Peel Away stripper on my 22-2

[John Jones]

I tried saran wrap with the Interlux stripper.  It did help prevent drying out but it was a PITA to get it in place.  A helper would come in handy there.

Jim, I have not found anything that looks like a repair.  I still have not tackled the area between the bunks but that is the best looking area of the entire hull.  Between rain and company I haven't had one thought about crawling back under the boat.  The last ones left about 30 minutes ago.  Damn, what is that I hear?  Oh yeah, it's SILENCE.

[JimCt]

Sit back, pour yourself an adult beverage of your choice, forget the boat for now and enjoy the quiet.

[John Jones]

A little more info.  I was digging around in my shed for something and found this roll of some type of plastic membrane.  It was left here by the previous owner and I thought it might come in handy for something.  I assume it's some type of construction moisture barrier.  It's about 12" wide.  It's sort of like cellophane but with the thickness of a good visquene or whatever they call it now but stiffer.  Last Saturday I put some Peel Away on about 1 sq. ft. of thick bottom paint. I used some of plastic membrane instead of the Peel Away paper.  I totally forgot about it until today.  When I pulled the plastic off, the Peel Away was still wet and several big chunks of the bottom paint actually came off with the plastic.  I hit the rest of it with a scraper and the bottom paint actually came off pretty easily, right down to the gelcoat.  The gelcoat did not appear to have softened.  I actually have a smooth, albeit stained, bottom in that spot.

1- plastic works as good or better than paper.
2 - 48 hours isn't long enough for the Peel Away to work on bottom paint.
3 - 7 days doesn't appear to hurt the gelcoat.
4 - It's still going to be a lot of work.  

[JimCt]

Can you find any marking on the rolls that says what the stuff is?

[RickK]

When I left mine on for 7 days, seems where the sun had dried it out, the paint had to be chipped off - the peelaway seemed to be still gooey but didn't phase the paint. The chine area of this 230 has a groove like indentation just inward of the chine/side area and there, the sun didn't get and the peelaway was on thicker - that seemed to peel away with the putty knife.  I never got anything to come off with the paper.  Tomorrow morning I drag her up to the sand blaster.  I'm going to have the bottom repainted, hopefully with a hard paint that will last forever. Is there such a thing, if the boat lives on the trailer and the boat will probably never stay in the water more than a week?

[John Jones]

Jim, no markings.  I'll try to remember to take and post a pic later.  I have not had my coffee yet.

Rick, I hate to recommend a paint.  Maybe wart or another pro will chime in.  I'm looking at Awlgrip or Imron.  $$$$$

[John Jones]

I measure this as 0.005" thick.  No markings.

[JimCt]

If the plastic isn't stretchy like poly sheeting and feels hard, I'd guess it was Mylar.  Looks like about 500 feet.

[John Jones]

Yep, no stretch.  Hard glossy surface.

[JimCt]

Mylar.

[John Jones]

Last Saturday, I applied Peel Away to the front half of the hull again.  I was out of paper so I used the mylar film.  I was determined for this to work this time.  I let it sit seven days (against manuf. recommendations)  with good and bad results.  Saturday I peeled the mylar off and started scraping.  I probably got 90% of the paint this time.  Where it was really thick there was still some paint left but determined scraping got most of that too.  Now the bad.  In a few small spots, the Peel Away damaged the gel coat.  If I added up all the small areas, there is probably 1 sq ft with NO gelcoat now and 2 sq ft that the gelcoat had pinhead size blisters.  I hit it with the pressure washer and the blistered places peeled off leaving what looks like a good layer of gelcoat?  Maybe these were repaired areas?  Oh well, I'm just going to skim the bad places with thickened epoxy.

I wonder if I can call Peel Away and get a refund.  

[RickK]

The guy that let me into Fiberglass Services is a restoration guy ("breathin' fiberglass for 18 years") and I told him of my peel-away experience and he chuckled and said "yup, that stuff don't work".

[JimCt]

Did he mention what does work?

[RickK]

I mentioned that I should have checked there to see if they knew anyone that did bottom paint removal and he said "that would be me and I hate removing bottom paint" (popular feeling ) As for the stripper, he mentioned that there are "a few new ones out" - didn't mention names and didn't say which worked. Sorry.