The revitalizing of Shadowfax

[Frankenboat24]

Hello all!
Complete newby here, but i wanted to share a project I've been working on with my 24" sloop style boat.

My most recent project was removing the old painted on name on the boat and replacing it with an adhesive name from BoatUS.com.

I began by reading up on other peoples approaches to addressing this problem. From all of that reading i found that the consensus was to use Easy Off brand oven cleaner and a non-scratching brillo pad.

So i put this method to the test. After only one application and soaking for 1 minuet all the old painted on boat numbers scrubbed right off! Great start!

Fast forward to 8 soaks of Easy Off later on the name...


at this point I've decided that someone used kevlar letters fiberglassed into the hull of the boat for the name. The first 6 coats barely scratched the surface of the paint and for the life of me i could not figure out why. after another couple of coats the paint began to soften up but still the majority of it didn't budge.

I eventually resorted to a razor blade and that combined with the Easy Off eventually began to work. 9 hours of spraying and scrubbing later and i was almost there.



Before I began this project I knew Shadowfax was a bit of a Frankenstein, (It started life as a 20' boat and was completely rebuilt and had an additional 4 feet added to it.) but i as i worked on the boat I discovered that when repair work had been done on the boat that someone painted over the gelcoat with a different kind of paint, and then painted the boat name on top of it.

Eventually i got to a point where the easy off was no longer affecting the paint and had to resort to the razor again to clean it up.

It was a great learning experience and what i learned immediately was that i didn't know anything haha!
All said and done, I am very happy with how it turned out!



Next project will be completely rewiring the boat as much of the current wiring harness has been corroded. Once i begin that project I'll see about posting updates so, if nothing else, at least you can learn from my mistakes!

Hope you enjoyed! Feel free to comment and share any recommendations of things i could have done differently or better.

[deltaten]

Kevlar, indeed!
Kudos to yourperseverance, tho.
I'd like more on the Frankenstein" aspect of the boat, if you would??

[exMaggieDrum]

Well done with your Frankenboat. Nice description. It may help some others along the way. It is a common problem. And welcome to the forum.

[Frankenboat24]

Thanks guys! as far as the backstory on Shadowfax goes, my wife and i purchased it from a buddy of mine who was moving and hadn't used it in quite a few years and didn't want to deal with moving it so he offered it to me at a price i couldn't say no to. It is my wife and my first sailboat!

(disclaimer: much of this history is word of mouth) Before my buddy bought it, it belonged to a doctor that moved out to my area of CO from California. The doc sailed it in coastal races including one called "The Hard Way" (There is a plaque on the bulkhead with "The Hard Way race participant 1981", from the stories I've been told he did quite well in it. The boat was originally built in 1969 as a 20' boat and then rebuilt in 1990. when it was rebuilt it had 4' added to its overall length and the hull was injected with foam to supposedly make it a safer coastal racing boat. I'm going to be attempting to research some of this stuff and see what all i can verify. If anyone has any experience with "The Hard Way" race that they don't mind sharing, I would love to hear about it. As this is our first boat I've got a pretty steep learning curve ahead of me but I am looking forward to learning as much as I can as we begin our journey into the world of sailing!