Removing Stripes

I am going to redo my hulls this spring. The hulls presently have stripes on them. Those things are on there great. What is the best way to remove them?

Thanks,

Dave

A heat gun to remove them and then Adheasive remover to get the residual adheasive off.

The best type is 3M Adheasive remover. It works great. But it isn't cheap

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Mike Hensel
'86 Hobie 18, '93 Hobie 14, '80 Hobie 14(restso in progress)
Wind in your sails, water in your shoes, great day!

Be really careful with the heat gun (keep it moving all the time) and use a plastic scraper and lots of patience.

It took me the better part of three hours to get the stripes off a 20 year old 17.

This may not be a recommended method, and somebody please shoot it down if it isn't, but this is what I did on my 83' 16 to get them off. I just got them started near the bow and then used a pressure washer to get them off. If you angle it agaist the way they are peeling they come right off, in my case anyway.

But the heat gun and adhesive remover is probably a more sure fire way, especially if you don't have a pressure washer.

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James
86' Redline Hobie 16
Sail # 76909

That's how I removed half my stickers unintentionally

I accidentally blew off a good portion of stipe from my 82' H18 with a pressure washer. I'm looking to give her new stripes this winter. Does anyone know where to them?

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1982 Hobie 18

Most any boating supply store should carry them, in an array of different colors.

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James
86' Redline Hobie 16
Sail # 76909

To remove old stripe adhesive, don't use hazardous solvents, erase it off! http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemID=1914&itemType=PRODUCT

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Jim

2007 Hobie Wave

Actually, I just removed stripes and lettering this past weekend. The fastest way I found was to take a single edge razor scraper and carefully take the vinyl leaving the adhesive residue behind. Use the blade to get it started and pull it off with your fingers. You need to use a low angle of attack to do this and not gouge the gelcoat.

Then I took a rag w/ GOOF OFF and wet down a few letters at a time for about a minute for each section. (wear gloves). While the adhesive is still soft take the razor and just scrape it off. It will come off slicker than snot...actually it looks like snot when it comes off. Elbow grease and a wetted rag won't remove it that well, you have to scrape it first, and then wipe up any final residue..and there won't be much.

I was surprised as to how easy this worked. I tried several other chemicals first, but nothing worked as well as the Goof Off, which smells to me like Toulene.

Good luck.

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TC

The MSDS for Goof-Off specifies that it's 95% Xylene, with the remaining 5% Methanol and Ethanol.

Other cheery facts:




Party time!

No doublt the stuff is bad for you, but when you're shooting gelcoat you're already in bad company are you not? What's most important is that Goof Off WORKS and was extremely easy to use.

Anytime you spray paint, apply resin, epoxy, or fiberglass you are exposing yourself to some BAAAAD %$^&* are you not?? Does that stop people from using those items? No, you just treat it w/ respect and protect yourself. By all means work outside (I was), use the approriate PPE, (I did) and just do it.

Nothing is w/o risk. I considered using a heat gun, but thinking about the boats foam core, possible delam, blisters, skin burns on both me and the boat ...I decided that risk was too great to take. Others have the opposite view or more confidence that they won't screw up, and that's their choice.

Using the chemical strip method, the worse that could happen to the boat would be a gouge in the gelcoat from the scraper, but I was doing gel coat touch up anyway so that didn't matter to me. Wearing the proper PPE I wan't too concerned w/ health issues either.

Thanks for the safety info, it's a good thing to make people aware of.

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TC

3M makes stripe removal wheels for your drill, they remove the stripes and adhesive and polish the paint below them at the same time. Its a sweet tool, kinda expensive and they wear out quickly, but works especially well

Yup. Eastwood sells 'em, see my earlier post in this thread for the link. Expensive at ~$15 a piece, but one should be enough to do graphics on a cat.

In the past I have used nasty solvents in the past to remove stripes and adhesives from vehicles. But knowing what I know now, I am going to give one of these a try if the need arises.

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Jim

2007 Hobie Wave