Renovating a 1975 20' Sceptre

[kiwi]

I'm a rookie at posting here and also at boat renovation. I have a 20' Sceptre with dings, some keel delamination, a crapped out old 175 Johnson, etc. so I decided to strip everything off the hull, sand and paint it, remotor, rehelm, new guages, the works. I've just started sanding off the bottom paint, and found that whoever worked on this before me did a hack job. There are thousands of sanding scratches imbedded with bottom paint, requiring me to sand off quite a bit of gelcoat to remove them. Many are deep enough that I have to sand down to the glass. I did rough sanding with a soft pad on an angle grinder and 50 grit. I smoothed it with 80 grit on an orbital. But the radius in the chines is trouble..lots of gouges in these. Anyone have any tips on how to sand in the chine radius? I was planning on using the end of a belt sander....dumb idea?

[Trayder]

I can feel your pain with the chine.

I left that area for last and did most of it by hand....

If I were to do it again I think I would use a foam longboard to keep it fair.

welcome to the site

[GradySailfish]

If the bottom paint is flaking at all, the use something called a 5 in 1 or a 6 in 1. Its a painters tool with a beveled scapping edge that works wonders for removing bottom paint, without the use of chemical strippes. Just find the right angle, push and you'll see the paint will fall right off. This is espcially true on hulls with many years of bottom paint on them.

As a side note, a friend was restoring a 83 Phoenix 27. The bottom paint was soooo bad that no paint removers were working well. He was going to get it sandbaster when we tried using the 5 in 1 tool.....it worked like a charm.

The chimes you can try getting with a small razor scrapper, but be careful not to put any more gouges in it then there already area.

Judging from how many gouges you have, I'd fill them with Epoxy of Vinylester Resin, and then barrier cote the bottom.