Bottom Paint Removal - Would you keep going?

I've had my boat several years, and despite reading probably every online article/blog about the horrors of bottom paint removal, I am tired of looking at the bottom paint on my boat and want to remove it. I have a soda blaster vendor on standby but would like to save the money if I can.

I picked an area about one square foot underneath and decided to try Zip Strip after reading Pete's helpful post. It appears the PO first painted the hull in a gray bottom paint, then painted it in black ablative paint. There is a blue color in there from something, maybe faded ablative? Here is a pic of the area before:



I put on the Zip Strip and let it soak in about 15 min. I didn't want to leave it on longer, afraid it might start softening the gel. After 15 min, I used a carbide tip pull scraper and the ablative paint came off like butter. The gray paint was mostly still there. On a few pulls I got a little of the white gelcoat coming up on the corner of the scraper blade. Not sure if it was just the angle or if the Zip Strip was affecting the gelcoat. Here is what it looked like after scraping and washing with solvent:



I held an 800 grit piece of sandpaper in my hand and in just a few easy minutes wetsanded it until it looked like this:



The lines that look like scratches are not, at least I can't feel any scratch with my thumbnail. A little more dedicated effort with the sanding would have gotten rid of that. The gelcoat is shiny white underneath.

I was not discouraged by the process, and have decided to go all the way. I'm pretty sure I'll find some rough spots in the hull as I keep going, but I'd rather deal with that than seeing the black bottom paint.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Is Zip Strip overkill? I know about the harshness of Zip Strip and the need for proper disposal, protective equipment, etc. Anything else? Thanks!

Yes strippers in general can cause you lots of problems

Might want to try a variety of different scrapper materials. Maybe a hard plastic? Or those plastic razor blades? Usually the guys scrapping are sanding and fairing. I'd break up the job with others so you let the product do the work instead of the scrapper.
Yes gel is thick, but the more you keep, the less you need to sand

outerbanked wrote: You could try wet sanding all of it off. Might be faster if it is that thin. Protect your lungs

Todd,
Have you tried sanding ablative bottom paint?

Thank you all for your input. I got a chance to continue with my project this weekend and I'd like to tell you my enthusiasm and optimism were rewarded.

Unfortunately, reality set in after I started slathering the bottom paint in methylene chloride. I took time to carefully prep the areas I could get to without crawling under the trailer: the stern, the sides, and under the bow. I began at the back and covered the stern paint with Zip Strip, then waited about 30 min, refreshing the Zip Strip once or twice. I began scraping, but the scraping was not nearly as easy as what I found in my test patch. Much of the ablative paint remained after the first treatment, so I treated it again. After a couple more spot treatments, the Zip Strip had not even begun to touch the hideous light blue epoxy paint (why would someone do this to a Cranberry boat?). A few more treatments began to thin the blue paint, and a few hours after I started I was ready to begin sanding.

Here is the before pic:


After an hour or two, despite being covered head to toe, with a respirator and new,heavy rubber gloves on both hands, the skin on one hand began burning and I had to wash off and get a new pair of gloves. As others have noted, I felt like I was taking a few weeks off my life using methylene chloride. The relative benefit I was getting from it was not worth the pain of using it. Here is a pic of the side after several Zip Strip treatments, with a carbide tip scraper:


Plus, I was doing this in my driveway, and despite being very careful to make sure I caught and disposed of all the scrapings, I still had to rinse the boat, which I'm sure carried some ablative paint dust and maybe some Zip Strip residue away right into my green grass, Also, the Zip Strip did negatively affect the gelcoat in some areas where it was left on for a while, making it appear kind of cloudy. I'm going to try to sand that out.

Despite the pain, I finished wet sanding the blue epoxy off the gelcoat and wet sanded until I got this result:


Needless to say, I love the stern results, but it took me most of the day to get there. The gelcoat underneath the blue epoxy paint is slightly stained off-white, but is barely noticeable..

Above all, I realized I do NOT want to spend days crawling under the boat, scraping methylene chloride-soaked ablative paint inches away from my head. I've decided to get it soda blasted on a lift to remove the rest of the ablative, and maybe some of the hideous blue paint if I'm lucky.

Gary S wrote: Yes strippers in general can cause you lots of problems

Wise words, Gary, thank you for that. Life has taught me that when dealing with strippers it's best to wear lots of rubber, don't be afraid to spend money to get the best results, and wash off really well afterwards..