3Squids '87 Cuddy thread

[3 Squids]

Talking to my father in law tonight he's curious on this soda blasting. He has a 17' Maycraft he'd like to remove bottom paint from and not reapply as well. He talked about buying a soda blaster and doing it himself. Anyone tried it themselves. I'm sure it will be a small portable unit. Just don't know if the cost of the material is worth it. Guess I'd have to get a quote on getting the boat done. I'm starting to wonder now if I could do the hull sides as well and restore all the gelcoat. That'd be ideal to me.

[Destroyer]

Originally Posted by 3 Squids

Talking to my father in law tonight he's curious on this soda blasting. He has a 17' Maycraft he'd like to remove bottom paint from and not reapply as well. He talked about buying a soda blaster and doing it himself. Anyone tried it themselves. I'm sure it will be a small portable unit. Just don't know if the cost of the material is worth it. Guess I'd have to get a quote on getting the boat done. I'm starting to wonder now if I could do the hull sides as well and restore all the gelcoat. That'd be ideal to me.

I started doing it on a 21' Cruisers, Inc cuddy a few years back. Bought the unit from Harbor Freight, (http://www.harborfreight.com/40-lb-p...ter-60801.html) plus they sell the blast media also (http://www.harborfreight.com/50-lbs-...dia-65929.html) so it was a one stop shopping experience. Got it home and of course I didn't do any of the prep work they suggested... you know, small stuff like tenting the boat with Visqueen (vinyl) sheeting so you don't make a mess. Well, long story short....... I made a mess...... A HUGE MESS!!!! My driveway and lawn was white as snow. Lesson learned... ya gotta tent the boat. (Or I suppose, have a large clean garage that you can do it in that's empty of everything else so sweeping up the media afterwards won't be a problem). And you MUST have a dust mask and eye protection...
The blast media is just Baking Soda, but it's a special "grind".. it's much coarser than the powder that you would buy for cooking/baking. Think of a single grain of this Baking soda. Basically what happens is the soda is shot out of the spray nozzle and hits the paint. When it hit's, it actually explodes. That explosion changes the single grain into microscopic shrapnel, and the direction of the grain changes from going forward to sideways in a 360 degree circle. (So it doesn't penetrate the fiberglass like sand would). The force of the hit plus the explosion at the same time removes a tiny part of paint. Now, multiply that process by hundreds of thousands of grains of Soda in a minute and you get a very fast paint removal process. It's actually very impressive. But like I said, it's messy. I was doing it on a boat I was planning to scrap, so it didn't matter to me how the job turned out... and truthfully, it came out pretty good. But, I'll repeat again... it' makes a LARGE mess. If I had to do it on one of our V's, I'd hire a professional to do it. Lots less work and time.

[Striper80]

Originally Posted by 3 Squids

Talking to my father in law tonight he's curious on this soda blasting. He has a 17' Maycraft he'd like to remove bottom paint from and not reapply as well. He talked about buying a soda blaster and doing it himself. Anyone tried it themselves. I'm sure it will be a small portable unit. Just don't know if the cost of the material is worth it. Guess I'd have to get a quote on getting the boat done. I'm starting to wonder now if I could do the hull sides as well and restore all the gelcoat. That'd be ideal to me.

There was a guy on seastriper.com that did the bottom on a 2301 Striper he was selling. He did just what destroyer did, harbor freight set up, but he tented it. He then sanded and polished the bottom. It was pretty labor intensive.