The Plastic Classic Forum, your free and in-depth resource for information on re/building classic sailboats. ... Be sure to visit / join our sister site at sailFar.net! ... And don't forget to check out Atom's Virtual Home Port! ...
Reading Tim's log today reminded me that I need to clean up the ugly 3M 77 residue from the an early attempt to line the ceiling and under deck area of the main cabin.
Next on the interior prep agenda was to sand the underside of the sidedecks and remaining areas of the exposed hull on each side of the main cabin. These areas were covered with a combination of flaking paint, mildew, and old contact adhesive from the foam that had been glued to every hull surface when I started the project. It was satisfying to remove the old material.
Does anyone one have recommnedations as to the method in cleaning up 3M 77 contact adhesive or contact cement? I tried acetone or paint thinner before without much success. Looks like Tim was very successful in getting rid of the glue.
Funny, I don't have any specific glue-removal projects going on right now, but as I read that same log, I was thinking "I wonder what he used for that particular job."
I'm guessing it involved some of the "fun" sanding discs from McMaster-Carr though.... ;^)
That said, recall that any of these thinners are poisonous, explosive, some are carcinogenic. You will have no way to judge, as an amateur or weekend warrior, just how bad your environment is inside a closed space. Most of your tools are not ignition safe (forgot the Coastie's word, ahh well, must have been too much solvent over the years). Means that sparks might be more exciting than might be wished.
Have you had good luck with that mixture? I have a bit of a contact adhesive situation in the cabin of my little Victoria 18 and unfortunately, there's just not really a lot of maneuvering room for me to be sanding too much. If I can find a solvent to help out I would be a much happier camper (even if it is guaranteed to coat my lungs with gaseous death).
We have removed a lot of adhesive from the hull as we replaced the factory fabric hull ceilings/ "liner".
Acetone or lacquer thinner is ok, but a commercial product called Goof-Off seems to work a bit better. You do need a lot of ventilation and a supply of latex gloves. I used a box fan over a nearby hatch, exhausting air at a high rate. It was a little like working inside a slow version of a wind tunnel... but best for my health. I would use a short bristle brush to work it into the glue and when the bristles got all globbed up just switch to another cheapo brush.
Not much fun.
Final surface prep is with a right-angle disc sander, using a shop vac pickup hose to catch the material flying off the discs.
When the law changed about window tint for cars I found the A&A mix worked great for removing the tint adhesive with out worry about the interiors of the cars. Did 100+ cars in a few years time.
