anyone here have an aluminum boat?

[armedoldhippy]

i've been gifted an aluminum boat, with some 6 year-old dried on algae etc. any shortcuts anyone has on cleaning it? sprays to loosen etc? i have gone over much of it with my pressure washer, some places it peels up the "anti-fouling" paint. need to completely clean it & re-paint WITHOUT damaging the aluminum...any suggestions appreciated...

 

[bigtacofarmer]

Unfortunately I am no help.. Best I can do is direct you to a thread with lots of aluminum bikes and some goats.

 

[exploziv]

I bet that guy that has that thread polishes a lot of aluminium!

 

[bigtacofarmer]

I bet that guy that has that thread polishes a lot of aluminium!

I believe his thing is titanium and plastic pots.


To each is their own

 

[goingrey]

My dad has one but it's not painted. We just keep it clean with a regular hose and brush not a pressure washer. Probably won't do much for six years of gunk...

If I understood correctly yours is painted and you want to strip the paint. I wouldn't worry too much about damaging the aluminum when doing that. The real danger is with the new paint. Can't use fiberglass antifouling paint, they have copper which will cause corrosion on aluminum!

Speaking of bikes when people repaint them, for best results they strip the old paint by sandblasting. Might be expensive to do for a boat.

 

[armedoldhippy]

My dad has one but it's not painted. We just keep it clean with a regular hose and brush not a pressure washer. Probably won't do much for six years of gunk...

If I understood correctly yours is painted and you want to strip the paint. I wouldn't worry too much about damaging the aluminum when doing that. The real danger is with the new paint. Can't use fiberglass antifouling paint, they have copper which will cause corrosion on aluminum!

Speaking of bikes when people repaint them, for best results they strip the old paint by sandblasting. Might be expensive to do for a boat.

sandblasting a nearly 50 year old pontoon -might- not be in it's best interest. if i had access to a bead blasting set-up, using plastic pellets...maybe. thanks for tip on anti-fouling paint, did not know there's a diff in paint intended for wood !

 

[armedoldhippy]

I believe his thing is titanium and plastic pots.


To each is their own

does titanium require polishing? or just financing?

 

[exploziv]

If it makes you proud about your titanium rod, the polishing is good, I guess!

 

[bigtacofarmer]

does titanium require polishing? or just financing?

This depends on the ratio of herbs trimmed to dollars collected I would guess.

 

[Three Berries]

A few years ago I painted the house. It has wood siding and heavy algae in the shaded areas. After trying about 5 different siding cleaners a guy told me to use straight bleach applied with a hand pump sprayer. Let sit 15 minutes and then the pressure washer stripped it right off.

 

[troutman]

Elbow grease and wipe the algae away with wet towels soaked in salty water.
Salt kills freshwater algae. Try a cup of table salt in a bucket of water.

 

[Ca++]

People go to a lot of trouble to keep the salt off.
There are proper cleaner's just for this. If you pull it out though, you might find some alloy wheel cleaner of use. Be aware, some alloy wheel cleaner is not for alloy wheels. It's for painted alloy wheels. Which is a marketing scam of mass proportions.