Bleach, Vinegar, and Muriatic Acid

[lovinlifebda]

I guess I should clarify......fiberglass dingy and I am wanting to clean the bottom.

[ttex]

I acid wash swimming pools for a living so I feel qualified to answer something!

Grab a cheap pump sprayer from Home Depot or equivalent. You will most likely end up throwing away the sprayer as the acid will mess it up eventually.

Always add water first, then acid.

I would start with a 50/50 mix water and acid. You can make it stronger or weaker as needed.

Adding a couple of drops of dish soap to the mixture will allow it to cling in place and not streak.

I highly recommend washing the surface with TSP first. The tsp will neutralize clean any oils from the surface. You can buy this at Home Depot etc.

Rinse the tsp off with water.

Spray with acid and scrub ass needed.

Spray with TSP and rinse. The TSP will neutralize any leftover acid.

You are done.

[lovinlifebda]

Ttex Thanks for the great tips. And just to be sure, are you implying that the hypalon is going to be OK.

[senormechanico]

We have used Muriatic Acid on our Avon 3.10 RIB.
Works great on both the Hypalon and fiberglass.

[billknny]

Hydrochloric acid (aka "muriatic acid") is safe for fiberglass.

For cleaning, you will want to dilute it from 37% in the bottle to about 10%, so roughly 5 parts water to 2 parts acid. ALWAYS add acid to cold water with good stirring, never the other way around. Gloves, and eye protection MANDATORY. Blindness sucks..

[Seymore]

Acid to water
Dust to dust
If hydrochloric don't get you
Sulphuric must.

:-)

[ttex]

Originally Posted by lovinlifebda

Ttex Thanks for the great tips. And just to be sure, are you implying that the hypalon is going to be OK.

Yes, the Hypalon will be just fine.

Don't get the acid in a cut. It will hurt so bad you will want to chew your own arm off to make it stop. I should know.

[Bruce K]

Originally Posted by HopCar

Another use for Muriatic acid - Hydrogen balloons- Gather some scrap zinc anodes from the boat yard. Put them in a bucket and cover with Muriatic acid. Put a plastic trash bag over the bucket and let it fill with the gas produced in the bucket. Tie the bag closed and you now have a lighter than air balloon.

Don't do the following, it is really dangerous and stupid: tie a sparkler on a string hanging from the bag, light it and release the balloon. This is stupid for a number of reasons. The gas in the bag is very flammable. The sparkler is a great fire starter.
A spark from the sparkler might cause the balloon to go poof and drop the still burning sparkler to the ground. The balloon might go poof while still in your hands, this is painful and it takes a long time to grow your eye brows back. I had fun in high school.

The liquid left in your bucket is just about the best flux for soldering you can get (Zn Cl solution), just remember to rinse it off, or neutralise with sodium bicarb solution.

[lovinlifebda]

Thanks for all the responses, the dingy will be getting a sprucing up today. I really don’t like it hanging in the davits with the bottom looking all grody, it looks like nobody loves her.

[1affiah]

Little Johnny was a chemist
Little Johnny ain't no more
what he thought was H2O
was H2SO4

[Cadence]

When I see things about mixing bleach with other cleaning agents I get nervous about someone mixing it with ammonia. Two products that shouldn't even be stored in the same place.