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The only photo that may need explanation is the one of the bunk-bed with soldiers playing checkers.  This bed is an accurate replica of the bunks used by soldiers stationed at Fort Macon during the civil war period.  I found it interesting that they slept 4 soldiers per each narrow bunk.  There were many other details of living conditions there that make me appreciate my own.   If you have the chance I recommend a visit to Fort Macon.

For instance the chemical strippers that work so well for many didn’t do what I had hoped.  I primarily used aircraft stripper for fiberglass that is a gel consistency solvent which is very strong.  I tried it in frequent short applications, thick applications that were left on for a long time and I also tried covering it in saran wrap etc..  After letting the solvent do it’s work the first 3 or 4 layers of paint would come off pretty easily but it seemed to make the last few stick to the hull even more tenaciously.  With a very sharp scraper and a lot of effort I could get the last layers off for the most part after recovering the paint in solvent but this was a lot of work on many patches.  In the end I wasted time, money and brain cells trying this approach.

In conjunction with the stripper and also without I tried scraping with a variety of scrapers. All of these were sharpened and forcefully handled.  These were instrumental in getting the softened paint off after the stripper softened it but didn’t do much on the dry paint before or after the stripper was applied.  A good selection of scrapers is indespensible for this type of work though.  My favorite ended up being my semi-flexible bladed scraper that had a narrow blade of a little over an inch wide.  I kept this scraper very sharp and close at hand throughout this paint removal process.

Another technique that I used was wet sanding with a palm orbital sander.  This worked really well in that it was nice and slow and prevented me from doing much damage to the gel-coat.  It ate up a lot of sanding discs though and was too slow to be a practical technique for removing all of the gel-coat.  In the end wet-sanding with the orbital sander became my finishing technique.  I followed up after stripping, scraping and sanding with this and was able to clean off dust, scratches and other inconsistencies pretty easily.  I think that the 80 grit discs that I used resulted in a surface that my barrier coat will stick to tenaciously.

After spending most of my work time trying these techniques and getting half of the bottom paint off in the process the answer to removal of old bottom paint turned out to be a variable speed side grinder with a sanding pad attached.  I had purchased a side grinder at the beginning of the process for sanding use but it was a high rpm unit (11,000) and was way too fast for use over gelcoat in my hands.  What I needed was a slower, variable speed unit.  These are sold as sander/buffers and often cost $200 to $300 or more which is more than I wanted to pay.  I was pointed to harbor freight where I found one for $50 or so that would spin from a few hundred to 3500 or so rpm.  I tried a few different diameter sanding pads and a variety of disc grits.  I found that 60 or 80 grit worked great for most of the bottom paint.  With a little care this thing would remove most of the bottom paint without too much damage to the underlying gel-coat.  In good hands I am sure that even less gelcoat damage would ensue.  If I had started the paint removal work with this tool I could have had all of the paint off in a matter of days instead of the weeks that it took me.  I was working slowly but still this tool was multiple times faster and easier than anything else that I tried.

Even with good techniques and proper tools removing all of the bottom paint is a big, nasty and toxic job.  Few tasks in my life, if any, have caused me to get so filthy.  First I would get covered in sanding dust or stripper drippings (that burn unless rinsed off quicly) and then spray and splatter from follow up wet sanding.  I wore a bunny suit (full tivek suit), goggles, respirator, ear plugs and protective shoes and gloves but still probably absorbed more than a lifetimes worth of heavy metals and other chemicals.

Next time around I’ll probably just pay the yard guys to do this job but I’m glad that I did it at least this once and that I figured out removal techniques that now seems obvious.

Up next, among other things, is rebedding deck hardware and sealing leaks so that the bilge doesn’t fill up with water while I am away for a month or two.

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My primary cleanup tasks focused on washing out the entire interior of the boat so that it will be easier to keep the bilge clean when I do my keel stub repairs.  After hundreds of gallons of water, lots of scrubbing and plenty of degreaser the bilge on my boat no longer harbors the layers of oily, dirty residue that it once had.

My next cleanup task was to get the bottom paint off of the hull and get her ground down to solid gelcoat or glass as needed.  I got a bit distracted from bottom paint removal and have  cleaned from the hull deck joint down to the waterline while letting my shoulders recover from bottom scraping.  Fortunately most of the stains have come out of the gelcoat.  The real trick to getting the gelcoat clean was using “sno-bol” toilet cleaner as recommended by some of my yard neighbors.  Sno-Bol worked amazingly well at removing the ugly stains from the hull.  Getting the layers of bottom paint off is much more of  a chore and my shoulders are sure to be stronger after it is all done.

Here are some photos of the current state of my hull cleaning with some pre-cleaning references.

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A great variety of boats stop by Bock for hauling and maintenance or repair work and a walk through the yard is similar to walking through an art gallery though the art is all under some sort of construction.  There are many different boats with hulls from sleek to stout, fair to foul.  There are boats made of steel, aluminum, wood and of course fiberglass.  Powered by a variety of sailing rigs, or engines the boats are built for pleasure, work,  open water voyaging or maybe simply to give someone something to work on (my boats current purpose).

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I wasn’t able to show the fact that the keel/hull are still held together tightly by the forward most keel bolt but the movement that caused the enlarged gap between keel and hull were allowed by distortion of the keel stub around the front keel bolt.

Any observations or suggestions that may help me understand or create a repair plan for these problems are appreciated.

Click on the thumbnails to see the images full size.

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Just North of Beaufort North Carolina at the intersection of Highway 101 and the ICW is a boatyard called Bock Marine. This is where I’ve been working on my Pearson 28-1.  This yard is ideal for the do it yourselfer and offers expert service as well. A lot of folks are here doing maintenance work on their boats before sailing south for the winter.  Others, like me, are going to be here a little longer as they work through larger projects.

With power and water and wifi at the boat and showers and laundry nearby I’ve got all that I need and am enjoying taking my time assessing and planning what to do with this boat and the work that it needs.  It’s also nice to be surrounded by folks with similar projects going on.  One of my favorite things about working here is that I can look at so many different types of sailing boats whenever I feel like getting away from the Pearson for a bit.  There are beautiful wooden boats, serious looking steel hulls and every flavor of fiberglass boats from full keeled cruisers to fin keeled racers.  Maybe I’ll put up a gallery of some of my favorites soon.

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