stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

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cm20

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Nov 27, 2010
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hello everyone new here had a question i wondered if anyone had an idea about...

i recently bought a 77 sylvan 18 foot aluminum boat to restore and the previous owner decided it would be a good idea to coat the entire bottom of the boat in

a heavy layer of fiberglas cloth and resin.... any ideas on how to get it off ive been going at it very slowly with a wire wheel on an angle grinder wondering if anyone knew of a chemical

stripper to remove it? .... will be starting a build thread here soon as soon as i figure out the whole picture thing, any ideas would be appreciated

thanks in advance for any advice
 
jigngrub

jigngrub

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Re: stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

Maybe a heat gun and scraper would work on the FG?

I'd bet money your tinny leaks with loose rivets and seams and thats why the PO did what he did. Plenty of info on here on how to stop that the right way.
 
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djpeters

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Re: stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

WOW..that's going to be a mess, maybe worse than digging out pour in foam. Sorry, but that doesn't sound good.

Does it seem to be stuck good? Can you tell it it wants to come up?
 
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cm20

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Re: stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

thats what i intend to do is fix it the right way, just a huge pain getting all the crap off the bottom, throwing the idea around of welding up the whole boat since i have it stripped down to nothing but that would require a ton more work but its a winter project got 8 months to do it
 
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cm20

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Re: stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

the hull is in pretty good shape other than all the glass, but im not sure what the boat even is its titled as a sylvan but it looks completely identical to the starcrafts of that era inside and out....not a bad deal though got the boat and trailer for 400 bucks, no motor but came with a set of newer omc controls with new cables 2 gas tanks and a new spare for the trailer.....thinking about turning it into a center console any thoughts?
 
ezmobee

ezmobee

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Re: stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

We're gonna need some pics of this mess. Welcome to the forum!
 
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cm20

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Re: stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

its definately a mess workin on the pics part i was just checking out your build ezmobee and im now about 99% sure i have the exact same boat as you not a sylvan like the title says...where did you get the hatch for your rod locker if you dont mind me asking?
 
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djpeters

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Re: stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

cm20 said:
its definately a mess workin on the pics part i was just checking out your build ezmobee and im now about 99% sure i have the exact same boat as you not a sylvan like the title says...where did you get the hatch for your rod locker if you dont mind me asking?
Click to expand...

Many of the Sylvans are identical twins to the Starcrafts. So more than likely if it says Sylvan on the title it probably is.
 
TruckDrivingFool

TruckDrivingFool

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Jul 30, 2007
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Re: stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

If you can work an edge up to get some acetone under it you you maybe able to pop it out in bigger chunks. No matter what its going to be work.
 
ezmobee

ezmobee

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Re: stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

Yep, just what dj said, Sylvan even had a model called a SuperSporster! Same boat.

I got my hatch on ebay. Do a search for ski locker and you should have a few to choose from.
 
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cm20

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Nov 27, 2010
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Re: stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

thanks for all the quick replies....i didnt know that about the 2 boats....back to the problem, heat gun does virtually nothing just melts the paint off the top and makes a bigger mess, looks like im just going to have to suck it up and wire wheel it off
 
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cm20

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Messages
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Re: stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

heres a pic of the boat just tryin to get the hang of putting pics on here




IMG00017-20110826-1902.jpg
 
ezmobee

ezmobee

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Re: stripping fiberglass off aluminum??

Oh man what a mess. I think you'll probably have to start off by scraping as much as you can off with a putty knife or something. Hopefully it isn't adhered real well in some areas.

I would start putting my pictures in a photobucket.com account and linking to them from here. I can currently seeing your pics in the above post when I click the links but there's something wrong with iboats picture hosting and I think tomorrow the links will be dead. Hosting pics on iboats is a pain anyway and you'll find lots of uses for photobucket. That's what most of us are using.
 
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