Removing paint of a Heron

> if the paint is in that poor a state, I want to know what is going
> on under it..

I think you're going to find out either way aren't you... By the time you've got down through umpteen layers of top coat and down to undercoat/primer then you are going to know if there are any problems with the underlying skin and treat it appropriately. Twenty layers of top coat will certainly hide a multitude of sins, but by the time you get down to a half layer of paint with a reasonable number of bare patches then you are going to have a pretty shrewd idea what's going on, because cracks, poor adhesion, all the rest of it are going to be highly visible... I'm not advocating leaving paint tha's in a poor state on, I'm just advocating leaving paint that is still good on!

Oh, and of course if we are dealing with a painted composite boat (and they have been around long enough to be getting into the restoration stakes now) then you *definitely* don't want to be sanding into the fibres: you definitely need to be stopping at primer/fairing filler.

Originally posted by Barty For the more adventurous people (and those used to using grinders) you can use a angle grinder with a fine sanding disc on it (the ones made with flaps of sand paper).  I did an entire mirror down to almost bare ply in 2 hours and then just finished it off with the orbital......this isn't the way for the inexperienced or feint-hearted but if your comfortable with this kind of tool you can be very accurate and careful.

Your a braver man than me. It is so easy to end up with lots of eliptical marks that go deeperthan I wouldwant to go. My old geep still carries the scars of my brothers attempts to sand with a disc sander on an electric drill and without huge amounts of filler she will never look great but a few battle scars dont matter on an old boat. 

I think the most improtant thing is lots of water to wash it off

Originally posted by JimC By a small tin of Nitromors first and try it, not the great big expensive ones. It never works that well for me.