I am very glad I dont own a wooden boat.

[FullCircle]

For todays task is to remove 38 years of paint from the door frames and architrave.

It is taking forever, and threatening to foreshorten my sailing tomorrow, as I wont have enough points in the satchel to get Lynn to:-
a) let me go to the pub
b) for her to drive home afterward.

How do you blokes strip paint without setting fire to the boat?

I am so skinflint, that after the first ten quids worth of Nitromors, I changed to the Black and Decker heat gun and scraper. Just about finish before N-Power put up the electric costs again.

 

[Sixpence]

Tried chemical removers to start with, then worked out the cost V result V time taken, and resorted to the best chemical I could get hold of. Elbow grease with good hot air gun. No browny points involved though, Louise was at the other end of the boat doing the same, followed by a couple of good random orbital sanders to remove the base coat which only partially came off with the heat gun. Sharp scrapers are vital but careful not to dig into the wood.
Had quite a few near fires but always had a sprayer handy for when the smoke started, and an extinguisher close at hand just in case. Even sacrificed a pint or two when it got past the smoke stage but no flames yet. Probably wouldn't go down well indoors though.
By product was aching shoulders and back which lasted for weeks, so don't envy you one bit. Keep going at it, the end rewards justify the effort involved, plus it's pishing down anyway.

 

[bastonjock]

The are products similar to Nitromors that do exactly the same job and cost about 60% cheaper than nitromors.I have used the stuff to strip HGVs down.You can buy it from Johnstons paint supplies.The beauty of chemical stripper is that its working on the paint whilst you are working on another area,scrub up the paint surface a bit before applying it

If i ever do a dave,i would chemically strip all paint and varnish,on larger jobs,heat guns take too long

 

[tillergirl]

Re: I am very glad I dont own a wooden boat.

If you had a wooden boat you wouldn't be removing 38 years of paint!!! It takes years - 45 to be precise to get a nice coating

Actually to tell the truth, I stripped her back to bare wood in 1991 (by hot air gun) so this is a mere 17 years accumulation of coatings. Assume two coats of undercoat a year and one enamel but deduct three quarters of a coat for light sanding down each year gives a net two and a quarter coats of paint at an average of - well lets say 50 microns - that 112.5 microns per annum - times 17 = 1912.5 microns (this is not something to be casual about). At 24500 microns to the inch, that's 0.08 of an inch each side. Which means my beam is now 9ft 1.16 inches. Gosh. You're right I better strip her off again!

Or I could boast that the hull is so fair that it is built to a 'tolerance' of less than 0.08 of an inch.

I bet this is helping the stripping! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Captain Coochie]

You probably already know this but be careful of the fumes when stripping old paint . Some of it contains lead and can make you feel rather ill ( flu like )

 

[pyrojames]

I just used a heat gun and scraper. Sorry.