[MAnDaRIn]

I'm sanding down my interior taking off most off the gel-coat and i'm going to repaint it with pettit easypoxy. Do I need to use a de-waxer on the interior and hull liner? What about the bilge if i wanted to paint it? will mineral spirits work well enough?

 

[MAnDaRIn]

For all you know "mineral spirits" could be diesel fuel. That's the generic name for "cheap stuff that probably will clean your paint brush". If saving ten bucks is worth gambling that your new expensive paint job may come off in six months, use the cheap stuff. Using a "prepsolv" that is designed to remove wax and other problems can be cheap insurnace. Ditto for using lots of clean paper towels, not rags that may have detergent residue or laundry softeners (wax) in them.

The bilge? Probably will have oil residues in it as well. Prep is 90% of any paint job, if it isn't clean enough to eat off, it needs more prep.

I just spoke with a friend of mine who's been working on boats for awhile and he said acetone would work fine. Would acetone be better than mineral spirits and as good as pettit fiberglass dewaxer or interlux 202 fiberglass prep?

 

[MAnDaRIn]

Use a dewaxer (any of those discussed, we use Interlux) before you start sanding. Otherwise, you risk pushing the mold waxes and any other grease and grime into the fiberglass. You do want to dewax anything you are going to paint first, particularly the bilge. The boat mold had a release wax in it when the boat was built and you need to get that off the surface.

how does that work? how does it de-wax the fiberglass through the gel-coat not to mention the paint that someone applied over it?

 

[MAnDaRIn]

I was talking about the interior and cabin liner being painted over the gel-coat.
I'd like to use the name brand stuff but its expensive and I'm wondering if i really need it? so I've all ready sanded down a lot of the interior because I didn't know I had to de-wax it first. I guess I'm gonna try and get away with using MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) or acetone if its any cheaper. Does anyone know if i have to use the undercoater primer for pettit eaxypoxy work and not peel off?