I got a price to soda blast a 25' Parker-$1100. Seemed exorbitant to me. I was wondering if there is a good alternative. I have a number of coats on and its starting to flake. What are my options? Of course I could leave it alone and just scrape yearly (someone said its on the bottom of the boat) but maybe there's a simpler way of taking it off. If you know, I'd appreciate the tip.
Any alternative to soda blast?
- Thread starter pvalen
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There is no simple way of removing bottom paint, you can sand, blast or chemical strip. If you do it yourself, that $1100 will seem cheap by comparison.
I have done the job of sanding and chemical strip. The chemical strip was the easiest of the two by far, sanding is the worst job and will try to kill you. Chemical strip (Peel away worked best) took 3 full days to do it.
The problem with media blasting is that the effectiveness is completely in the experience of the hands doing it. It's possible to do a fantastic job, and possible to blast the gel off. I would not be comfortable in looking for a low cost bidder when media blasting.
You get what you get.
I have done the job of sanding and chemical strip. The chemical strip was the easiest of the two by far, sanding is the worst job and will try to kill you. Chemical strip (Peel away worked best) took 3 full days to do it.
The problem with media blasting is that the effectiveness is completely in the experience of the hands doing it. It's possible to do a fantastic job, and possible to blast the gel off. I would not be comfortable in looking for a low cost bidder when media blasting.
You get what you get.
marykhubby
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Pay the money! You'll thank yourself later...
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If I could get it done for $1000 I would do it in a heart beat instead I'm paying $900 for sanding. It's much to much work to do myself if you try I think you will agree. If money is tight light sand repaint over the top and start saving for next year.
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My two teenage sons and I spent several weekends last winter with paint scrapers removing the paint from our 38' boat. It was a nightmare!! If I knew there was someone who would have done it for a thousand bucks, I would have had him do it.
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I am going to be doing some removal of bottom paint this spring but only to the sides of the boat. I do not need to touch the bottom 'V' part of the hull, only the sides. The bottom is still in very good shape but the sides have built up over the years and chipped away in some areas leaving an ugly look. Any time I've tried to sand the rough edges down to make it smooth it just chips away even more. This is why I've decided to take it down to the gel and just redo this area. Since this is such a small area what method do you think would be best, scraping or chemical peal?
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This explains a lot. Each year using the scraper on the chipped areas it seemed very easy to scrape from the water line and below but above the water line was near impossible. Maybe I'll just do both.
Thanks,
Back when I had a 23 Sea Craft every spring I would jack and block the hull above the trailer and very judiciously use both 5" disc sander and a good random orbit sander while squeezing under the trailer & reaching up .Fun. The key was to use coarse enough grit (at least down to 50 , maybe even coarser at 1st?) to keep the cuprous oxide antifouling in the paint from loading up the sandpaper too quickly plus be very careful to move away just as soon as any lightness (hull gelcoat) began to appear. the disc sander will cut many many hours off what a block sander would take as long as you are VERY CAREFUL. Light grit was used when most of the paint thickness was reduced substantially. With the right touch & wary eye zero damage resulted to the hull.
The 1st year I had the used boat, the task was real bear as I had to remove about 8 years of badly-chipped hard black epoxy A/F paint with several hours of ugly work for 2 days, but it did work really well. You really need as much body prtection as you can put on as the image after is of one who just spent a week in coal mine and this dust is at least as bad for you. A good fan blowing from behind the sander helps immensely for breathing (thru respirator mask) and seeing through goggles while clearing the work area on the hull, but some thought should be given to where the dust is ending up ( the grass in my drive still only grows in a couple tufts there from 20yrs ago.) I rarely drink the well water since then. When ablative paint finally came out my heavy sanding days happily were ended as a power washer was all that was needed to prep. Not fun, but the sanding definitely worked well on the old hard stuff.
