Do-it-yourself bottom paint photos

[relamb]

Here's a link to a photo album, putting new bottom paint on my CP27 at home in the driveway.

http://midtechv.com/wp3/?easy-photo-album=compac-27-bottom-paint

I towed the boat home on a flatbed on it's cradle.
The original bottom paint was of unknown brand and age, some type of ablative over epoxy.
The boat had been in fresh water since new, but I decided to strip it down at least to the barrier coat and start over.
The port side was scraped with a paint scraper, which was pretty effective at removing just the antifouling and not the epoxy.
However it was a sloooooooow process.  The starboard side was sanded with a power sander, but it was much more difficult to control.
The sander took off the barrier coat in spots.
Above the waterline, there must have been 5-6 coats of un-ablated paint, it was thick and could not be scraped.
But it was in pretty good condition.  the transition line between the bottom paint and sides was not sanded away, so that the old
paint line could be maintained.  it was sanded down and feathered, then finished up with just 1 topcoat of new paint.
The old epoxy barrier coat was left where possible.
There were no blisters on the hull anywhere, but there were a few nicks and gouges.
These were filled with epoxy paste, sanded and faired.
The rudder had some pimpling, but not bad.  When sanding off the leading edge of the rudder, some water started weeping out.
I drilled a hole in the bottom, and about 2 cups of water were inside the rudder, came in from where the top of the rudder meets the shaft.
I drilled another hole in the top, and blew air through the rudder to drive out all the water, then epoxied both the holes closed.
I imagine that this will continue to leak until I can seal around the rudder shaft.

4 coats, 4 gallons of Interlux Interprotect 2000e expoxy barrier coat were applied in alternating colors white/gray/white/gray with a roller.
2 gallons of Interlux Micron Extra with Biolux ablative antifouling was applied, 2 coats overall and a 3rd coat at the wear areas.

Total time was over 30 hours of scraping and sanding, maybe an additional 10 hours of prepping and painting.
It took all summer though, waiting between weather windows and other distractions.
Costs were about $900 for supplies -  epoxy,antifouling, brushes, rollers, tape, sandpaper, and xylene.

Having done a CP16, a CP23, and now this CP27, I would never do the CP27 sanding again,  the painting is easy.
I would take the boat and have it soda blasted.  This would have cost me about $750 (but my kid needed money for college, so he got to do the scraping!).
A quote for stripping the boat,expoxy, and bottom paint from a marina was $2,100.00

After the bottom was painted, I wet sanded the sides of the hull slightly with 1000 grit sandpaper, buffed with 3M finess-it, and waxed.
That took two days.

[cfelle2]

Great Job!  Your boat looks really nice.  I am doing the same thing this year myself.  I did take the easy way out though I had the marina sand blast the bottom.  I figure I'll do the final sanding and painting early next spring once the bottom has had a chance to dry out.

Chris

[NateD]

Looks great. Even after doing just a 16, my next bottom paint removal job is going to be outsourced, nasty nasty work.

Did you have to pay your wife to scrape the bottom paint too? I don't think mine would do it for free.

[relamb]

The wife volunteered to help my son because it was such a nasty job and a lot of work.  He just graduated from Purdue but is going to graduate school.
The options were for him to get a summer job, or to do some work for me.  He elected to spend the summer working on my projects, because it was a more flexible schedule.  First we did our old Compac 23 prior to selling, then the 27.
She helped, but he got all the $$.

[Bob23]

WOW! You guys have wives that will help scrape the bottom paint? Do they have any sisters?
Bob23

[relamb]

No Scraping, No Sailing.  I sail off without you!

[NateD]

WOW! You guys have wives that will help scrape the bottom paint? Do they have any sisters?
Bob23

It wasn't his wife scraping bottom paint, it was his son's mom. Same person, different motivation.

[Bob23]

Oh...gotcha. Still- any sisters? My wife would say "Go ahead-sail off without me. I'm not scraping paint, period."
Bob23

[relamb]

She does have two sisters, but before I check to see if they want to scrape your bottom, I think I'll see if they want to sand my teak.

[Tim Gardner]

Whoa..whoa..whoa there Bob L!  This is a family oriented site. No talk of scraping bottom or polishing anyone's Teak.
Let's keep it clean here!
TG

[Bob23]

No worries. I'll take 'em both. Please send photos!
Bob23

[SouthernNomad]

Hey relamb,

I am making preparations to do the same work in a yard down in my neck of the woods. I was wondering what make and model of sander you used. Great results by the way!

-SouthernNomad

[relamb]

Regarding the sander, I have an old (1970's vintage) Craftsman rotary sander/buffer/polisher.
It's big, heavy, does not have an orbital motion nor variable speed.  Just what I already owned.
Very hard to control, but really rips off the paint, barrier, gelcoat, and anything else that gets in it's way if you use a coarse grit disk.
Scraping really was the better option, but this is way faster.
Similar to this, which would be much better because of the soft start and variable speed:  http://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-DWP849X-7-Inch-Variable-Polisher/dp/B004W1WGIC/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1433978154&sr=8-17&keywords=rotary+sander 

For more detailed work, I have a couple of palm sanders, like this:
http://www.amazon.com/PORTER-CABLE-380-Orbital-Finish-Sander/dp/B004CRSNCE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1433978407&sr=8-2&keywords=palm+sander 
Much slower, not as aggressive, clog the paper quite a bit, and don't have the guts to rip off massive amounts of stuff.

To wet sand the hull, I used a hand sanding block (slow and painful) but shortly went with a cheap pneumatic sander.
You don't want to use an electric with wet sanding.  Not sure you'd even want to use this due to it rusting up, but it worked incredibly well with a  garden hose and dipped in a 5 gallon bucket (just to keep the paper wet, don't dunk the whole thing).  I'm surprised it didn't rust up, I was prepared to throw it away.
http://www.harborfreight.com/air-tools/sanders/jitterbug-orbital-air-sander-90115.html 

Finally, since my old Craftsman was just a tool for neanderthals, I bought a porter cable orbital to do the final polish and wax.
http://www.amazon.com/PORTER-CABLE-7346SP-6-Inch-Random-Polishing/dp/B002EQ96MG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1433978819&sr=8-2&keywords=porter+cable+orbital+polisher
It would probably sand as well, but by that point I was past the sanding.  And not sure I'd want sanding dirt/dust in my polish and wax anyway.