GRP Boats - how clean can we get them?

Well, the answer to this is 'it depends'. If you have a hard epoxy paint on top of a soft GRP or gelcoat, then we will struggle to clean it all off without causing serious and unnecessary damage to your boat. The other problem is of course that we can't necessarily tell what is underneath your paint until we have made a start - and even then it may vary across the boat as previous owners have patched, changed, cleaned, given up etc as they have gone along!

 

A fairly typical GRP boat on a trailer

Not much sign of a gel coat around the waterline!

A Second boat - from 2010 - looks fine before we start - although the antifoul deflinitely has a 'lumpy' appearance and all have advised the owner to blast it off!

After Cleaning (and from a distance!) it doesn't look too bad! My man has made a fair attempt to remove all he can without damaging the surface!

However... This is a close up of the first 'test panel' we did on the boat, and you can see the actual surface quality we managed to achieve - note that those lumps and bumps go under the blue and red paint - i.e. WE HAVEN'T CAUSED THIS PROBLEM - the problem was hidden by the paint job. I am convinced that the previous owner had had an epoxy gelshield or the like roughly blasted off and that other blaster hadn't done a particularly good job, and they painted over the problem and sold the boat and the problem to someone else. Once you have these sorts of lumps you can't blast them off - the lump is harder that the surrounding surface and the surface goes, rather than the lump! The only solution to this is a belt sander that will remove the high spots.

 

More typical cleaning - the gelshield is intact and ready for the final preparation.

Key Benefits

• The low pressures mean that the system is gentle enough to clean delicate surfaces, yet powerful enough to strip multiple layers of paint in one pass.
• It is not a chemical process so no noxious or harmful slurries or fumes are generated.
• As it uses only minimal amounts of water and abrasive the system will cause minimal mess around a marina yard; Considerably less mess than other systems
• Can strip paint down to, and stop at, a gelcoat layer.
• Fine on hardwoods, but will raise grain on softwoods