I spent four hours today in a Tyvek suit, full face respirator, gloves, hood, etc. in almost 100 degree heat sanding the bottom with a Milwaukee grinder. I think I have about 90% to go. Who needs a gym? The first photo is all that a very heavy coat of Soy Strip applied with a shaggy, rough-surface roller and then covered with thin plastic managed to do to two coats of Micron in four hours on much of the hull. After about 4 hours the paint below the plastic became less fluid and more gummy. As seen in the second photo a few areas released a bit better - those that I recoated (the area on the left of the second photo). You can see where my power washer did well and where it had little effect (the one coat area on the right). Serious high pressure washing followed immediately after peeling off the plastic. In grinding today I had to work through the thicker areas that will gum up any disk finer than 36 in about one minute. I am going to throw another few gallons of Soy Strip that I have left at the thicker stuff that has been altered to this anti-sanding gummy material. All-in-all, sanding to bare hull last year was both horrible yet easier than messing with a couple of hundred dollars worth of stripper. For comparison, although I am not sure how 10+ coats of varnish relate to two coats of Micron, I used one thick application of Citristrip on the teak and holly sole and the result was pristine bare wood. The only thing I can think of to do differently is perhaps to spray stripper on with an airless to obtain a thicker application although I am not sure that it would not run a lot. My application was so heavy with the shag roller that it was dribbling down the hull. Perhaps I am just expecting too much.

The port side of the keel must be stripped down to bare lead. The casting is coated with some unknown white stuff that is not all that attached. On top of that is some brown stuff followed by white stuff and then thick gray stuff (Interprotect?). Some other greenish-blue stuff (Interfill?) was used as fairing compound below the gray stuff and it is full of holes. I use the word "stuff" because I do not know what any of these layers really are. Once down to clean lead I will quickly resand, roll on epoxy, work it with a brush, then flatten out the coat by dragging a cut roller across it. Thin fiberglass will follow. Then it is on to the rest of the hull with sanding and barrier coating with West System additive in epoxy followed by primer. I am having such fun.