Birdseye
Well-Known Member
I hope that this post doesnt contravene any YBW rules, and I must add that I have nothing to do with the company concerned. But as an older sailor, no longer so keen on "getting under" I found this way of anti foul removal to be excellent.
My boat had previously been blasted and then coated with Primacon and antifoul over that. Wanting to epoxy it I started to scrape the coatings off. After a days work had cleaned one third of one side, and after realising that I was leaving lots of tiny dots of paint behind (in the little craters from the pervious blasting) I gave up and started on the paint stripper route.
Thats proved just as difficult to do and at £60 for a tub of International painst stripper it was clearly not going to be cheap. Whats more, I was still not confident that the surface was going to finish clean enough to coat. And I really didnt fancy lying underneath the boat applying a glutinous stripper to the hull over my face.
So I decided to try a blaster and chose the much publicised Farrow system. At this stage I have to say that I have no basis for comparing it with any other blasting system to say whether it is better or worse. What I can say is that it was very effective and well worth that part of my kids inheritance that it cost. The resulting surface is really clean and well prepared for coating. Very little if any gelcoat was removed. I drank tea and watched the proceedings from a chair./forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
The blasting left a fair bit of fine sand behind and a bit went over the boat 8 ft away. Unfortunately a fair bit went up the prop shaft and into the stern gland so that has had to be cleaned out. And both shaft and prop now have a nice matt finish. So if you go the blasting route, bung up all orifices and cover anything you dont want cleaning in plastic sheet.
The work was done by a pleasant hardworking young guy from Worcester way, who responded to phone calls, turned up when he said, cleaned up after himself and worked almost non stop etc. So all in all, I would do exactly the same again if I had a boat to clean. The only painful bit was paying for it, and as a Yorkshireman I would still have asked for a discount if the service were free.
My boat had previously been blasted and then coated with Primacon and antifoul over that. Wanting to epoxy it I started to scrape the coatings off. After a days work had cleaned one third of one side, and after realising that I was leaving lots of tiny dots of paint behind (in the little craters from the pervious blasting) I gave up and started on the paint stripper route.
Thats proved just as difficult to do and at £60 for a tub of International painst stripper it was clearly not going to be cheap. Whats more, I was still not confident that the surface was going to finish clean enough to coat. And I really didnt fancy lying underneath the boat applying a glutinous stripper to the hull over my face.
So I decided to try a blaster and chose the much publicised Farrow system. At this stage I have to say that I have no basis for comparing it with any other blasting system to say whether it is better or worse. What I can say is that it was very effective and well worth that part of my kids inheritance that it cost. The resulting surface is really clean and well prepared for coating. Very little if any gelcoat was removed. I drank tea and watched the proceedings from a chair./forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
The blasting left a fair bit of fine sand behind and a bit went over the boat 8 ft away. Unfortunately a fair bit went up the prop shaft and into the stern gland so that has had to be cleaned out. And both shaft and prop now have a nice matt finish. So if you go the blasting route, bung up all orifices and cover anything you dont want cleaning in plastic sheet.
The work was done by a pleasant hardworking young guy from Worcester way, who responded to phone calls, turned up when he said, cleaned up after himself and worked almost non stop etc. So all in all, I would do exactly the same again if I had a boat to clean. The only painful bit was paying for it, and as a Yorkshireman I would still have asked for a discount if the service were free.
