Sealants and adhesives give way to heated chisel
Issue 62 : Sept/Oct 2008
Have you ever had problems removing parts installed with polysulfide, polyurethane, silicone, or other marine sealants or adhesives? I’ve hacked, torn, pulled, and cut many parts off my 33-foot Hallberg-Rassy that previous owners had “fixed” or installed. After removing the toerails on the Vera May, a lot of what I thought was troublesome sealant/adhesive remained on the hull-to-deck joint. I tried to remove it with a scraper and then by cutting it with a box knife, but it was too hard, sticky, and dirty. An old wood chisel worked better but required a lot of force, and this was not a good location to lose your balance.
It occurred to me to try heating the sealant with my heat gun, but at times I got things too hot and the chisel would dig into the gelcoat or fiberglass. However, as I continued on, I soon learned that if I heated the chisel, the steel held the heat where it was most needed and sliced easily through the sticky material. There was also less chance of damaging the fiberglass or gelcoat. With a little heat, a job that I thought was going to take days turned into only a few hours.
I was having so much fun enjoying this new technique that I started looking for other jobs that I could try it on. I removed the silicone on the side of the hull where someone had tried to seal the old rubrail. The silicone just peeled off the gelcoat effortlessly without leaving any marks! This trick even works for cutting or smoothing out epoxy, although that requires a little more heat in the chisel. My old wood chisel is now a new tool dedicated to removing these “nasty substances” when they’re no longer welcome aboard.
Stephen Thompson is a mechanical engineer who sailed inland lakes as a boy and built a small sailing vessel from scratch when he turned 50. He’s restoring his 1970 Hallberg-Rassy Mistral 33, Vera May, in an Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, warehouse, and looks forward to exploring Vancouver Island with her.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
