Tarting up one's bottom

[Wedger]

I'm just looking into future 'jobs-to-do' and wondered if anyone has had a complete clean back to gel. undercoated and anti-foul?

 

a) either DIY

b)professionally done

 

wondering particularly about degree of difficulty for a)., and cost for b ).

 

What do you know guys?

 

 

[Coddy]

Trev

 

Mike had Frisky cleaned back to gel I think by blasting

 

I think the hardest bit will be removing the undercoat, if you have used self erodding antifoul it should be fairly clean after 12 months.

 

A cheaper way is to moor her in shallow water with a sandy bottom and let the boat movement do the rest.

 

Dave

[great white]

Hi Trev

 

I did Great White's when she was about 8 years old. It was done as the old antifoul was flaking more and more each year.

 

I did a small area with a scrapper and thought it was OK

 

By the time I was half way down one side I was bored tired and dirty

by half way, I wished I had never started.

and by the end of the job I wished I had never built the boat in the first place.

 

I will never do the job by hand again.

 

At work we tend to use UniPrep to slurry wash the old coats off, then its down to finishing around the waterline and smoothing, before undercoat and antifoul.

 

Not cheap at about

[Wedger]

Sounds interesting Charlie.

 

Am I right in thinking that is

[Maverick Martin]

Nearly had Awol done last time she was out at Salterns. James reccomended soda cleaning. They did a smal trial area that came out spotlesss, however we ran out of time. They quoted

[Mike Fox]

Hi Trev,

Yes, used UniPrep to do the hull on Frisky, after a recommendation from Charlie, and they were good. It had multiple layers of flaking antifoul and was flaking off after launching, letting weed grow in bare areas.

 

We've scraped our two previous boats by hand - 19' and 28', and found it grim beyond belief. The toxins in the antifoul remain active, and even with mask and goggles they get into your system, and caused me some interesting symptoms.

 

Scraping Frisky was therefore not something I fancied!

 

If you do decide to scrape, a 0.75" wood chisel would be my weapon of choice, and it's best to keep a long working edge for speed!

 

Good luck,

Mike

[great white]

We have used Soda Blasting here. But I think the local chap went bust and the last time a company came down from a good distance away. They did a good job on the boat, but left a mess in the yard and caused a lot of overspray on other boats and cars close by.

 

LLoyd Cordel [uni-Prep] would probably want to have a look and quote.

07930 335243.

 

If it was me I would get Lloyd to take off what he can, then I would do the rest by sanding down, undercoating and antifouling the boat myself.

 

Charlie