Trojan Boat Forum

Has anyone used these bottom paint strippers? Interlux 299E or Pettit Bio-Blast 9051. I am thinking of removing the old paint from the bottom. My boat is a 1977 36' Trojan Tri-cabin. The boat is located in Michigan City,IN. I've read the Bio-Blast works better when the temp is 50F. It will be another month before temps stay that warm.

Most everyone I know that has used paint strippers say never again . IMO sanding is the best choice or soda blasting .

I am sure you will get other opions .

prowlersfish wrote:Most everyone I know that has used paint strippers say never again . IMO sanding is the best choice or soda blasting .

I am sure you will get other opions .

agreed

I tried to use Peel Away a couple of years ago. The boat is a '79, so I had about 30 years of paint buildup on it.

The concept is simple : smear the stripper on the hull, place a 'special' paper over top of it to keep the air away from it, leave it to work for a bunch of hours, then peel the paper off and all the paint comes with it. Nice and easy, nice and clean.

It is one of the most environmentally conscious products out there as there is not dust, no flakes to work their way into the water system, no muss, fuss, or dirt, etc.... and everything is attached to the paper for simple and proper disposal.

Now, having said that, it didn't work for me. But my experience may not be 'normal'. I store the boat in a an old commercial shipping shed. Because the Port Authority that owns the shed and city that owns the land it is sitting on are fighting over lease renewals, nobody is willing to spend money to do any repairs, and roof leaks like a sieve.

So..... I applied the stripper and paper to half the bottom on the starboard side, then gave up for the day. Over night it rained. One of the leaks in the roof was over the boat, so apparently the rain water dripped onto the deck, ran to the scuppers, and down the side of the hull. It worked its way under the masking tape holding the 'special' paper in place, and started to fill the area between the stripper and the special paper already applied. If nothing else, it diluted things. But it also resulted in several pounds of water sitting on top of the paper.

Well, I didn't know this... The next day I was back down there bright and early applying stripper to the next section (forward half of the starboard side), in about 40-50F conditions, wearing full enviro-gear - full body enviro suit over my clothes, balaclava to make sure my head/neck/hair was protected, mask, and full face shield. I could barely move with all this gear on, but laying on my creeper I could still apply the stripper by brush Michelangelo style.

I heard some weird rustling noise that I thought was in the corner of the shed and figured a rat or raccoon had made its way in, so thought I should check on that when I finished the section. Then I turned to my right - and discovered that 80% of the special paper, covered with still wet and toxic/acidic stripper and a crap-load of liquified bottom paint, was laying on the ground beside me. The noise had been 100+ square feet of all that stuff falling off the hull just a foot or two away. Liquified paint was dangling from the hull like stalagmites (or is it stalactites - whichever one hangs from the ceiling).

Anyhow... what a frigging bugger to clean up afterwards, especially with everything soft, goopy, and wet.

I ended up scraping and sanding all bottom paint off to bare gel (good quality scraper from Lee Valley Tools) by hand.

Total time spent (including failed attempt with Peel Away) : about 100 hours to fully strip / scrape / sand antifouling from bottom and and hull sides down to bare gel, clean up (removed paint chunks and dust collected in plastic drop sheets weighed 50 - 60 pounds; don't know how much more made it into atmosphere / shop vac / or onto other peoples boats around me even though I did everything I could to prevent it (sorry guys!) ), apply primer, and then about 4 coats of new bottom paint (Interlux Micron CSC ablative).

I think Peel Away is still worth checking out (even though I had my disaster), as long as you have enough control over your environment. Where it did have a chance to work on my hull without rain water issues, and given that the special paper was 'removed' earlier than it should have been, it appeared to be doing a very good job.

But if you want guaranteed results do what Paul says and what my fall-back were.... have the boat blocked low, get a creeper and a good scraper, eat your Wheaties, and scrape/sand the bugger as needed.

Hi Mark and welcome aboard. I knew you had joined the forum last summer but had never posted and glad you did.

When you decide how you are going to proceed; if you need help with any manual labor let me know and I'll join you.

Thanks for the info everyone. At this point I'm not sure if I will use a paint stripper. Saw a video on the internet using one of these products and of course, it always looks easy.
Thanks Tim, I'll see you in Mich. City soon. This forum is a great way to get info and other people's opinions on how to deal with problems and learn more about these boats.

Markd,
My paint stripper was just delivered on friday. I went with a soy based product that had great reviews, can't remember the name right now. I wil hopefully be trying it the next week or two. I'll post a review after I try it.

Welcome aboard Mark. Great bunch of guys here all willing to help out for the asking. Good refferences to check before going ahead and starting any project. Between all of us, there is a vast knowledge of practical know how; Jefflaw35 seems to be our resident painter, Prowlersfish has much experience and knowledge on many marine systems (but he only pilots the boat from top helm ), Natchamp is our resident CAD guy, RWS the Meter express expert, Foofer b has the best underwater pictures around etc etc. A lot of projects on the go that I'm sure you'l find usefull so pick our brains. I think you're in for some fun.

ever heard of this stuff
http://www.franmar.com/shopping/index.p ... ucts_id=71 ?

I have! That's the stuff!

good god man ! Does it work ?

+++++ on soda blasting, I found a firm in Dallas 60 miles away that come out and blasted it, 4 hours $800 but very nice.

I have tried strippers on galas and some plastices my results were less than good. I have also found that unless it is the good stuff, like aircraft stripper, sanding is about as easy and uses no nasty chemical stuff for my skin to absorb.

I got a quote to soda blast the bottom 2 yrs ago, $1400. I'm sure it went up by now. My plan with the stripper is to wait until my two workers piss me off (believe it or not it seems to happen alot!) and we are going to have a bottom stripping party all day long! For only $250 in material I should be entertained for the entire day!

I had mine blasted last fall and it was $800 and looks good. Getting ready when the temps rise to get the fiberglass repaired and then barrier coat and bottom paint.

Thanks D that made me smile Todd WTF share!!!! but really!! Soda blasting your bottoms guys? 800-1400$ sorry I can't fathom that not even for 100 foot yacht. Scrapers and neighborhood kids!! Ok even if you can't do that, try this... Air chisel with a medium spatula attachment. I'll show you one next week. I use them for separating door skins. You think the tool is over kill yes but the attachment is almost butter and will slide under anything, what it doesn't get in a few hours you can hand scrape then power sand...... Just my opinion