Removing Antifouling Paint

[smoothsailing]

I have a 1969 Morgan 30 and I am planning to strip my hull of antifouling bottom paint right down to the fiberglass.

Probably 10 coats piled up.

SANDING is absolutely no option.

Below are some ideas I have considered.


1 Boat Brite Soy Striper

2 Franmar's SOY•Strip

3 Soda Blasting

All three are on You Tube videos and show a fairly easy way of doing this.

What have been your experience and recommendations for this project?

TIA

Regards

Bill

[Stumble]

It depends on the type of anti-fouling. If ablative then a preassure washer will do the job pretty well. If its a hard bottom, then I have had good results with both soda and chemical strippers.

Either way, remember this stuff is incredibly toxic, and must be disposed of as hazardous waste. You can't just let it run down the gutters.

[Wildlandjeff]

Look into The Farrow system here in San Diego it's rented by Hawthorne CAT. It use's water/air and pumas and has a very low learning curve for first time users.
Because it's low pressure wet system you won't have that Dry toxic cloud the only toxins is the paint being removed, placing cheap tarps under work area makes for fast easy clean up and disposal. I have used the system on Antique warbirds where we were able to actually take off indivdual layers of paint during restoration and is way faster than sanding.The system was developed for your purpose.

The USS Midway was actually able to use this system to clean her bottom while
she was tied to her pier.

[Mike OReilly]

When we stripped our 1973 Grampian 34 it probably had 20 years of old ablative build up on it. We used a combination of soy stripper, paint scrapper, and sanding.

The stripper did indeed soften the old paint, but it also turned it into a messy sludge that was gruesome to handle. It was relatively easy, but pretty tedious, and certainly disgusting and grimy. The stripper did not remove 100% of the paint. We still had to sand the final thin layer to get to a clean bottom.

After doing more than 1/2 the boat with the stripper and sanding, I reverted to using the paint scrapper, and then sanding. Comparing the two, I'd just go with the scrapper/sander option. Neither are fun, but scrapping produced the lesser mess.

[barnakiel]

I used chemical stripper and we had to apply many coats before we got all the old antifouling paint off.

If you use a chemical stripper, dress up.

b.

[Hi Ho]

I used a commercial glazing knife, keep the edge sharp with a file. You push the knife as to pulling a scraper. The heavier the paint thickness the better, once you get started and you get to the gelcoat you can strip all the coats at once with little effort. A friend prefers a 1 1/2" gasket removal tool because of the longer handle same principal but you still have to keep the edge sharp.

[JonathanSail]

One thing to keep in mind with bottom sanding is that dust collection can work well with bottom work due to the typically flat surface and easy access. With the right setup you can prevent most dust from being sent airborne though you will still need to wear protection/etc. as a small amount of dust will escape as you lift, etc.

I have had good luck with the following items:

Dust Muzzle - https://www.dustmuzzle.com/dust_collector.php
Dust Deputy - http://www.oneida-air.com/category.asp?Id={CC6B6F2A-E3D7-4F18-A53C-B5C357DFE131}

Folks around the yard were so impressed when they saw these in action as I sanded/faired some glass layup that I was doing that there are now a few of these setups around the yard. I used it when removing bottom paint from a few spots (below jackstands that were moved) and it worked great with the paint just like it did the fiberglass. I got the basic Dust Deputy and mounted it on a 5 gallon bucket. I was more skeptical of the Dust Deputy and more impressed with it. After dumping the bucket a few times the bag in the shop vac was still mostly empty which allowed the vac to run at full flow and it kept dust down, etc.

Jonathan

[minaret]

In this thread I made my argument as to why sanding is MUCH better than all of the options in the OP.


http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ion-71361.html

[casual]

Just my 2 cent's,I,recently completed removing 8 layer's of hard bottom paint.Soy strip was the least useful chemical remover ,forget Petit,Peel Away purchased at Sherwin williams was the Best.I,followed instruction's to the T used boxes of Saran Wrap with Soy Strip.Even after making the biggest MESS you'll ever see I,still had to sand the bottom with a DA to get to Gel Coat.HIRE A PRO PERIOD.

