Deck paint stripper?

[KevO]

International Interdeck. Boat has had repeated coats over several years by the previous owner and it has started to mask the moulded stippled non-slip surface in some areas. I really needs stripping off and repainting on a bare surface.

Best method/product for removing the paint without destroying the GRP underneath and nearby?

 

[yoda]

KevO, I had the same problem. I tried paint stripper but it just didn't do the job for me. In the end I had the decks blasted which was very successful at leaving the original finish in place. The guy I used was extremely careful in his choice of blasting medium and the way he did the work, the biggest problem is either removing or masking all the fittings. It is also a messy job and not to be done in the vicinity of other boats, ideally you need to be in a tent. PM me if you want any more details or to discuss.

regards
Yoda

 

[superheat6k]

Dillunette worked for me on a deck previously painted with gloss paint. The smell of old drains was awful, but it didn't touch the gel coat.

 

[FairweatherDave]

I have just been using Owatrol Marine strip with Interdeck, I think previously it was calloed Dillunette. Interdeck is a polyurethane paint and Owatrol should not work with it, the product sheet says so. I think it does work a tiny bit but probably works a lot better on other paints. I think it is the only strippedr safe on GRP. I manually scrapped off my deck paint with a BAHCO scrapper and electric chisel. My deck has lots of flat surfaces. Extremely hard work (probably 24/30 hrs of slow chipping) which has not done my elbow any good! But that was generally faster than the Owatrol. So next time I would blast it off as per Yoda's post.

 

[Poignard]

I had to strip off an area of my deck to relocate a fitting. The grp deck has many layers of old deck paint with grit in it and is very hard to get off with a scraper. I bought some French paint stripper and it worked very well and was easy to use. Unfortunately the boat and the stripper are in France, and I am not, so I can't tell you what make it is but I have to do the whole deck this year and I will be using that. However, it does show that there are effective products available.

 

[Plevier]

Dilunett is caustic soda based and although good on traditional paints it won't touch polyurethane (in my experience).
Nitromors and other common retail paint strippers used to be based on dichloromethane, that will get polyurethane off but will also attack gelcoat quite vigorously.
Dichloromethane is now banned in retail products, all the ones I've seen recently (B&Q, Wickes etc) are now benzyl alcohol based.
That will deal with polyurethane, albeit a bit slowly. In theory it will attack the gelcoat, but (again in my experience) hardly at all, certainly not enough to worry about on a stippled surface that you're going to repaint.

 

[Kukri]

I found this thread by searching for “deck paint removal”, hoping to find a magic answer. Alas, none.

 

[VicS]

International Interdeck. Boat has had repeated coats over several years by the previous owner and it has started to mask the moulded stippled non-slip surface in some areas. I really needs stripping off and repainting on a bare surface.

Best method/product for removing the paint without destroying the GRP underneath and nearby?

Have you tried a caustic soda based paint sttripper such as Owatrol Dilunett or Owatrol Marine Strip ( not sure what the difference is between these two ... if any)

It wont remove a two pack polyurethane but it may have some impact on a single pack polyurethane like Interdeck/

 

[RumPunch]

I did mine using 'Peelaway 7' It's a paste like stripper that you trowel on, cover with plastic, and hose off next day. Not the cheapest but did a reasonable job, removing almost all the previous 3 coats of ordinary anti slip, and in places the original first grey coat back to the mouldings ( maybe only a 1/3rd that far ) That's on a 32 year old Jaguar. No damage to the fibreglass, and an ideal base for the Kiwigrip I then used ( love that stuff )

 

[Kukri]

My boat has about a millimetre thickness of grey non-slip deck paint. It’s generally cracked, peeling and lifting, so much so that I wonder if someone put a coat of Hempel’s (chlorinated rubber) over a thickness of old International (alkyd) and crocodiled it, but a good two thirds of it is still grimly holding on. It looks like the Wrath of God.

Using a tungsten carbide scraper I can get a square foot done in an hour, but the non slip grit blunts the scraper...

 

[vyv_cox]

Dichloromethane strippers are apparently banned worldwide but plenty are available, e.g. Amazon stock it. I used Starchem Synstryp on my deck, it does attack grp but not quickly, so with care can be used. Full PPE needed and work outdoors.

 

[Kukri]

T

Dichloromethane strippers are apparently banned worldwide but plenty are available, e.g. Amazon stock it. I used Starchem Synstryp on my deck, it does attack grp but not quickly, so with care can be used. Full PPE needed and work outdoors.

Thanks Vyv. When I think back to my youth, some of which was happily mis-spent stripping anti fouling from wooden hills with the old formula (dichloromethane) Nitromors, I’m quite surprised I’m still here!

photo 1: a corner of the coach roof, looking like the Wrath of God:



Photo 2, a bit of deck after dry scraping:

 

[Kukri]

Just thinking sideways, would the sort of stuff used to get old antifouling off work on deck paint? I think some antifoulings are chlorinated rubber.