Bottom Paint Removal
 

I am looking at a boat that I am pretty sure I am going to buy. It is cheap and will get me through a season or so while i am busy paying for a wedding.

Now to the problem. it is bottom painted. In my opinion, bottom paint on a performance boat is the ugliest most undesirable thing. Has anyone ever had it removed? If so how? is the boat screwed up afterword?

I have seen some companies advertising media blasting to remove bottom paint but does it destroy the gel? Please help!!!

my neighbor soda blasted it and it came out like new

Like new not needing work on the gel or like new just having no bottom paint?

I have done it a few times.I used aircraft stripper and a pressure washer.Then I had to wet sand and buff it . It's a little tricky cause you can't leave it on too long,it will start to soften the gel.

Soda blast is the way to go . But I would be worried as to what is under the paint . The only reason somebody paints the bottom of a performance boat is to hide something. Just my .02

This boat was left in a slip in salt water. So I am hoping it was just for the anti fouling properties....

But I trailer and want the paint off. just don't want to screw up the hull doing it!

I used Deck Stain remover from Home Depot. It worked pretty well. You need to use a power washer and it will come off pretty clean. But like was said before, who knows what is under there.

Soda blasting is the quickest and best way to get rid of it. It's not cheap though, I have seen $15 a foot.

Do you mean $15 per foot of the boat size or square foot of the bottom?

No matter what you use to get the paint off, your going to need to have the bottom repainted at least. Before the bottom anti fouling paint was applied the gel coat was sanded with some pretty heavy sand paper to get the bottom paint to stick. After you get the anti foul off the bottom will need a new finish of some sort or it opens up a whole new can of worms.

That sounds like things would start to get expensive.....but I used to work at a marine dealership and when someone bought a new boat they would obviously try and sell every accessory to them you could think of. Larger boats...the first thing was bottom paint. I have helped in prep and painting of many Larson, Bayliner, Trophy, Maxum, and Searay boats. We never sanded them. Just taped and painted.....I guess we did it wrong?

I had a qoute to soda blast my 29' cruiser last fall for over $2K. BTW, what type of bottom paint are you talking-- antifouling?

The instructions on the can of my epoxy barrier paint required the gel to be scuffed before application, then followed by the antifouling itself within an hr or so of the last coat of barrier paint. I never seen any brands of bottom paint say to just degrease/dewax, tape and paint. Not saying there aren't any that you can just paint on. Don't see how it would stick though??

A good bottom paint application consisits of sanding the bottom so the paint can adhere to the bottom properly. you could try a little spot to se how it cleans off and to see if its sanded or not underneath. If its not sanded then you may want to try to strip it with chemicals to give you the gel bottom back. if its sanded then soda blast it and have the bottom painted and it will look like new. Soda blast will give a good base to start a paint job.

Buy some captain lee's spra-strip remover and it will come right off without hurting the gelcoat. I'm doing it now on a small boston whaler. Works great, just takes a while. You can buy it from www.auto-ease.com