Does anyone have any ideas on removing bottom paint? Other than a lot of sanding? I don't want to damage the grass either. The boat is in my back yard.

I just removed it from the bottom of my boat. First we tried scraping and sanding, but that was going to take a lifetime, and we still couldn't get in the curves real well. I ended up renting a 3000# pressure washer with a sand blast attachment. It took it off well, you have to be careful, or you can blast completely thru the gel coat. It isn't that hard to keep from doing it. I have a couple spots that I will just touch up with gel coat. It left the bottom slightly rough, but it only took a couple hours. If you do it that way, use the finest sand they have. Where I rented, the fine sand was 45/60. I used 550# of sand to do a 20 foot boat. You can see pictures of it at http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Forest/9752/

Click under "Formula Restoration" pg 2.


Good luck

I paid an experienced sand-blaster to come out with his equipment (a truck with a HUGE diesel compressor and sand tank) when I had mine done. Best money I ever spent.

I have heard Oven cleaner softens it quite a bit. Another option instead of using sand is glass or Shells

There Is a Bottom Paint Stripper Put plastic on the ground and start stripping

David,
I have done it twice now.
What I did was take a good sharp 2" putty knife and started at one end and just kept going. Little bites at a time and before you know it your making real progress! Do it in sections and It really doesn't take to long once you get the hang of it!
As long as you don't try to rush you won't have to worry about gouging.
Once you have scraped it down to the gelcoat you will have a film of paint stain left, just spray with EasyOff oven cleaner, let sit for about 30 to 45 minutes and then scrub with a hard brissle brush and rinse. Again , do this in sections.
The hull comes out looking like new and you haven't taken any gelcoat off the bottom.
The sand blasting may sound like less effort, but I would be very leary of going thru the gelcoat.
Also, don't waste your time and $$ on the paint stripper, it doesn't work!
As I said I have done this twice, once on a 23ft Velocity that I had and also on the 28ft Scarab that I have now!

Feel free to e-mail me with any questions.

Tom

I used to use Eazy Off oven cleaner to remove painted lettering from trucks and vans,Spray on a good thick coat let it sit [SHADE!] We would use razor scrapers to remove. If you want to try this I can give you a bunch of pointers!

David Looks like you have quite a project in front of you. Don't rush it ! The stuff will come off with ease if the guy before you did not prep it well. If he sanded the hull and did the job correctly It will be more difficult to remove. Stripper does work well but it is all a matter of timing, if you leave the stuff on tooooo long it will bite down into the gelcoat and this you do not want to do.
Play around with small area first, scuff the surface with some paper put on some stripper and watch it closley, get it off before it bubbles, you can always put another coat of the stripper on. Keep in mind you do not want to paint the bottom when your done because for some reason or another bottoms like to develope blisters once they have been painted for what ever reason.
Good Luck

It looks like there was some prep work done first. The second coat on it looks like it will come off fairly easy, but the gel was roughed up pretty good, from what I can see. I forgot a friend has a high pressure washer, so I'm going to try that first. I'd like to avoid chemicals if at all possible. I plan on re-gel coating the bottom, and painting the sides and deck, and there are a few places that are going to need some repairs so light sandblasting may be a good option.

a friend of mine is a marine rep that sells to all the major companies in our area. he has a bottom stripper that is non toxic and does a really good job. it's almost too hard to believe. his # is 609 876 1825 and he can tell you what it is and where to get it. his name is doug.