Hi all,
As some may recall I elected to go forward with having my boat sodablasted. Nothing all that unique except I took a gamble and had the guy sodablast the topsides, deck, and spars also. It was an interesting outcome. The bottom looked great. Clearly sodablasting is the way to go with paint removal. The bottom is polished smooth with almost no trace of the old hard anti-fouling paint remaining. It also exposed some old repairs and a few patched thru-hulls I was unaware of. I really allows you to see 'what your work'n with' One of the patches was poorly done and beginning to delaminate. Honestly it may have feathered with sanding and been missed.
The topsides are a different story. While the sodablasting removed a lot of the loose paint I was concerned about, it did not really polish the surface like I would have liked. It tended to flake the paint leaving rough edges. Where the blasting guy got a little carried away it did etch into the glass some...not as bad as a full sandblast but definitely rough. The nonskid appears to have laughed off the process as the paint is still quite intact. Bottom line, it would have been better to save the money and just sand... I am going to have to sand anyway thanks to the roughness of the finish.
Finally the spars. Probably the biggest disaster. I have an aluminum mast and boom with lots of stainless hounds and other hardware permanently attached. The factory paint was quite badly chipped and there was some corrosion around some of the spreader mounts. I gave the go ahead for a gentle sandblast to remove all traces of paint and corrosion so that the structural integrity could be assessed. Well, the integrity was fine. all the corrosion was simply surface stuff. However, the sandblasting tore the SH*T out of the aluminum and frosted the stainless. My previously polished stainless hounds and spreaders are now a brushed nickel look. The aluminum has the texture of 100 grit sandpaper. I'm now worried if the sandblasting has weakened the spars...certainly any surface hardening has been removed...although some metal ARE hardened by blasting with beads.... Not really sure, I just know that the stainless now looks like crap and there is going to have to be some serious layers or primer and sanding to smooth out the aluminum.
Bottom line.
sodablasting the bottom... CLEARLY superior to other methods. Did an awesome job.
Blasting the topsides... Useless. you will have to sand it all out anyway. Save your money.
Sandblasting the spars... CRITICAL error. May have destroyed/damaged them. Will require HOURS of refurb and painting. Stainless hardware permanently scarred. Better off chemically stripping.
Hope this helps others when debating similar work in the future.
As some may recall I elected to go forward with having my boat sodablasted. Nothing all that unique except I took a gamble and had the guy sodablast the topsides, deck, and spars also. It was an interesting outcome. The bottom looked great. Clearly sodablasting is the way to go with paint removal. The bottom is polished smooth with almost no trace of the old hard anti-fouling paint remaining. It also exposed some old repairs and a few patched thru-hulls I was unaware of. I really allows you to see 'what your work'n with' One of the patches was poorly done and beginning to delaminate. Honestly it may have feathered with sanding and been missed.
The topsides are a different story. While the sodablasting removed a lot of the loose paint I was concerned about, it did not really polish the surface like I would have liked. It tended to flake the paint leaving rough edges. Where the blasting guy got a little carried away it did etch into the glass some...not as bad as a full sandblast but definitely rough. The nonskid appears to have laughed off the process as the paint is still quite intact. Bottom line, it would have been better to save the money and just sand... I am going to have to sand anyway thanks to the roughness of the finish.
Finally the spars. Probably the biggest disaster. I have an aluminum mast and boom with lots of stainless hounds and other hardware permanently attached. The factory paint was quite badly chipped and there was some corrosion around some of the spreader mounts. I gave the go ahead for a gentle sandblast to remove all traces of paint and corrosion so that the structural integrity could be assessed. Well, the integrity was fine. all the corrosion was simply surface stuff. However, the sandblasting tore the SH*T out of the aluminum and frosted the stainless. My previously polished stainless hounds and spreaders are now a brushed nickel look. The aluminum has the texture of 100 grit sandpaper. I'm now worried if the sandblasting has weakened the spars...certainly any surface hardening has been removed...although some metal ARE hardened by blasting with beads.... Not really sure, I just know that the stainless now looks like crap and there is going to have to be some serious layers or primer and sanding to smooth out the aluminum.
Bottom line.
sodablasting the bottom... CLEARLY superior to other methods. Did an awesome job.
Blasting the topsides... Useless. you will have to sand it all out anyway. Save your money.
Sandblasting the spars... CRITICAL error. May have destroyed/damaged them. Will require HOURS of refurb and painting. Stainless hardware permanently scarred. Better off chemically stripping.
Hope this helps others when debating similar work in the future.