Old Resin

[dougd]

I've slowly been working on cold cracks on a MR Explorer. The few patches the previous owner put on were done...um...not good. They peeled right off and the resin he used is still tacky as hell. I can only assume auto resin or something like that. I need to get it off to make new patches but am not sure how or what to use. I know because the core is exposed I sure am not using acetone. Any suggestions what to give a try?

Here's a picture with the old resin being the darker one.

dougd

 

[Boatman53]

Did you try vinegar?
Jim

 

[Fitz]

If the vinegar doesn't work, you might try lacquer thinner. Try a little first to make sure it doesn't affect the core. Stinks a lot though.

Fitz

 

[dougd]

Thanks for the advice, I'll start with the vinegar this weekend, one patch is very thick with ridges in it so that should be a lot of fun! Appreciate your words.

dougd

 

[Boatman53]

Your comment just reminded me, when cleaning up epoxy we also used a scraper of sorts made out on a sample chip of Formica. Home Depot and probably Lowe’s has samples about 1 1/2 x 2” in size, you probably need to ask for them. They are hard and sharp enough to do some work but not too hard to scratch gel coat or the hard marine paints. Go gently to start till you get the feel. It might help with the ridges and lumps you mentioned.
Jim

 

[dougd]

Finally got around to trying vinegar this morning. It took several applications, soaked a rag in vinegar and left it sitting on the old resin for about a 1/2 hour and took a putty knife to it. That "kinda" worked so switched to a razor blade to it and that took about 95% of the crap off. Once the patch was on, using a roller to smooth things out (Thanks Mr. McCrea) the patch came out looking pretty dang good. I still have 2 more areas of old crap resin to try to get off but one is ungodly thick, bumpy and uneven, that is going to be a challenge. No pics. Many thanks for the advice from all!

dougd

 

[Jim Dodd]

Only thing left to try is heat.
But becarefull ! It may melt your canoe !

Years ago a good friend showed up with a plastic Kayak, and asked if I had a soldering gun ! ? Puzzled, I got mine out, and he proceeded to melt the plastic where he had a hole . He had run into a fence post during high water.

It was a Necky Kayak.

Jim

 

[Guest]

Finally got around to trying vinegar this morning. It took several applications, soaked a rag in vinegar and left it sitting on the old resin for about a 1/2 hour and took a putty knife to it. That "kinda" worked so switched to a razor blade to it and that took about 95% of the crap off.
I still have 2 more areas of old crap resin to try to get off but one is ungodly thick, bumpy and uneven, that is going to be a challenge. No pics. Many thanks for the advice from all!

Any chance you can carefully detail sand or file down the worst of the globby (poly) resin?

Only thing left to try is heat.

I like the heat idea, done just before the scraping or razor blade use.

Sure worth a try, and this isn’t the right time of year to employ the method used to remove the thick globs of tree sap from the Bell (FlashFire?); wait until a 10F day and hit the edge of them. IIRC they popped right off.