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.]