Topside paint over bottom paint

[wbttk]

Random orbital all the way....rotary will gouge and leave swirls. I would suggest that you decide what grit you think you need for the job, and then get the next finer grit. It's better to go through more sanding discs than it is to remove material you didn't want to remove! Also be very careful (or hand sand) at corners/edges.....material comes off much faster there than it does on the large flat areas.

Great, thanks for the advice. I'm not familiar with the electric sanders, so that was really helpful. I'll start looking at random orbitals.

[micura]

The runoff from removing the bottom paint is extremely toxic. Try to limit the amount spilled into the environment. You can get bottom paint remover paste to make the work easier, or you can do the EasyOff ( I would use the bottom paint remover). after sanding the residual, you have to apply a barrier coat to avoid water penetrating your fiberglass hull. Over that, you prime, sand, prime, sand, paint, sand, paint, polish. A real PITA.

[rchanner]

Great, thanks for the advice. I'm not familiar with the electric sanders, so that was really helpful. I'll start looking at random orbitals.

My advice for Random Orbitals: Look at DeWalt. Good quality, adjustable orbit speed, and the dust collector bag pops right off and you can hook your shop-vac hose right to it.

Look at the post above this one, though- he's absolutely spot-on that you want to remove as much as you possibly can without sanding--the object is to attempt to completely avoid violating the factory surfaces (gel coat, glass) if possible.

[wbttk]

My advice for Random Orbitals: Look at DeWalt. Good quality, adjustable orbit speed, and the dust collector bag pops right off and you can hook your shop-vac hose right to it.

Look at the post above this one, though- he's absolutely spot-on that you want to remove as much as you possibly can without sanding--the object is to attempt to completely avoid violating the factory surfaces (gel coat, glass) if possible.

Fishnutz and micura, I love the paint stripper idea and then going to the orbital. I am curious to see how many layers a stripper can shed because I don't think there's that many. There's a green layer now, and what looks like a maroon/red color under it, but I think that's it before I can see a little gelcoat. I'm eager to give this a shot now. Thanks

[micura]

Fishnutz and micura, I love the paint stripper idea and then going to the orbital. I am curious to see how many layers a stripper can shed because I don't think there's that many. There's a green layer now, and what looks like a maroon/red color under it, but I think that's it before I can see a little gelcoat. I'm eager to give this a shot now. Thanks

If left long enough, the stripper will turn all bottom paint to mush. Do it the right way, the first time off an save yourself the trouble of reoing things later.

[wbttk]

If left long enough, the stripper will turn all bottom paint to mush. Do it the right way, the first time off an save yourself the trouble of reoing things later.

Help me here because I haven't use stripper before, but you're saying if I leave the stripper on too long and it turns to mush, it will be harder to remove at that point?

[KillerB]

Honestly, I wouldn't attack it with liquid stripper and a sander. No matter how careful you are, you're going to end up with marks and gouges from the sander.

If you want it all off, I'd have it soda blasted.

http://www.sodablastboats.com/

Then what you find will depend on the initial prep work that was done before the first coat of bottom paint was applied.

It may be lightly sanded and will buff back up. I doubt you'll get that lucky.

Most likely the gloss will be sanded off with no way to get it back easily.

You could re-gel coat but I'd leave that to an expert. IE, it takes some talent to make it look right.

The other alternative is to paint it with a hard, two part paint. I'm not sure how long this would last below the water line. It would certainly be the least expensive solution.

On a small boat like this, it might be more expense than it's worth. If you don't like the look of the soft ablative bottom paint, switch to a semi hard paint (Interlux VC17m, Petit Vivid, etc) which will hold up longer and look better. Petit Vivid is recommended for boats that are trailered.

If it was mine, I'd just go with the soda blast and Petit. If you do more I don't think you'd ever get the value back out of it versus what you put into it. It's not an old Bertram or Hatteras you're restoring and can get the value back out of it if you sell it.

[wbttk]

Honestly, I wouldn't attack it with liquid stripper and a sander. No matter how careful you are, you're going to end up with marks and gouges from the sander.

If you want it all off, I'd have it soda blasted.

http://www.sodablastboats.com/

Then what you find will depend on the initial prep work that was done before the first coat of bottom paint was applied.

It may be lightly sanded and will buff back up. I doubt you'll get that lucky.

Most likely the gloss will be sanded off with no way to get it back easily.

You could re-gel coat but I'd leave that to an expert. IE, it takes some talent to make it look right.

The other alternative is to paint it with a hard, two part paint. I'm not sure how long this would last below the water line. It would certainly be the least expensive solution.

On a small boat like this, it might be more expense than it's worth. If you don't like the look of the soft ablative bottom paint, switch to a semi hard paint (Interlux VC17m, Petit Vivid, etc) which will hold up longer and look better. Petit Vivid is recommended for boats that are trailered.

If it was mine, I'd just go with the soda blast and Petit. If you do more I don't think you'd ever get the value back out of it versus what you put into it. It's not an old Bertram or Hatteras you're restoring and can get the value back out of it if you sell it.

I think my real issue with the paint is that the current bottom paint is just ugly enough right now to draw attention to it, but even a halfway decent paint job would fix it's "eyesore" problem. Given how small of an area the bottom paint on my boat is is actually visible and how much time, money, and effort it would take to do a 10/10 job, I've decided to go a different route.

I'm doing a little experiment now. I went to the boat and painted some 1 part poly paint (brightside) right over the bottom paint (underneath the hull). On some spots, I sanded and prepped and on some I didnt. Went back the next day and was surprised to see that the brightside had adhered to the bottom paint extremely well. I couldn't chip or scratch the brightside off the bottom paint. So now, I'm going to run the boat a few times and see if adhesion issues arise when the paints get wet. If the 1 part paint ends up adhering, I'm just light sanding/prepping and then rolling on a 2 part auto paint I found for $50/gallon (no kidding, at ipaint.us).

If the 2 part starts chipping or peeling, I'm out $50 on a failed experiment. I'm ok with that. Worst case scenario, I'm stuck with an ugly bottom with peeling black paint instead of maroonish brown and green bottompaint. Haha, if that happens, I'll feel a lot better about paying the money to have the bottom sanded/blasted! Time to experiment. Thanks guys.

[honu]

I stripped the bottom on my old boat and it is messy. Stipper works well, but you will have to hand sand with 600 and 1000 grit wet sand after and then polish with finishing paste. Unless your boat is a different color topside you should not have to paint. There will likely be scratches where the original owner scuffed the gelcoat and some of these may be deep enought to need gelcoat repair. When I was done the bottom looked good and it was worth it in the end although I would never do it again.

Whatever you do don't paint over bottom paint. Most of this stuff is ablative (designed to fall off) and the stuff that is not will not allow the topcoat to adhere. And if you don't like it after, you just made a mess that has to be sanded off.

[micura]

On a boat like yours the stripper should not be difficult to use. The longer it sits, the better the job it does. You'll have to sand anyway, but it's a small hull. I would barrier coat before any paint, since the gelcoat has been sanded to apply the bottom paint. Interlux Perfection is quite easy to use. A 1 part poly will last a year or two if your lucky, and then you'll kick yourself for having to spend more money on paint. A 2 part should give you 5-10 years.

The easiest route is to sand the current bottom paint and paint over with bottom paint of a color you like.

Parkers are offwhite, so if you want a look close to original, 2 part poly is the way to go.