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Nice Dave!
I`ll be following this one closely...shop is looking good!
It`s seafari 25 heaven in here  I`m looking forward to your progress, as it too will be added to the wealth of info, I am learning about my boat.
Brandon
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Thanks for the kind words, Brandon, and everyone else who's posted. I've been trudging away and it's update time. First, I had to stock the fridge in the shop. As I've gotten older, my priority in beer has gone from quantity to quality. Based on their recent posts, I'm betting strick and grgrmouse will appreciate my selection.
Now, back to work. The transom on my boat was redone in '95. There were areas with serious spider cracks that I needed to investigate. After chipping at it a little, it looks like they used gelcoat to do the fairing on the outside. It's more than 1/8" thick where the spider cracks occur. I'll grind it out and fair it back, hopefully this weekend. Anyway, I knew I would have to strip the paint off the transom to repair the spider cracks. I bought some high dollar eco-friendly paint stripper to get the paint off. I put some on a 6" x 6" test patch and let it sit for about thirty six hours. It barely touched the paint. I got out the scraper and managed to peel it off. So Tuesday after work, I went out to the shop to slather the whole transom with paint remover. To prep for the paint remover, I took the scraper to the aluminum oxide and 5200 left behind when I pulled the swim platform brackets. Well, some paint came off with it. So I kept going. It looks like when they did the paint job, they may have used gray automotive sanding primer. The finish paint film was tough, but once I got the scraper under it, the primer separated easily. Too easily. I had the whole transom stripped in about 15 minutes. Here's the area with the worst spider cracks:
So I thought to myself, I don't really like this black paint job. All the nicks and scrapes show the original gelcoat. It was peeling and chipping at the chine, and I guess I figured out why. The primer wasn't what it should be. So last night I stripped the starboard side. In less than an hour. It was like peeling a cucumber. Tonight I did the port side. Here's the "before" pic:
Here's the after:
And the pile of paint strips:
Now, I know I've opened a can of worms, and most of the prep work is still ahead of me, but this is the way I wanted to go with it anyway. I'm glad the paint removal turned out to be way easier than I had hoped.
Dave