Acetone to clean a dinghy.

[Sneaky Pete]

I read on here that acetone is a good cleaner for fenders. I do not know the limitations of what acetone can do or not but is it a good cleaner for PVC inflatable dinghies. I am looking for something that removes grime quickly. Been using cif and scourers.

 

[nigelmercier]

Acetone is a bit harsh even for fenders, it dissolves the surface and vaporises rapidly. I use solvent cleaner made for uPVC windows for such jobs, it works really well: http://amzn.to/1nBvVWe

 

[oldsaltoz]

Acetone is a very strong solvent, the fumes are no good for you and it's highly flammable.

It will melt many plastics, paints and even resins if left on and kept wet.

It boils at around 56 degrees so evaporates vary fast.

It will certainly remove grease and grime and is very good to clean brushes covered in resins.

Not cheap, but very effective.

However you would have to do a small test section to find out if will do the job on your inflatable, because not all are made of the same material.

Good luck and fair winds.

 

[VicS]

I would certainly not recommend acetone.

 

[hartcjhart]

I would certainly not recommend acetone.

same

 

[cliff]

Ammonia (880 grade) or Carbon Tetrachloride (not a substitute for but genuine CCl4)

 

[sailaboutvic]

Before making a cover for dinghy we had a very sticky dinghy , it happened to most dinghy in the Med , after try all the normally stuff without any luck , I cleared it with acetone , it cleaned it removering all the sticky stuff , then I washed it thoroughly and wiped it with silicon oil and left it to dry , the dinghy is now 8 years older and still going strong .
Would I use it again , yes but make sure you wash it well . I would try a small test first .

 

[Jim@sea]

You can also get Acetone in an Aerosol from Travis Perkins and the cheapest place to buy it (rather than a chandlery) is from a Hairdressing Supply Shop as they sell it for removing Nail Varnish.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Acetone is far too harsh. Try traffic film remover, much much cheaper and very effective, mix about 4:1 with water.

 

[Steve C Cronin]

"Toobshine" from Ribstore is what we use to keep our branch RNLI display "D" Class lifeboat and my Avon Rover clean. Acetone does work but we only use it on the hard parts (of MY dinghy only) to remove any ground-in marks. Acetone is brilliant for bringing back the white covering on lifelines though - (lets not start an argument on the advisability of covered wires!)

 

[Lakesailor]

A litre of acetone £5. Or 5 litres for £10 http://www.ecfibreglasssupplies.co.uk/p-1610-acetone.aspx

 

[Gwylan]

You can also get Acetone in an Aerosol from Travis Perkins and the cheapest place to buy it (rather than a chandlery) is from a Hairdressing Supply Shop as they sell it for removing Nail Varnish.

This is not always pure acetone and actually contains oils to mitigate the effect on the nails - the real reason you want to use acetone is to remove oil. Bit counter productive.

Think acetone and dinghy will not mix well anyway.

 

[David2452]

Before making a cover for dinghy we had a very sticky dinghy , it happened to most dinghy in the Med , after try all the normally stuff without any luck , I cleared it with acetone , it cleaned it removering all the sticky stuff , then I washed it thoroughly and wiped it with silicon oil and left it to dry , the dinghy is now 8 years older and still going strong .
Would I use it again , yes but make sure you wash it well . I would try a small test first .

+1 but for 8 years read 6 in my case, I did use a tender cleaner with some plasticiser too after a good rinse and dry in case the acetone leached out some of the plasticiser in the PVC, it really did come up like new and very quickly.

 

[Sneaky Pete]

Thanks for the replies. Acetone has removed some of the more difficult marks on the fibreglass hull of our boat with great results. On PVC I am sure will remove the scuffs but opinions here tend towards acetone being too harsh. So I am opting for something less severe don’t wish to take a chance here and do irreversible damage.

 

[sailaboutvic]

Thanks for the replies. Acetone has removed some of the more difficult marks on the fibreglass hull of our boat with great results. On PVC I am sure will remove the scuffs but opinions here tend towards acetone being too harsh. So I am opting for something less severe don’t wish to take a chance here and do irreversible damage.

It seems to me the people who have said that it Harsh are people who have not used it and are guessing , I may be wrong , no one so far have said that they have used it and it damaged their dinghy and I sure by now someone what had said , my self and David have said we use it on dinghy with good results and no damage ,
I suppose it depend on what it made off so you have to keep that in mind ,
Good luck with cleaning it .
Maybe once you have clean it you could let others know what you used and how good the results , so others can follow suite

 

[sailinglegend420]

.. No one so far have said that they have used it and it damaged their dinghy ...

We often used acetone on the inflatable floor of our Loadstar dinghy. Eventually it ate away at the PVC and we had literally hundreds of pin hole leaks.

A very good cleaner, but in cleaning it removes part of the surface so eventually it will cause a leak!

 

[landlockedpirate]

Acetone is recommended for prepping the repair area of a PVC dinghy prior to applying glue and a patch.

I have also used it on an old sun damaged PVC HonWave dinghy. Its very effective at removing stains nothing else will shift (I use TFR, Toobshine, Revival and Magic sponges in that order for easy to hard stains) but it will remove the top layer of material and it needs to be washed off immediately.

Use it with care and it will work. Cheapest place to buy it is Ebay, 99p for a litre.

 

[Modulation]

I've always used acetone for fenders. The trick is to work very fast and clean them before it evaporates or gets sticky. Wouldn't dream of using it on a dinghy - too aggresive.

 

[eddystone]

I have used acetone recently to clean lettering off an Avon dinghy with no ill effects - of course that is Hypalon - I don't know about PVC/decitext.