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What you do to remove paint from your panels is entirely up to you BUT I would personally reccomend RemovAll 620 for GRP/ Fibreglass and any other of the RemovAll range for other substrates* (*what the paint is on)... but why????
Mechanical methods (abrasives and/or flails or wire brushes) can damage soft substrates and also generate huge quantities of dust.... I don't bother with these processes as with a toddler the washing machine is already full all of the time!
If you have ever read the ingredients in typical paint stripper no wonder they really want you dressed like an acid bather murderer when you use them, I have been unfortunate enough to get one famous product ( rhymns with Bitromors) on bare skin and you soon know about it ....
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5vgffx ...... read a few of these!
Nitromors contains Methylene Chloride !!!! I can't use this any more in a bituminous test lab... I wonder why????
"The primary component (methylene chloride) will decompose on red hot surfaces, in electric arcs or naked flame to evolve predominately hydrochloric acid and a trace amount of phosgene gas."
The RemovAll products are no where near ( like New York is nowhere near to Tokyo) as aggressive as Nitromors but as speciailist coating removers the right one can be targetted at your prospective substrate with confidence.
I used RemovAll 620 [ here is the URL for the other products ( cut and paste it) http://www.cirrus-systems.co.uk/index.php/Products.html ] .I was taking the following coatings off of a 14 year old fibreglass lamp pod:
(1) White Smoothrite on (2) Black Trade Gloss on (3) Red Trade Gloss on (4) Red cellulose on (5)Red Oxide based fibreglass primer
(4 & 5 were 14 years old) 3 was 12 years old and the rest were 10 years old
The RemovAll 620 was stirred and brushed on ... the response of the paints to the stripper looked similar to Nitromors BUT it remained moist and pliable and I easily removed the treated layers with a paint scraper - I had to leave the pod over night ( busy evening) and the following morning the RemovAll was still wet so could be reworked into the surface I could not strip down to the gel coat - I did scrape off the first few layers (1 thru 3) once they were loose to allow the product to get to work on the cellulose and primer... IT IS NOT FAST.... IT IS GOOD!
In a lot of areas I was down to the gelcoat overnight and all the coatings were off in 24-36 hours ( probably less in fact) with a total of less than half an hour of elbow grease with a paint scraper to se the job done.......
The great plusses of this stuff as I see it are:
If you can't wait, don't forget to buy some eye protection and rubber gauntlets.....
If you want to get a progressive controlled result chose a RemovAll to suit the substrate
My Mini is worth about £7000 this stuff is being liberally daubed on boats worth more than my house!!!!!
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