Wish my boat wasn't painted (stripping paint off gel-coat?)

[Leedanger]

Hey Gents...So I have this Crestliner that was painted by the guy I bought it from and I wish it wasn't really. He did an ok job but I would have much rathered he left it be and I had a chance to just buff out the old gel coat. I doubt I'll ever do it but I was wondering if anyone has ever stripped a paint layer off a gel coat and if so how well it turned out.

Logic tells me there are far better projects I could get myself into, but I have put alot of work into this boat just to hate it because of a half assed paint job.

 

[Last Mohican]

Re: Wish my boat wasn't painted (stripping paint off gel-coat?)

I stripped mine a while back. Details here:
http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=447837

 

[Yacht Dr.]

Re: Wish my boat wasn't painted (stripping paint off gel-coat?)

Never really stripped a paint job off with chems ..only with a sander.

I would start with some 320 on a DA Sander and see how that works out. If need be goto 220 for 80-90 % removal and then drop to 320 until 97.5% is gone .. then drop to 400 grit until gone. DA as much as possible with 600 ( DA still ).

Wet sand with 1200 then buff it out.

The thing about repaints are twofold. You really dont know how they prepped it .. and you dont know what is under it.

You could be exposing repairs that were just covered up. But in the long run you know the job is done right when you get it back down to the Gelcoat ..

YD.

 

[tommays]

Re: Wish my boat wasn't painted (stripping paint off gel-coat?)

I would try a small area and see what they did to the gelcoat

It will depend on what they used to paint with as to how well it comes off as one Vs two part paint will be much different

The Fiberglass "safe" stripper like Interlux 299e Interstrip is painfully slow BUT the aggressive strippers will nuke the gelcoat