The newer used boat had the same problem of very chipped 7-8 yrs of black epoxy A/F layers, never truly sanded by the yard that always did the annual A/F painting (maybe roughed up if that.) After many yrs of having ablative applied over that uneven epoxy surface, I finally made the decision to get it all removed & smoothed so I hired that large boatyard where the boat winter stores to remove, barrier coat & repaint. I really wanted expert soda-blasting, strongly did NOT want sandblasting, as I had seen great soda results on a friend's boat at a yard 30 nm away, but they said they don't do soda , only a lot of sand-blast and their extremely experienced sub-contract expert blaster would do a better job with sand than most soda guys. OK... .
All-in-all, if I had to do it again, I would move the boat to another yard and soda blast. It turned out OK enough I guess, but when I saw the hull after blasting and pre-barrier coating I really felt too much had been removed, most all of the gelcoat & more and felt that much was unnecessary and reason for concern on a hull that is not originally built as thick a some others of similar size & higher cost. It also left the T/H intakes standing surprisingly proud and in need of fairing .Ideally I believe all the paint needs ot be removed and gelcoat minimally etched for the coats of barrier epoxy to adhere & seal well. There is a lot of potential for barrier coats to not be applied as thick or evenly as the original g-coat and the workers could even miss spots and be covered by semi-porous ablative bottom paint so I'd never really know until the hull gets heavy. Either soda or sand-blasting is likely to uncover any common bubbles (not the same as blisters but can be related) just under gel and those will need to be properly filled & faired. The painted hull is soooo much smoother, now so that part is good, and stays smooth for next painting after powerwashing at fall haul. .
Bottom line- I'd definitely suggest power-sanding, chemical or soda-blast removal before ever giving in to sand-blasting if your yard ever recommends that for a f/g hull. I found scraping to be next to useless & a waste of time on the initial chipped epoxy paints on my boats.
The 1st year I had the used boat, the task was real bear as I had to remove about 8 years of badly-chipped hard black epoxy A/F paint with several hours of ugly work for 2 days, but it did work really well. You really need as much body prtection as you can put on as the image after is of one who just spent a week in coal mine and this dust is at least as bad for you. A good fan blowing from behind the sander helps immensely for breathing (thru respirator mask) and seeing through goggles while clearing the work area on the hull, but some thought should be given to where the dust is ending up ( the grass in my drive still only grows in a couple tufts there from 20yrs ago.) I rarely drink the well water since then. When ablative paint finally came out my heavy sanding days happily were ended as a power washer was all that was needed to prep. Not fun, but the sanding definitely worked well on the old hard stuff.
The newer used boat had the same problem of very chipped 7-8 yrs of black epoxy A/F layers, never truly sanded by the yard that always did the annual A/F painting (maybe roughed up if that.) After many yrs of having ablative applied over that uneven epoxy surface, I finally made the decision to get it all removed & smoothed so I hired that large boatyard where the boat winter stores to remove, barrier coat & repaint. I really wanted expert soda-blasting, strongly did NOT want sandblasting, as I had seen great soda results on a friend's boat at a yard 30 nm away, but they said they don't do soda , only a lot of sand-blast and their extremely experienced sub-contract expert blaster would do a better job with sand than most soda guys. OK... .
All-in-all, if I had to do it again, I would move the boat to another yard and soda blast. It turned out OK enough I guess, but when I saw the hull after blasting and pre-barrier coating I really felt too much had been removed, most all of the gelcoat & more and felt that much was unnecessary and reason for concern on a hull that is not originally built as thick a some others of similar size & higher cost. It also left the T/H intakes standing surprisingly proud and in need of fairing .Ideally I believe all the paint needs ot be removed and gelcoat minimally etched for the coats of barrier epoxy to adhere & seal well. There is a lot of potential for barrier coats to not be applied as thick or evenly as the original g-coat and the workers could even miss spots and be covered by semi-porous ablative bottom paint so I'd never really know until the hull gets heavy. Either soda or sand-blasting is likely to uncover any common bubbles (not the same as blisters but can be related) just under gel and those will need to be properly filled & faired. The painted hull is soooo much smoother, now so that part is good, and stays smooth for next painting after powerwashing at fall haul. .
Bottom line- I'd definitely suggest power-sanding, chemical or soda-blast removal before ever giving in to sand-blasting if your yard ever recommends that for a f/g hull. I found scraping to be next to useless & a waste of time on the initial chipped epoxy paints on my boats.