Removing old anti fouling

One of the questions that I get asked more than many others is...

" What is the best way to remove anti fouling?"

Scraping and sanding seem to be high on the list judging by the amount of people that I have seen doing that lately. It does work but it is slow, tedious work that raises lots of highly toxic dust. Without proper extraction equipment and a good quality respirator a shortened life span is a distinct possibility. For this personal environmental effect alone I would never consider dry sanding.

So what are the alternatives if you need to remove a huge buildup of anti fouling and get back to the bare gel coat.?

You can obviously go down the road of soda blasting and all the other expensive professional removal tactics but what are the options if like me you want to do it yourself or do not have an unlimited budget.

One option is Peel Away. This is a chemical process that has a low toxicity and a low almost imperceptible odor in fact in contrast with the alternative of scraping and sanding it is almost pleasant. You can get in from such places as Fisheries Supply for around about $65 per gallon. I have used it myself at times in the past and really does work. Although I have used it I have never taken any pictures of the process so I am indebted to my good friend Glen Grauer for those shown below.

 

Basically the system consists of two complimentary products. The chemical, shown above and a paper which can best be described as a little like Tyvek.

The stripper is applied to the surface and the paper is pressed on. This paper sticks to the chemical and is left in place for 24 hours.

 

The paper is then pulled off and discarded.

 

Then you use a scraper to scrape away the old anti fouling which as you can see here works almost like magic. As long as you follow the instructions it really does work as advertised. Glen had never used the product before and was amazed as 5 or 6 layers of anti fouling just simply slid off the boat with almost no effort. It is guaranteed not to damage the gel coat and can be used on other painted and varnished surfaces with no ill effects to the underlying structure.

Comments

[matt]

Wow, that looks awesome. I just got done dry sanding my 69 Ericson 23'. Took forever and cost hundreds if not over a thousand dollars in sand paper, respirators, replacement cartridges, paint suits and sander pads (had to replace a few of them). oh well maybe next time. lol.

[antifouling]

This is very informative thanks for sharing this on how to remove antifouling.