Bought a boat with bottom paint, thinking I could deal with it.

I was going to leave it on, but it felt very rough in spots, two coats plus a barrier coat. Plus it was not sticking to the barrier coat in spots, just coming off in half dollar size chunks leaving the aluminum looking barrier coat behind. Got on my nerves, an otherwise pretty decent 23' bow rider. The local fiber glass shop was going to remove the paint by media blasting and put a three or four coats of an interlux teflon (no antifoul properties) white epoxy on. That probably would have been O.K., (except the part where I write a check) but if I could save the gelcoat, I would.

I tried a few different strippers, looking at each one to make sure they had no meth chloride in them, knowing that the meth eats gelcoat. Citrus type worked a bit, but left a lot behind. It would take three or more applications to remove the black nasty stuff, and it did nothing to the barrier coat. Safe at least.
Interlux has a stripper at three times the cost, about $34 at west marine. It worked a bit better, still not great though.

Easy-off. This stuff rocks. It ate right into the black paint, and if it is hot out, made quick work of it. Timing is a bit critical, it also ate a bit into the barrier coat. If it gets to the gel coat, it stains it a little yellow, but it does not go deep into it at all.

So here are a few pics of where I am at. To get the 6 feet of stripe done so far, it took about an hour of wet sanding with 400, mostly to get the rest of the barrier off. I know I will have to go over it again with what 1500? and then put some rubbing compound on it also. Lot of work! I don't plan on getting the whole bottom pearly white like the stripe, just smooth, and anything that shows at a quick glance on the trailer or the water will get more detail work.

Any suggestions from the pro's?

Bleach on a rag will get out the yellow from the easy-off.

Use a plastic pot scrubber to help the easy off break down the old paint. The aluminum colored paint is primer. Good luck with your project. Post pix of the finished job.

A sign painter I knew used E Z off to remove boat names before repainting them. Worked well on enamels. Good call Fast Algae.
Jim

How long till the Easy Off starts to work? I sprayed some on one spot, waited 15 minutes or so, and it didn't do anything. I just ordered some stuff called Captain Lee's. A buddy thats doing a vette restore said thats what they use to strip paint off the old fiberglass vettes.

I find it is extremely dependent on temperature.
Night time and 65*, it took maybe 2 hours.
Sunny, and 90* it took 15 or 20 minutes.

I saw the capt. Lees. stuff ( I think that is what I saw - soy sauce?) at west marine. I would have tried that also, except they were pretty proud of the stuff. IIRC, they get $125/ gallon!

Type of paint, and thickness is also a factor. The pot scrubber can speed up the process and help break down the layer of paint. Most of my experience with it involves removing enamel lettering, but on occasion I have had it run down into the bottom paint and wound up with an unnecessary vertical stripe or two. (!)

I paid $27 for a gallon of the captain lee's. Should have it this week. I'll post results.

Try Castrol Super Clean- at Walmart in purple gallon jugs. Don't get it on you as while it may be water-based and biodegradable, it will make your skin peel off. It will also eat untreated aluminum. It will slowly and gently dissolve virtually all non-catalyzed paints but it won't touch things like auto body paint, gecoat, etc.

It depends on the bottom paint. One BP boat I had, the Easy off would loosen it enough to make a greasy mess I could wipe off with a rag. Another one, it just made shiny bottom paint.

Captain Lee's is the chit: