Phase 3 - Chemical Warfare - Part II

This weekend was the beginning of final preparation to the inside of the hull. As you can see from previous posts, I have sanded off a lot of the interior paint and tested out a couple of different strippers for removal of the remaining finish. While doing this I exposed something like 4 or 5 separate coats of paint. It appears that the base coat is red (either that or they used red resin!), or I'm just seeing the first coat of gelcoat from the inside of the boat. I'm not at all sure that one of these coats of paint (the most recent) wasn't house paint! It appears to have been applied with a brush while the person doing the painting was under the influence! At least that's the way it looked to me.

Since my previous testing had indicated that the old standby stripper, methylene chloride, worked best (i.e. the quickest), I set to work with that product. I don't think brands here are very important. The key is to just get a product that has the highest concentration of methylene chloride you can find. Not many list this information on the label so you may have to consult the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for the product to find out the concentration. Don't just rely on marketing or descriptive terms on the can - things like Professional Grade, Premium, etc., can be misleading - get the MSDS and see exactly what you are getting for your money.

And a note about safety - make sure you follow the directions on the can you purchase - wear gloves, eye goggles, and clothing you don't care about. Also make sure to do this outside and keep any ignition sources away from you. Some strippers contain methanol as well as methylene chloride so flammability is an issue. You may also want to wear a full or half face respirator with Organic Vapor cartridges. I'm a chemical engineer by training so I pay attention to this stuff - its' important - you should pay attention to it too. No boat is worth injury or death. Take your time and be careful.

Strong recommendation: Have several good scrapers handy, small as well as large, and keep them sharp with a file. This task is going to wear you out and you want to get the maximum effect for your effort. Don't waste it fighting paint/epoxy filler with a dull scraper.

Here are some pictures of the progress I made over the two days of the weekend:

Chemical Warfare

In several of the photos you will notice damage to sections of the glass. It appears to us that the two longitudinal stiffeners were added after the boat was constructed. We believe this to be true because in places the fiberglass covering the wood strips is not even stuck down. It didn't stick because the fiberglass was applied over paint. I have no idea why someone would do this. Because the glass was loose in several places, it was probably not really providing all that much stiffening. We will have to grind out these places and install new glass. In addition, several of the rounded stiffeners had holes in them. We'll have to patch these as well.

At this point Bruce thinks that I've got enough paint removed that we can move on to the fun stuff! Fiberglass fabrication and repair here we come!

I'm going to make a list of areas that need repairing and just tackle them one by one. Stay tuned.