Today, I managed several hours' worth of grinding again.  Though there was still some grinding to do on the interior--in the head, and in the bilges and lockers--I chose to change my venue and work on the decks instead.

The decks had been painted at some point in the past, with at least one round of paint on the smooth surfaces and several layers on the molded nonskid.  New nonskid paint had been layered directly over the molded pattern, resulting in a visually unpleasing mess.

In order to apply a quality, long-lasting paint job, I had to remove all the old paint, and bring the surface back down to gelcoat at least.  I began on the coachroof.  Using 80 grit paper, I found that the white paint on the smooth surfaces came off easily, revealing an off-white gelcoat beneath that was in generally good condition and would make a decent substrate for the new coatings.

The nonskid on the forward (lower) portion of the coachroof was much more resistant to sanding, between the grit in the light tan nonskid paint and the resinous blocks of the molded nonskid pattern beneath.  I found that it helped to begin with my 8" angle grinder, equipped with a soft pad and 40 grit paper, to knock off the top layers of paint and part of the nonskid pattern.  I only used this tool lightly, however, as it's more difficult to control how much material is taken off with the large circular tool.

I removed most of the remaining nonskid pattern with my 5" DA and 40 grit paper, which worked well, if a bit slowly.  The quantities of gelcoat dust produced were prodigious.  The original nonskid pattern was colored light blue, as was common in the day.  As I neared the bottom of the pattern, I left a small amount of smoothing for a later pass with 80 grit paper, again to avoid the possibility of sanding too much and creating more work later on.

After the final pass with 80 grit, the decks were smooth and retained their original shape and fairness.  Later steps will include additional sanding as well as spot repairs and filling holes left over from unused hardware.   For now, I concentrated only on the bulk removal and smoothing.

The gelcoat dust created during this process was very fine and hung in the air for a long time.  Even with my supplied air breathing apparatus, I found that I could taste the gelcoat in my throat.  I decided to limit my exposure, having created more than enough mess for one day.

Work over the next week or so will probably be a bit sporadic, between the Christmas holiday and a pressing need to finish a few projects on my house.  But I expect to get in and do a couple hours' grinding at least a couple times next week to try and get the worst of the bulk stock removal over with before new years.  Such intensive grinding is best taken in small doses when schedule allows.  I also have another small boat project in the shop that I am trying to wrap up by early January.

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