Bottom paint

[jasoncooperpcola]

My 83 V20 has bottom paint on her. It looks to be at least two different colors. I plan to strip it all off and repaint the bottom. My question is, what do yall recommend for bottom paint stripper? I plan to just coat the bottom with pettit easypoxy in the ocean blue color, the same color as the side of my 250 Sportsman after stripping paint and repairing any areas.

[Destroyer]

Really, there's only ONE method to remove bottom paint that I'd recommend.. Soda Blasting. I know there's a ton of different ways to remove bottom paint, some better than others, some cheaper than others, but blastings the fastest and safest way I know of. You can hire somone to do it or you can do it yourself. (If you already have a good compressor, Harbor Freight sells a very nice 40# Soda Blaster unit now). If you do it yourself, just remember that you're going to make a LOT of dust, so tape plastic sheeting around the entire boat from top to ground (tent the entire boat) and wear a good dust/particle mask under the blasting hood. Like any other job, preparation is 90% of the work. Also, if at all possible, I'd put down plastic sheet on the ground where I planned to do the work, then roll the boat onto that spot. In other words, cover the ground also. It will make cleaning up the white dust/powder a lot easier. Once you actually start the job, you should be able to do a sq foot in under 30 seconds (depending on paint thickness) with zero damage to the hull.

[Cam]

Just try to be careful and not strip off the barrier coat. Otherwise, it will become a labor intensive and expensive job. As for the 2 colors, you may be looking at a barrier coat as one of the colors you see or it could be just another coat of bottom paint. Myself and a lot of my friends often change colors, so when repainting, you can actually see where you missed spots. We usually just sand down last coat and repaint.

[jasoncooperpcola]

I found some stripper from work we used to strip pool paint and tried it on a spot, after scraping and applying it 6 six times i got sown to gel coat.

[jasoncooperpcola]

What blasting media is good to use, medium or extra-large? I looked at harbor freight and i am leaning towards soda blasting. I hope it will be easier than scraping.

[Destroyer]

Soda Blasting Jason.. Some ppl use walnut shells with good success, but I've never used them and really can't speak from experience on them.

Soda media, although the same thing as Baking soda that you buy in food stores, is a much courser, hollow grain.. when it's shot at the paint it hits with enough force that it literally explodes,, the force of that explosion tears a tiny bit of the paint loose as it hits... now multiply that by thousands of grains a second and you see why it's so effective. But the media is so soft that it will not damage the sub-strata..... in this case your fiberglass. Do an internet search on Soda Blasting and you'll find many sites dedicated to selling it and the theory behind it. One of the best sites is, (not surprisingly) Arm & Hammer's site.