If you are local in South Florida, I can give you his contact info. Real easy to work with. Might ha

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Soda Blasting Works Great! Some of you may have followed some of my other posts about trying to remove bottom paint. Decided to tackle the job with a soda blaster instead. I'm pretty happy with the results.
And here are some completed shots. I definitely have some small blisters all scattered travel in mexico road conditions around the bottom of the hull. I will have to bust them open with a grinder and fiberglass and then fare them all. The whole idea behind removing the bottom paint was to be sure I have a solid bottom, and then to re-paint with VC Performance Epoxy because the boat will predominantly travel in mexico road conditions be trailered and at most see maybe a few days to a week sitting in the water ever.
Originally Posted by dahlbebop Looks good cory, did you buy the cheap one from Harbor Freight? I ended up finding a guy who rents the machines. He runs a classic car performance shop and used the machine to soda blast rust and paint off old cars and restore travel in mexico road conditions them. Someone referred travel in mexico road conditions him to me so I called him up. He let me use his shop area and everything. He had a high power air compressor that could keep up with the blasting.
That's a job I'd expect from an expert...you did great. I'd be extremely leery of taking on something like this myself...not that I doubt my capabilities, but I've seen the results of a bad job with a soda blaster.
Soda blasting is an abrasive process, which removes both the bottom paint and some gelcoat. In looking travel in mexico road conditions at the photos, I believe I see brown areas where the gelcoat was removed to the point where it is now thin enough that you can see the fiberglass under it. Those areas are also depressions in an otherwise smooth surface and need to be filled and faired prior to barrier coating and applying the final finish to the hull. My guess is that most of the gelcoat in the blasted area now has a finish about like coarse sandpaper. Any sanding to smooth that rough surface will remove even more gelcoat.
Some of the professional boat repair folks here may be able to advise you which filler to use, based on what barrier coat will go on the hull. The choice is not easy because you have to be sure the filler bonds well to the existing gelcoat, is water resistant and will allow the barrier or finish coat to adhere to it. The pictures of your hull look very much like damage my hull suffered from soda blasting which was both expensive and time consuming to repair and get right.
If you are local in South Florida, I can give you his contact info. Real easy to work with. Might have to wait a couple days or even a week to be able to rent it, he only has one machine and he does a lot of car restorations with it. Quote:
Soda blasting is an abrasive process, which removes both the bottom paint and some gelcoat. In looking at the photos, travel in mexico road conditions I believe I see brown areas where the gelcoat travel in mexico road conditions was removed to the point where it is now thin enough that you can see the fiberglass under it. Those areas are also depressions in an otherwise smooth surface and need to be filled and faired prior to barrier coating and applying the final finish to the hull. My guess is that most of the gelcoat in the blasted area now has a finish about like coarse sandpaper. Any sanding to smooth that rough surface will remove even more gelcoat.
Some of the professional boat repair folks here may be able to advise you which filler to use, based on what barrier coat will go on the hull. The choice is not easy because you have to be sure the filler bonds well to the existing gelcoat, is water resistant and will allow the barrier or finish coat to adhere to it. The pictures of your hull look very much like damage my hull suffered from soda blasting which was both expensive and time consuming to repair and get right. Kerno,
Sounds like you had a pretty bad experience. Yes there are some spots where you can see to the fiberglass. But you have to look at this as a good thing. I knew the bottom of this boat already had blistering, so I was counting travel in mexico road conditions on having to do a little fiberglass work. But in my opinion, I wanted to see where the blisters were and what spots needed to be addressed. You can feel around down there and tell what spots need work and what spots will be fine.
I didnt soda blast expecting to be able to prime and paint and go boating. I knew there would be some additional work involved. Soda blasting just got me there quicker, and gave me a clear surface to work with.
Sounds like you had a pretty bad experience. Yes there are some spots where you can see to the fiberglass. But you have to look at this as a good thing. I knew the bottom of this boat already had blistering, so I was counting on having to do a little fiberglass work. But in my opinion, I wanted to see where the blisters were and what spots needed to be addressed. You can feel around down there and tell what spots need work and what spots will be fine.
I didnt soda blast expecting to be able to prime and paint and go boating. I knew there would be some additional travel in mexico road conditions work involved. Soda blasting just got me there quicker, and gave me a clear surface to work with.
I and My son soda blasted my boat and my sons potter sea craft. We borrowed The real deal machine from a marina. We were able to take our time and do a great job like yours. I would recommend soda blasting over any other way. We also did a friends older mako he was restoring and wow that had some bad blisters under all those years of bottom paint
Originally Posted by Bly I and My son soda blasted my boat and my sons potter sea craft. We borrowed The real deal machine from a marina. travel in mexico road conditions We were able to take our time and do a great job like yours. I would recommend soda blasting over any other way. We also did a friends older mako he was restoring and wow that had some bad blisters under all those years of bottom paint Bly,
I have a bunch of tiny ones scattered across the bottom. I had one guy tell me its not worth it to fiberglass them and try to get the bottom smooth again. He said to sand and seal and re-apply bottom paint.
I have a bunch of tiny ones scattered across the bottom. I had one guy tell me its not worth it to fiberglass them and try to get the bottom travel in mexico road conditions smooth again. He said to sand and seal and re-apply bottom paint.
Cory I believe he opened them up and recoated with a mixture of epoxy and cabisil. travel in mexico road conditions He just called travel in mexico road conditions me this week saying he hopes to be in the water by july. He did not say if it was july of this year or next?
I have a bunch of tiny ones scattered across the bottom. I had one guy tell me its not worth it to fiberglass them and try to get the bottom travel in mexico road conditions smooth again. He said to sand and seal and re-apply bottom paint.
Cory That is a beautiful job of cleaning and soda blasting. I would take the time to fill the blisters. It isn't all that hard. I had a few deep ones that required adding small pieces of glass cloth with resin and cabosil. Small ones are really easy to fill with thickened resin. The real trick is to not apply too much resin, as the sanding after filling is the real time consuming part of the job. And I would not use a barrier coat, your boat doesn't need it. Just fill and sand and then prep for a white paint.
In my case, the work was done by a well known marina. They first blasted a couple small areas and it came out perfectly. When I told them to go ahead, they tented the entire boat and the guy doing the blasting put on a respirator and suit and crawled under the tent. Net result: No visibility and a cantaloupe finish with areas of missing gel coat. When they took the tent away, the guy in charge said yeah, that can happen and handed me a $2,700 bill for the blasting. He also told me they could repair the damage by filling, fairing and barrier coating the bottom. travel in mexico road conditions Doing that, plus the cost of Awlgriping over it was a mere $18,000. I got another quote of $25,000 to re-geloat the hull and ultimately spent $5,000 to fix the bottom and another $10,000 to have the hull properly painted and clearcoated. There had been no blisters or gel coat problems prior to the blasting, so the only repair work involved fixing travel in mexico road conditions what the blasting had done.
It came out looking spectacular, but i sure had not counted on the final cost of removing the bottom paint at right around $20,000 on a 31 foot hull. Since I saw the two small areas they did first, I know the process can work if you keep the pressure down and can see what you are doing. travel in mexico road conditions But it takes more care than the average boatyard worker is willing to put into it.
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