I agree, we use nutshells on our car bodies to strip them down.....it's funny how every square inch of paint gets blasted away but the body filler from previous repairs stays in place undamaged!

I'd say if Bondo can survive the blasting it would be safe to presume that gelcoat would too.

We have used the razor blade deal as well, and while it works good, it is VERY time consuming......

Greg

My boat was painted yellow then into orange and fades to purple All over top of the yellow. So the purple at the back 3rd of the boat is real thick and orange peeled. Can I just da. off the purple down to the orange and fill and grinde the rubrail area to fill all the holes from 1000s of screws. and re paint over every thing? Using the same orange and yelow and a lighter purple.

A couple of years ago I talked to a guy about soda blasting a 25' Searay I was working on. It had 3 layers of bottom paint that were flaking and chipping and two to three coats of paint topsides that I had already da'd off. He told me he could do it for me no problem and in fact he said he had done over 100 boats with bottom paint and offered to give me phone numbers to call for references. I never called him for the job due to the guesstimated cost of having it done. His price was high (to me), partly because he had to travel over 125 miles to come and do the job, and I was on a tight budget. I ended up scraping with a paint scraper (rounded edges) and then using an air file to fair in the scratches I left. It was extremely time consuming but I had more time than money right then. If I'd had the money at the time I would have done it in a New York minute. Could've been enjoying the water instead of swearing at the boat. I'd call around and see if you can find someone who has done performance boats who is willing to give you references, call a few and see if you can look at their boats. You might find the right guy to make the job easy. According to the guy I talked to, it has to be a soda blaster to do the job right without damaging the boat.

Dry ice blast it...

I own a boat repair shop and paint 300-350 bottoms each season. I have had numerous bottoms soda blasted, and it is a common thing in my area. If you decide to chemical strip use the bottom stripper by sea-hawk paints. Its the best out there but it is very time consuming and very messy. Around here the soda blast cost about $ 100 hr. including soda, and it takes about 3-4 hrs for a 25 ft. boat with 3-4 layers of paint. It leaves a 180-220 scratch and if the guy doing it knows what he is doing it is not messy at all. If your not putting paint back on the bottom you will have to re-gel or paint the bottom. Hope this helps

I just got done stripping the graphics off my Powerplay. I used a DA to take off the pink name on the deck and pink bolt on the hull sides. Be very carefull with this, you can burn though in a second. I used "Capt. Lees' Spra Strip" for the rest of it. It's a corvette stripper, I spoke with the co. and they told me it would not hurt the gelcoat. Spray it on, use a wet towell to get any drips or runs beyond the paint. Water will neutralize it. Let it sit for about 5-6 mins and use a plastic bondo spreader to scrape most of it off. Spray it again, and use a scotchbrite pad (Capt. Lee sells them) to get the rest of it off. Spray with water. Be very carefull with the drips past the paint, it will leave marks so wip it up with a wet rag quick. The areas stripped will be whiter than the rest, wet sand, compund, polish, wax etc.. I just did mine today and it looks pretty good considereing it only took us two days and about $80 worth of stripper. You can see the where the paint was but it should fade over time with sun.

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