Jim Surdyke
10-18-2001, 01:37 AM
Having gotten two very large quotes from boat yards ($20K to 30K )to strip and paint the topsides of my ketch, I looked for a way for me to perform the work without putting myself in the hospital.
The biggest task was to remove 66 years of paint off of the hull and do it in a manner that did not require a lot of fairing during finishing . At 65' long, I was looking at a lot of old paint. Additionally, I wanted to do the work in the water, as I did not want to have her on the hard for the length of time I expected it would take and also, the $260.00 per day lay day charge would add up to significant sums in short order.
I purchased a Fein 6" orbital sander, but the inability to find 36 or 40 grit for the machine really made the job too slow. Klingspor sells 60 grit, but it wasn't agressive enough to use as the primary remover.
After reading a report in Practical Sailor, I decided to try Peel Away paint stripper. It is advertised for bottom paint but I
gave it a try on my topsides. While it did not perform as advertised, It was succesful and I have now complely stripped the port side.
The biggest problem I had was getting the stripper on as thick as was recommended.
I used a wall paper paste brush but still could not get the thickness correct. There is a direct corelation to thickness of stripper and number of coats it will remove.
After the stripper is applied, you cover the paste with their special Peel Away paper. This prevents the stripper from drying out prematurely. I would apply stripper to about 10' of hull in the morning, and the next morning it was ready to be removed. Removal of the paper would bring one or two coats with the paper. I then stapled plastic sheet to the boot stripe and to the finger pier and proceeded to scrape about five more layers of paint off. The stripper softened the paint so that it came off rather easily.
The plastic caught the peelings and made clean up easy.
I then used the Fein sander with 60 grit to remove the last vestiges of paint and fillers.
The result was that it took me 22 hours to remove all of the paint, fairing compound etc. down to bare wood on the port side, and the wood is smooth enough that it is ready for sanding with 100 grit, then 150, CPES and painting.
I used two gallons of Peel Away ($59.95 retail) and two extra packets of paper, ($9.95 each.)
My next step is to redo all of the seams.
All in all, I am very satisfied with the product and believe it saved me a ton of money, a lot of hard labor and a significant amount of time.
The biggest task was to remove 66 years of paint off of the hull and do it in a manner that did not require a lot of fairing during finishing . At 65' long, I was looking at a lot of old paint. Additionally, I wanted to do the work in the water, as I did not want to have her on the hard for the length of time I expected it would take and also, the $260.00 per day lay day charge would add up to significant sums in short order.
I purchased a Fein 6" orbital sander, but the inability to find 36 or 40 grit for the machine really made the job too slow. Klingspor sells 60 grit, but it wasn't agressive enough to use as the primary remover.
After reading a report in Practical Sailor, I decided to try Peel Away paint stripper. It is advertised for bottom paint but I
gave it a try on my topsides. While it did not perform as advertised, It was succesful and I have now complely stripped the port side.
The biggest problem I had was getting the stripper on as thick as was recommended.
I used a wall paper paste brush but still could not get the thickness correct. There is a direct corelation to thickness of stripper and number of coats it will remove.
After the stripper is applied, you cover the paste with their special Peel Away paper. This prevents the stripper from drying out prematurely. I would apply stripper to about 10' of hull in the morning, and the next morning it was ready to be removed. Removal of the paper would bring one or two coats with the paper. I then stapled plastic sheet to the boot stripe and to the finger pier and proceeded to scrape about five more layers of paint off. The stripper softened the paint so that it came off rather easily.
The plastic caught the peelings and made clean up easy.
I then used the Fein sander with 60 grit to remove the last vestiges of paint and fillers.
The result was that it took me 22 hours to remove all of the paint, fairing compound etc. down to bare wood on the port side, and the wood is smooth enough that it is ready for sanding with 100 grit, then 150, CPES and painting.
I used two gallons of Peel Away ($59.95 retail) and two extra packets of paper, ($9.95 each.)
My next step is to redo all of the seams.
All in all, I am very satisfied with the product and believe it saved me a ton of money, a lot of hard labor and a significant amount of time.