once you paint the bottom...

alk

alk

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I have a 16 year old bowrider that I kept in the water first few years I owned it; so I'm guessing there is four of five coats of hard black bottom paint on the hull. I keep it on the trailer now, and don't foresee slip storage anytime soon.

Don't really like the way it looks with old worn out black bottom paint. Of course I could put yet another coat on, but seems like a waste. Is there any practical way to get it back to the gel coat - or is glass coming off in an attempt to strip? I've seen all of the brush on chemicals, and papers with strippers - but I don't remember that route working very well in the past. Especially on a trailered boat.

Always seeing ads for sandblasting, powder blasting, and the like. What kind of surface does that leave behind? Is rental equipment and DIY possible, or job for the pros?

looking for people who have actually stripped all of their paint off to hear what worked, and what was done to the surface afterwards. thanks.
 
An awful lot of work and it won't look like new glass. There are colored bottom paints that might appeal to you
 
Blasting leaves a rough surface no matter what medium you use. I used a chemical stripper once with good results,but I re-painted. Just had my boat bottom blasted. Quick, expensive, effective, but now I'm waiting on 5 coats of barrier coat and 2 coats of bottom paint.
 
thanks, sort of what I thought. I don't think I can paint with what I want to use over what is on there. I used ablative for last coat or two. I thought I remembered reading somewhere that a skilled person with a soda blaster can get back a pretty smooth surface - but not seeming to be the case.
 
If it's aggressive enough to take bottom paint off, it has to at least scuff up the gel coat.
 
and once the gel coat is scuffed, what is next? Does it have to come off completely before proceeding? With just barrier coat, or epoxy? Or is barrier coat the same thing as epoxy? I studied up on all this 15 years ago when I was thinking of stripping down my 40' which had 23 coats of paint on it, ended up selling instead, and forget what the process is.
 
If you must - I have stripped one painted bottom with those gel paint removers. They take a lot of time to work and then scrapped off the wet bubbling mess with many plastic scrapers from Home Depot - always wearing glove. Finished up with another dose of stripper and a soft scrubbie along with a garden hose flush. Many years back we also stripped a 21' boat with only a couple of coats of bottom paint with a single edge razor blade tool - it took quite some time but if held at just the right angle you could male strips come off to the hull without gouging.
If you will be trying any method it would be best to 'test' a small area as you have no idea how the hull was prepared or what si actually directly against the hull.
 
I wanted to do that on ours. Gave up and re-coated with "hard" bottom paint. Hoped to favor the trim color so I used blue. Original had been "Shark White" which turns to an aqua color with age. So blue made sense. WRONG!!! Now it's blue with black blotches. Any "color" ages worse than Plain Old BLACK.
 
Maybe you can sandblast/sodablast it. It will leave it a bit rough. Then re-coat with something like glossy white Awlgrip or Dupont Imron to match white gelcoat. This will not be cheap. Not sure if it's worth it.
 
Way too much effort & expense for the yield. Put another coat of hard bottom paint on it & call it done.
 
I did my hull in awlgrip a few years back and at the time learned that you really do not want to use a linear paint like that below the waterline. These paints are not designed to stand up with constant contact - I believe that awlgrip does make a type of bottom paint but at that point you can use just about any of the major bottom paints.
 
I had a similar issue with a 23 footer. I ended up stripping it with a scraper, sanded the rest of the old bottom paint off with an orbital (and respirator).
I then applied 3 coats of white barrier coat. It lives on a trailer and it's been 3 years.
There isn't the gloss of gel coat but it hasn't discolored or worn off.
 
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