Blast stripping in S France?

[richardf]

Does anyone have first hand information on any yard with blast stripping of bottoms on the French Med. coast?
I would prefer cleaning with a less aggressive medium than sand or slurry.
I found one yard, in Toulon, advertising antifouling stripping with ultra high pressure water jet, but they have not replied to repeated emails, and a phone call weeks ago only provided news that they have computer problems and will contact me eventually.
My bottom is coated with 12 year old Copperbot (now Coppercoat), which has to be removed before recoating, and I think blast stripping would cause much less damage to the gelcoat than orbital sanding, which also produces nasty copper dust.

 

[jerryat]

Interesting. I thought Copperbot and similar products were epoxy based. I'd be surprised if a water jet would be powerful enough to remove that without damaging any gelcoat it touched, which is softer! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Love to know what pressure they use! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[richardf]

Yes Copperbot is epoxy based, and harder than gelcoat. That's why it's a problem to remove, a point not mentioned in their sales pitch.
On rechecking the Toulon site, I think they may be using sand slurry. They call it "hydro sablage" which I first took to be water only.

 

[Anchorite]

Re: Stripping in S France?

Sablage is dry sand blasting (now outlawed for silicosis reasons), hydro-sablage is sand+water, grenaillage is gritblasting (replaced sand), nettoyage haute pression is high pressure (water) cleaning, grattage is scraping (and tiring).

 

[sportsfisher]

Re: Stripping in S France?

I had a boat that was coppercoated from new (8yrs previously) and i called coppercoat to see what to do as it was starting wear a bit thin in places. They told me to lighty sand to give a good key and repaint whatever straight on top, which I did using coppercoat again. the new stuff stuck like the proverbial and had no probs or foul for the two years i then owned her.