I just purchased a 23 Contender project boat. The previous owner spray painted the bottom of the hull. I plan to remove the spray paint and and buff the gel coat. Any suggestions on how to remove the spray paint?
Oven cleaner will strip paint,but not affect the gel coat
Iain Pelto
Sea Hunt Triton 160 w/ 90 ETEC “JB3”
Native Manta Ray 14
There are a lot of variables, It depends on how the gelcoat was prepped before he painted it as well as what type of paint he used, i.e. single phase enamel or base coat clear coat, etc, thats what you need to find out first, i have even seen them painted with latex enamel, any type of chemical removal will be a major job and a major mess, if the paint will flake off then pressure washing may work wonders if the paint will not flake off then the chances are you will have to remove by mechanical means, i.e. sander, scraper, sandblasting etc, but by doing that you would have to refinish the gelcoat anyway, but you have to ask yourself why did the previous owner paint it in the first place, was the gel coat just faded or was there a repair , delaminated etc, do you have pics you could send me , i might be able to give better suggestions, as you can see there are a lot of etc, etc, in this post, i guess there are more questions than answers, but rule of thumb in removing paint try the least aggressive removal process first then progress to the next aggressive process of removal… hope this helps,
a picture would be great. Is it “spray paint” like from wal mart. Not sure why you would spray paint it that way, but if it was you could get it off by sanding w high grit paper like 440, then going higher and then buffing.
- I’d rather be a free man in my grave than living as a puppet or a slave.
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