld have to do it in small sections too!

John's boat is about 4 feet away from a highly finished frostwhite Triton. He has no plastic tarps down, and he's not scheduling sanding when the wind is up. Must be fifteen boats being worked on.

There aren't too many coats of bottom paint on his boat, but it is old, and has been out of the water awhile. He buys sheets of 24 grit peel & stick floor sander paper that he cuts into disks, and then punches the vacuum holes with a cheap punch (Harbor Freight.) Don't recognize the vacuum, it looks like a beer cooler/lunch box, and sucks 98% of the dust into its innerds. John wants to try some 16 grit. Because the hull is so hard it looks like it's been sanded with 120.

He's doing it in sections, when a piece is done he paints on some underwater highbuild epoxy, sands on that for a spell. Don't know what the floor paper costs, he's a deal on that as well. - but this is a very clean low budget bottom removal system. No chemicals and very little blue dust.

[Theis]

EBB: Thanks for the link to the article about blistering. Very informative, but I recommend to anyone that takes it on that they start out well rested and have thick coffee available.

The article is helpful and informative.

1. I now realize the reason for the blistering on my boat in one spot. The location fo the blisters is the approximate location where there had to be extensive through hull fiberglass work several years ago (but not many years in terms of Solsken being in the water) When work is done right, you can't see it, so I had forgotten about it the repairs, but the blisters are about where joint between the original hull and the repairs would be. As pointed out in the article, that is where I would find WSM (Water Soluble Materials) and the WSM cause the blisters.

2. The article suggests that whenever you see, or suspect blistering, puncture them ASAP to let them drain and be cleansed. They will get worse if the WSM contents inside the blister remain.

3. I had not realized how complex fiberglass resin was, and how many combinations of ingredients may or may not be used by a praticular boat builder. Perhaps one of the reasons that Pearsons hold up so well is that they did not have such a variety. In particular, it is possible that some of those ingredients are used because they are cheaper - not better. The buyer would never know. The buyer of a new boat has not a clue as to the technology used for the resin layup, the meaning of the procedure or the chemicals, whether the gel coat was air dried, etc. If the boat looks bright and shiny, it leaves the show room floor - no questions asked.

4. As for the stress cracks on the bottom gel coat, I realize that that is quite common, and to be anticipated (although the stress cracks generally are the result of stresses between the fiberglass and the gel coat. Needless to say, before rehabing, they abounded topsides as well.

Thanks again for the reference.