removing antifoul

[tckearney]

Hi Folks,  Is is a no no to remove antifoul with a hot air gun.  I have a 3kw hot airgun I use for paint removal but I'm concerned about the fibreglass. 

[tiger79]

It's not a good idea!  If you want to remove it all, back to gelcoat, get it blasted by a specialist contractor.

[Symphony]

AF is really toxic so don't use any heat. Three ways of doing it. First use a dedicated chemical stripper such as Interstrip or Peelaway - very messy and long winded. Second manually scraping, messy in a different way and hard work. Third, as tiger79 says use a blasting contractor. Quick, clean and leaves a surface prepared for whatever treatment you are then going to apply. Clearly more expensive than DIY removal but worth it, particularly if you are doing an iron keel as well. I had the keel on my boat done a few weeks ago. Took  a couple of hours including applying the first coat of epoxy. Cost £360 including enough epoxy to do 6 coats. I applied the extra coats and then the Coppercoat. If you are going to all this expense worth considering then applying Coppercoat rather than conventional antifouling.

I think if you search down this forum you will find a thread by Yngmar describing how he stripped his hull and applied Coppercoat. I seem to remember him doing it manually so that will give you an idea of what is involved. One of our club members had his 32' Jeanneau stripped manually last winter and sensibly paid somebody else to do it at a cost of around £800.

[Yngmar]

You can do it with a good scraper like I have. If you're not physically fit, you will give up very soon or become physically fit in the process! 

I've written about this job here: https://sdfjkl.org/blog/2018-02-27-coppercoat-I-the-scrapening/

Put away the hot air gun though. That's probably a terrible idea. You also want to protect yourself from the stuff that comes off. Especially if there's many old layers of antifoul - the older, the more toxic! I've watched a young seagull foolishly eat some mussels that had adhered to our hull (full of old antifoul) and die miserably from it within a few hours.

[Bav32]

I have done the job two times in the last 10 years to two different boats. First one, a 31ft old sailboat, with a scraper took a while and had pain in my neck and back for weeks afterwards. The second one was my Bavaria 32. I paid for glassblasting. The contractor made a shelter around the boat and cleaned everything afterwards. Ok, so it was more expensive, but I didn't need to use a mask and work for hours on the boat.

But to the orginal question. Don't use any heat on the antifouling, it is dangerous enough as it is.

[alnavasa]

I would go with a chemical striper unless your keel is very corroded in which case I wold blast it and apply epoxy to it.

[Laysula]

Pay someone else to do it.

[Jake]

I had my previous boat soda blasted.  The contractor did an excellent job.  The hull was smooth and fair.  It only needed a good wipe down before I applied an epoxy barrier coat.  The soda is the preferred material around here.  It is easier to regulate the material removal process, which makes it less damaging to the gelcoat.

Jake

[tiger79]

I would go with a chemical striper unless your keel is very corroded in which case I wold blast it and apply epoxy to it.

I used a chemical stripper once - never again!

[Bav32]

I had my previous boat soda blasted.  The contractor did an excellent job.  The hull was smooth and fair.  It only needed a good wipe down before I applied an epoxy barrier coat.  The soda is the preferred material around here.  It is easier to regulate the material removal process, which makes it less damaging to the gelcoat.

Jake

The soda should be washed away really good. Otherwise the epoxyprimer will not stick to the gelcoat. That is a reason why soda is not used that much anymore. Dryice and glassblasting is safer, but the glassblaster should know what he is doing so that he doesn't damage the gelcoat