Pin Stripe and Mildew Removal

[rhargrove]

Any new help techniques and or materials to remove pin stripes and mildew from vinyl rub rail?

Also, bilge stain?

[Vic]

I use bleach and water for mildew. When I took the pin stripes off of my boat they were painted on so we sanded them off. But the bigger stripes were tape and we used a heat gun and paint scraper. Hope this helps.

Vic

[macojoe]

Family Dollar, Mold & Mildew Cleaner $2 a bottle works like crazy!!

What kind of pin strips?? Paint or Tape??

Grease Lighting cleans Bildges good also

[chesapeake724]

If the stripe is vinyl tape, use a hair dryer on high or a heat gun on low to loosen the adhesive. Use a razor blade to carefully get it started to peel up and then slowly pull and peel it up. The hair dryer is aimed just ahead of where it's peeling to loosen the adhesive and to warm up the vinyl so it isn't so brittle. Clean up any leftover adhesive with acetone.

[buckleyjr]

great - I spent about five hours this week after work using my friggin fingernails to get this marlin decal off my boat this week. Wish I knew about the hair dryer! I was afraid to use a razor blade because I just knew I would nick up the gellcoat. I still have the starboard side to do though and will definitelly try the hair dryer.

I had some success removing stains/mildew with soft scrub with bleach - worked especially well on the non-skid.

[chesapeake724]

With the razor blades...file the corners round to cut down on your chances of gouging the gelcoat. The flat blade edge hardly digs into the gelcoat, but a corner will scratch the he11 out of it.

[reelapeelin]

Great idea, Chesapeake...luv this board...household mildew cleaner from the grocery store is great...PLUS you can get some FOOD while you're there...that's my favorite part about it... ;D...oh yeah, beer too!...

[shicks007]

3M makes a woodgrain and stripe remover. The stuff wotks great. I used it to remove some large stripes on an old 78' Jeep Cherokee. I'm sure it would work well on boat decals/stickers.

disclaimer: You'd have to check the lable about using it on fiberglass. ;D

[rb437]

How about some plastic razor blades. Yeah I meant plastic. Bodyshops use them to remove pinstripes from cars with out scratching the paint. I bet they'd work on gelcoat too.

[buckleyjr]

FYI - I used a hairdryer this weekend and the stripes/decals came right off.