bottom paint stripping

capt steve

capt steve

Member
May 23, 2017
144
north nj
Boat Info
95 330 da no genny
Engines
7.4 merc v-drive
has anybody ever used one of these to take down paint to the glass? im thinking of doing this on several sessions over the winter instead of paying through the nose for bead blasting. its 5" dia
s-l500.jpg
 
It might be too abrasive (cut through gel coat) a "flapper" might be better - wear a respirator.....also, marinas generally want boats tented when this type of work is done.......I'd be a little pissed if a boat neighbor did that next to me.......a lot of abrasive "dust" goes everywhere......
 
My feelings also, too abrasive
 
I agree, the marina and boat owners around may not be thrilled with the mess.
My bigger concern would be breathing that stuff. If you do decide to strip the bottom yourself make sure you research and get the proper respirator.
Not sure about your home State but here in the peoples Republic of New York the cost and hassle of doing it yourself in compliance with whatever the EPA guidelines are would probably be more than the couple of boat bucks you’d pay a company to do it.
 
What grit is the wheel in the photo?......and how do you know it is too aggressive?

The boat yards down here use about 80 grit to prep a decent surface and I suspect the mesh wheel approach is going to be real slow going since the wheel will clog in 2 minutes and effectively reduce the grit size you are working with.

The other guys are right, however, you are responsible for any damage you do to nearby boats, cars, etc., not to mention any grief the state DEP and Federal EPA police cause you, if they get interested. Bottom paint settling on fiberglass then sitting one night with dew/frost on it makes it almost impossible to remove unless you use ammonia ot some other very aggressive detergent. Those detergents also remove wax so you could be in for a detergent wash and a fresh detail job on the boat(s) nearby.

This is one of those jobs I prefer to pay the marina to handle so I am not responsible for the aftermath....but this is Florida and we have some pretty strict state DEP rules/laws
 
I tried this wheel myself, as I was removing bottom paint.
WAY TOO ABRASIVE. I ended up scraping with a paint scraper then re-painting.
 
yeah , there seem s to be like almost 2mm of bottom paint on my boat. probably since 1995. makes me wonder how much more weight im dragging around! has to be two or three hundred pounds. I would be at this for days with a scraper. I was thinking this things may chew through enough of the layers to then switch to something lighter. of course I would choose my days. however I will wait to see what they quote for bed blast. it usually includes barrier coat and two coats of anti-fouling.

for anybody that has had bead blasting done , does it remove all traces of paint? I ask because if I did it , I would not want to paint again all the way under the spray rail. right now the PO has the paint going all the way up the rise towards the bow. I thin it looks so much better just straight past the boot stripe
 
Don’t really know much about this as I had another guy handling everything, but when bought our 44DB, the Pensacola Ship Yard used a pressure washer that somehow injected sand into the water stream and did a beautiful job of removing the bottom paint.

Bennett
 
bbwhitejr said:
Don’t really know much about this as I had another guy handling everything, but when bought our 44DB, the Pensacola Ship Yard used a pressure washer that somehow injected sand into the water stream and did a beautiful job of removing the bottom paint.

Bennett
Click to expand...

Sounds like Farrow blasting. I would prefer that over soda blast. Less risk of gel coat damage.
 
I also had about 2mm of paint on my bottom, just easier to scrape.
Caught it all in a tarp set under boat, weighed a lot less than I thought it would.
 
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