Trojan Boat Forum

I'm stripping my boat raw to the wood to fix rot spots and let the saturated wood dry out. There is a thick coat of epoxy like substance under the paint (that is actually scraping off kinda easy). What kind of material is it? and are there any recomendations for recoating the wood before paint. This is my first wood boat and as you can see I know very little about them, but eager to learn.

Billy, Someone may have used an apoxy coating to seal the wood before painting. It is a common mistake. Wood needs to breath otherwise it will hold the moisture in and eventually force the epoxy away from the wood. That is why it is easy to remove now. There is an epoxy that works very well at preserving wood boats. Smith's CPES (clear penitrating epoxy sealer) Google for all the details. The differance with CPES is the natural resin base (allowing it to breath)vs petrolium used in epoxy for fiberglass boats. Smith's site will explain this in detail. You can only use CPES if you are able to strip to bare wood. Jimbo36

is this why the wood is saturated under the paint that I'm peeling? It is so wet that it actually drips when I peel a chunk of paint.

If it's that wet you probably have mushrooms somewhere. Follow your nose to where the deck meets the hull sides. That's where your problem most likely is. When you get it dried out use Interlux Briteside primer & Interlux # 1 as your top coats, It'll look nice.

I had the same problem on an old Chris I restored. The wood will naturally absorb moisture; when the moisture content of the wood gets to a certain point, paint will no longer stick to it, it will come off in sheets. To eliminate the problem it is necessary to remove all the paint. You would think that it would come off easily; in fact, only a small amount will peel off. In the picture below, I removed the paint with a 5/8 wood chisel and a heat gun. After repairs and a good bit of sanding, I impregnated the wood with CPES (mentioned above). Before the CPES cured, I applied 2 coats of epoxy primer (effectively bonding the primer to the CPES). Before the primer cured, I then applied 2 coats of Interlux Toplac (binding the paint to the primer). The problem was eliminated; 2 yrs later, when I sold the boat, the paint still looked like new. Good Luck on your project.

Bill

I also removed the bottom paint from my woody with a heat gun, but chose to use a 1 1/2" putty knife. It isn't as sharp, doesn't cut into the wood, and is more flexible. I would hold the heat gun directly in front of the putty knife, applied pressure, and pushed the knife as the paint softened. It's a slow process.

When I strpped the white hull paint later I chose to use a power plane. It will kill the plane, but it is so much faster. The blades will dull quickly but the beating of the blades breaks up and chips the paint away. Set the depth of the cut to the thickness of the paint and only go in the direction of the grain.

If you choose this route I can give more tips.