#truth
I had a nice '71 302 coupe that had been repainted in metallic burgundy. It presented very well, so I did some work on it and sold to a friend. It passed to another guy a bit later, who worked at the gas station next to my shop. I went over one day to get some fuel and was there just when he fired up the power washer and proceeded to blow a huge strip of paint right off the hood.
Dennis, there was obviously VERY poor paint prep done if that happened, and that is straight from a 50 year veteran of running a power washer, AND my buddy who owns a body shop, is a fantastic custom painter, and has painted more cars than anyone I know, and I know a lot of guys in the business. I have NEVER damaged a paint job on ANYTHING, boat, car, motorcycle, house dock, you name it, I've power washed it, and aside from a crappy cedar deck I had, that was falling apart on it's own, I never damaged a single thing power washing. Can you? yes, a moron can f--k up anything.
To my point, boat bottom paint is made to come off while the boat runs through the water, thus it is called ablative paint. When refinishing the bottom of a boat that has too much bottom paint built up on it, no contractor uses a power washer to remove the paint, because it will only take off the loose paint. They use walnut blasting, soda blasting, or sand blasting typically, though there are a few other methods, including sanding it off with dustless sanders hooked up to vacuums. You could stand there all day with the pressure washer nozzle two inches away, and you won't get very far that's for sure.
