Jimbo, they do small sample pots at £5.99 inc p/p a couple would do most medium size hulls. I bought the 4ltr size and have sold off 2 ltrs to other modellers so I have stripped three hulls for around £5.00 each with some left over for another hull or project. See if you can do the same and sell some off to reduce the cost. Painting it on and washing it off seems a lot better than sanding and you don’t damage the gell coat.

 Hi Jimbo, Ashley’s dead right, the best bet is to use wet and dry to key the surface to be painted, start rough, and work towards 600 grade. Once you have done that, test the paint you intend usingby brushing a little on a test patch that can be covered easily watch out for blistering or crinkling of the old paint underneath the new, it happens you know. Nitromors will also melt acrylic windows making them look horriffic, so don’t go thereand a really useful tip is to ensure that every last drop of paint stripper is removed before continuing to the next  phase,   /forum/smilies/tongue_out_smiley.gif[/img]haseDON@T] DON’T burn old nitromors, as it will generate a pretty passable nerve gas. It does wash off with warm water and soap, but whoever heard of a young lad going near soap and water.

                    Have you got the best specimin carp prize yet ? is Bessie earning her keep ?

Jimbo, just a thought, don’t be in too much of a hurry to wash the stripper off. My small test patches showed a time of between 24 and 36 hrs to soften the paint down to the gell coat, the last hull I jet washed off after making sure that it was well fixed down and it only required a light rub down with 000 gauge wire wool with washing up liquid on the water. There were three or four small patches that refused to budge with the washer but these were removed using a styrene scraper and wire wool as the paint was softened down to the gell coat, just not soft enough for the washer.

To be fair I have now tried Nitromors on a scrap scale helicopter body and it will remove the paint very quickly and if you keep washing it off and re-applying in with a view to preserving the gell coat then yes it works, it is however time consuming and as paint will vary in thickness has still etched into the gell coat in places. Where this has happened It would be possible to fill these areas.

From my own point of view I would still go with the RemovAll 620 method, all I can say is that ‘it works for me’

Ashley, Jimbo said in his original post that he wanted to know the best way to take off old paint, I took that to mean remove it . As you say if it’s just a respray job and he knows the type of paint that  he is over-spraying and that is compatible with the new finish then that’s fine no problems.

If however he wants to remove the paint because he does not know the type of paint on the hull already then he is  better off striping it . Many hulls and fibre glass moulding these days have very fine detail moulded into them and striping is probably the only way to remove the paint and retain the detail.

With regard to flatting down mouldings that do have detail cast in I use wet and dry over the flat areas and then around the detail, rivets ect., I use a glass fibre pen to key the gel coat, without damaging the detail.

Its called Barcoat Isolator. You use it to stop cellulose or other paints reacting with whatever is beneath the isolator. It also of course works to stop whatever is beneath the isolator affecting your whatever it is you are painting/spraying. Useful if you dont know whats already on there, or for instance the gel coat has been cut back a buit and absorbed stripper or something. Get it from Automotive paint suppliers. You apply it, then apply an undercoat that you can rub down, you dont rub the isolator down as of course that would defeat the object of sealing the surface.  Ashley

Jimbo. no probs mate, but you never know with some poeple on the forum…

whats the "lol"  business about then?? and the "ffs" mean   ???   i assume its some sort of text speak? Ashley