[AtlanticGreenPro]

Originally Posted by smoothsailing

I have a 1969 Morgan 30 and I am planning to strip my hull of antifouling bottom paint right down to the fiberglass.

Probably 10 coats piled up.

SANDING is absolutely no option.

Below are some ideas I have considered.


1 Boat Brite Soy Striper

2 Franmar's SOY•Strip

3 Soda Blasting

All three are on You Tube videos and show a fairly easy way of doing this.

What have been your experience and recommendations for this project?

TIA

Regards

Bill

Hi Bill,

We're a mobile Farrow System media blasting company and we service all of New Jersey.

If you'd like a quote to do your boat bottom call me or send me a PM.

Dale

[foggysail]

If you're going to strip,,,,,,,,and your marina allows you to do so, you have to do it right. The Greenies will leap all over the yard screaming followed by shoving something up where the sun cannot shine.

The marina where we dock services huge fishing vessels, commercial and private yachts, anything where they can provide service and make a buck. Last summer the EPA stuck them with a $175K fine for letting some of the residue get into the water. They explained to the do gooders that they would have REALLY stuck it to the yard except the yard could not possibly pay any more than $175K!

OUT OF CONTROL!

[FSMike]

Originally Posted by Wildlandjeff

----
The USS Midway was actually able to use this system to clean her bottom while
she was tied to her pier.

I know the Navy can do pretty much what it wants, but didn't that produce just a tad of water pollution?

[AtlanticGreenPro]

Originally Posted by foggysail

If you're going to strip,,,,,,,,and your marina allows you to do so, you have to do it right. The Greenies will leap all over the yard screaming followed by shoving something up where the sun cannot shine.

The marina where we dock services huge fishing vessels, commercial and private yachts, anything where they can provide service and make a buck. Last summer the EPA stuck them with a $175K fine for letting some of the residue get into the water. They explained to the do gooders that they would have REALLY stuck it to the yard except the yard could not possibly pay any more than $175K!

OUT OF CONTROL!

Yes, enviromental have become much more stringent aroend water and that's one of the reasons we do wet abrasive media blasting.

The beuity of wet abrasive like Farrow and GeoBlaster is that only 5% of what comes out of the blast nozzel is water then you have 5% recycled glass blast media and 90% compressed air at low pressure 55PSI to 60 PSI.

The boat is tented off with disposable plastic under the boat that catches the paint and spent media.

The 5% water evaparates within minutes leaving just a damp mix of old paint and spend media on the plastic which is then disposed of off site and the same way as if you were removing lead paint from a residance with simular EPA guidelines.

Here's a video we just did of how the wet abrasive process works and you can see that it produces very little water and dust: cleanbottom - YouTube
Again... very clean and very safe on your boats bottom

Here are just a few of the boats we've done so you can get an idea of what you're left with.


This is a 48' Cherubini we did for Cherubini Yachts...
(No dust and all the paint and blasting media ends up on the plastic below the boat.)


Same 48' Cherubini... nice lines... real nice boat.


35'' Hunter before Farrow blasting


35'' Hunter after Farrow blasting


33 Beneteau at Liberty Harbor in Jersey City Before blasting


33 Beneteau at Liberty Harbor in Jersey City After blasting

[minaret]

What does it cost? It takes our yard laborers about two days to do a similar bottom paint removal with sanders, that's $800. What kind of surface profile does the medium leave? And what if the gel coat is blistered and must also be removed? Obviously bottom paint is much softer than gel, so it's easy to remove bottom paint on top of gel. But removing gel from glass is a whole different story, particularly if you want to keep the hull fair, as the gel thickness tends to vary substantially on a given hull. This sure looks much easier and cleaner for the operator, but I'm not sure it would be easier on the boat owners wallet.


Our yard has done soda blasting and bead blasting in the past. We quit bothering with any type of blasting because of all the extra hours in set up and clean up, just having our guys sand the bottom old school is much faster. Once it's tented I can do a 50 footer in a day. No special expensive tool required. Just lots of hard work.


What does the machine cost? Sure would be nice to have one in the yard, but if it's so expensive that you have to charge a premium it's not worth it for us. It looks like you guys do a lot of non marine work to keep the machine busy paying for itself?

[Cotemar]

1+ for Soda Blasting