A few months ago, I acquired a 1973 Grumman 17.5 squareback canoe in marvelous condition. No leaks, and I cannot even find any of the small scratches and dents that are nearly always present on these boats. It does, however, have one serious cosmetic issue. Quite a few years ago, the original owner (the father of the person I bought it) from had primed it, and painted over that with a meadow grass camo top coat. The detail brush work is good, but the entire top coat is peeling quite badly (inside and out). The primer, otoh, seems to be intact, and very well adhered to the aluminum. My problem here is that the PO did not know what kind of primer was used. It is a fairly light, fairly bright yellow with no gloss and a greenish cast. That suggests zinc chromate to me, as does the fact that it is well-adhered to the hull, while the top coat is poorly adhered to it. I would very much like to remove the top coat and repaint in a plain tan, green, or olive shade, but I don't want to go to that much trouble only to find that my new paint is peeling just as badly. Is there any definitive (non-destructive) way to determine the nature of the primer? Any suggestions on removing the top coat and/or on what paint to replace it with? Other ideas? Thanks.
SAM
SAM
I'm going to need to guess. Any thoughts on the probability of "safe" options? Would it help if I took and posted some photos? I don't mind the effort of doing the top coat scraping and repainting, but the current paint coat, while not beautiful, is adequately protecting the hull. I'd really hate to spend hours and hours scraping and redoing the top coat, only to have it peel as well. I know that the option of taking it down to bare metal is the only one that guarantees success, but that is beyond what I'm willing to do before next boating season. Maybe after I beat it up dragging it around beaches for several months and more of the existing paint departs, I'll revisit the "bare metal" idea for next Winter