Gel coat removal - water sanding vs. straight line sanding

On Feb 6, 7:57*pm, bildan wrote:
On Feb 6, 10:54*am, LS3 Pilot wrote:

Trying to do some work on my ship. *Does anyone that reads this forum
have experience in the best way to remove gelcoat? *I've got an area
thats too big to hand sand on the wing that needs some work. *A friend
suggested I buy a water sander that continuously feeds water to the
sander (similar to a pneumatic powered straight line sander).

What's the best tools to safely and effectively removing the old gel?

There's a thing called an "air file" auto body shops use.

http://www.pivco.net/index.php?main_...roducts_id=171....

It's a linear oscillating compressed air driven sander about 18" long
and 2.25" inches wide. *I've been told they work pretty well with 80
grit and they have less chance of digging into the fiberglass than a
rotary grinder. *Since it's air driven, I suppose you could safely use
wet sanding and avoid the dust.

I have used the following in order to find the "best"(for us) tools
fo gelcoat removal.
3 inch air rotary disc sander.- Too small- blows dust all over- noisy
7 inch electric disc sander. Too harsh for us and not easy to control.
Quick but likely to do damage easily.
18 inch air powered linear sander. Noisy. Not good except single
contour. Blows dust around. Need big compressor.
4 inch belt sander. Fast. tricky to use.
4 inch grinder with disc sanding attachment. Fast, fairly easy to
control. inexpensive. Slings dust everywhere.
5 inch electric orbital sander. Very uniform controllable removal.
Lowest dust generation in room. Easiest to use by unskilled or
learning helpers.
Only ones we use now are last 2 with last one doing 90% of the work.
Feel free to relearn the lessons already learned- we all seem tempted
to find the better way that nobody has found. Understand from the get-
go, there is no easy way to do this job.
Have "fun".
UH