I found this very interesting as well. I had a sander start spinning disks off 
last year, melted hooks must have been the problem, thanks for that tip!

Also, I have tried to buy the dust cyclone from Rockler for $89 on sale, both 
times I got a cancellation notice from them a few days after purchasing, so I 
gave up.  Good to hear that they work as advertised.



And the chip brush is just a coarse brush that you wouldn’t use for painting, 
but for brushing metal chips away from your drill or cutter as you were 
machining. 

 

 

Bill Coleman

Entrada, Erie, PA

 

 

 

From: Shawn Wright via CnC-List [mailto:cnc-list@cnc-list.com] 
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2021 11:30 AM
To: Stus-List
Cc: Shawn Wright
Subject: Stus-List Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Coal tar bottom paint removal?

 

While I don't have a tar bottom, I enjoyed this thorough account as there are 
some good general tips. What is a chip brush?

 

Thanks


--

Shawn Wright

shawngwri...@gmail.com

S/V Callisto, 1974 C&C 35

https://www.facebook.com/SVCallisto

 

 

On Mon, Apr 5, 2021 at 8:03 AM Matt Janssen via CnC-List 
<cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote:

Dave,

 

Is it possible you are trying to remove VC Tar or similar? 

 

Coal tar epoxy is the corrosion protection system we typically spec for steel 
sheets in a marine environment. Bluewater makes a bottom barrier coat for 
boats, but I suspect it's for commercial use on steel hull barges etc. 

 

If you're dealing with VC Tar as Joe and others have suggested, then misery 
loves company. I am the final stretch of the same project.

 

For me the tar was softer, it smelled terrible and was still somewhat tacky in 
warm temps. After much trial and error I settled on two techniques that worked 
for me. 

1.      Chemical stripping - I used Citristrip and a glass cleaner  
<https://www.homedepot.com/p/Anvil-4-in-Glass-and-Tile-Scraper-GTS-ANV/309996591?>
 (4-inch wide razor blade) in lieu of a putty knife. With the razor blade (lots 
of replacement blades), and a little practice, i was able to peel off two or 
three layers of paint at a time and leave a smooth fair surface. On the tar, i 
was able to get between the tar and gel coat without gouging the hull. My boat 
was raced by the original owner and had a decent bottom, but had suffered from 
paint build up. While this sounds tedious, it minimized the fairing and 
longboarding. The rub is the stripper needs the temps to be close to 60-F 
(15-C) to work and needs to sit for at least an hour or two. If you're in 
direct sunlight or windy, you'll want to cover the stripper with plastic. You 
want to avoid letting it dry out. (Another boat in the yard didn't use plastic, 
but just mist the gel with a water bottle to keep it from drying out.) With the 
citristrip, i was able to apply it and leave it overnight covered with plastic 
and then come back to scrape it the next day. It seemed to work up to about 
3-layers of paint.   
2.      Mechanical Removal - Unfortunately, I counted 12 separate colors of 
bottom paint before getting to the tar, i'm located in the NE and with a hard 
launch date, i had to use a mix of chemical and mechanical removal. The only 
system that worked for me without destroying the hull shape was a 6-inch random 
orbital sander using 80-grit Mirka Abranet pads. The Mirka are a mesh pad and 
do not clog with the tar as long as your dust collection system is decent. I 
used a home depot dust stopper 
<https://www.homedepot.com/p/Dustopper-HD12-High-Efficiency-Dust-Separator-HD12A/315749552>
   separator before the shop vac. It is stupid expensive for what it is... but 
it really works and saves your shop vac filters. I could get 10 to 15 minutes 
out of the Mirka pads. I've gone through close to 30-pads in the project.

 

I tried using traditional 36-grit pads but they were dulled after about 
5-minutes. Also tried the Bahco carbide scrapers. Those worked well for level 
surfaces (e.g the rudder that you drop and put on saw horses) but it was tough 
sledding to work on your back under the hull. If you do go that route, bevel 
the edges of the blades and you won't gouge the hull.  

 

If you're still here, a few other lessons I learned the hard way. 

 

Managing heat on the pads was important. The Mirka pads do not insulate the 
hooks from heat. So you'll absolutely need to use pad protectors. If you don't, 
you'll melt the hooks on your sander and your disks will be flying off the 
sander by lunch on the first day. I lost a few days waiting for new parts when 
this happened to me... I also found lighter pressure on the sander worked 
better. Letting the pad spin faster allowed it to chew more of the material 
away. Easier on the shoulders too. 

 

Switching back to the stripper, I applied with a chip brush. Someone in the 
yard pointed out that i should only be brushing in one direction. Most have a 
wax in them that helps prevent drying out. Applying in one direction certainly 
helped increase the working time of the gel. Being dutch, i was able to wash 
the chip brush in hot water and used one brush for the whole job. 

 

Best of luck with the project -- cheers,

 

matt

 

C&C 27 Mk V

EDUAM

RYC, NJ

 

 

 

On Mon, Apr 5, 2021 at 8:51 AM Della Barba, Joe via CnC-List 
<cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote:

I think this might mean coal tar epoxy barrier coat, which is nice until it 
starts coming off ☹

 

Joe

Coquina

Thanks to all of the subscribers that contributed to the list to help with the 
costs involved.  If you want to show your support to the list - use PayPal to 
send contribution --   https://www.paypal.me/stumurray  Thanks - Stu

Thanks to all of the subscribers that contributed to the list to help with the 
costs involved.  If you want to show your support to the list - use PayPal to 
send contribution --   https://www.paypal.me/stumurray  Thanks - Stu

Thanks to all of the subscribers that contributed to the list to help with the 
costs involved.  If you want to show your support to the list - use PayPal to 
send contribution --   https://www.paypal.me/stumurray  Thanks - Stu

Reply via email to