Tanzer 16 -- Painting Continues -- Xylene is nasty stuff & a set-back

Tanzer 16 -- Painting Continues- Xylene is nasty stuff  & a set back  -- March 30, 2016  --At some point, if you are painting your boat, you are going to have to wipe it down with a solvent to eliminate the fiberglass mold release agent.

Use a good respirator and have plenty of rubber gloves on hand.  Xylene is nasty stuff.  Once you use it, you will remember it.  Is smells worse than gasoline and lays on the boat in an oily film--oh yeah it works great.

Here is what the guys at Wikipedia have to say:

 Xylene is a slightly greasy, colorless liquid commonly encountered as a solvent.The main effect of inhaling xylene vapor is depression of the central nervous system, with symptoms such as headache, dizziness, nausea and vomiting. At an exposure of 100 ppm, one may experience nausea or a headache. At an exposure between 200-500 ppm, symptoms can include feeling “high,” dizziness, weakness, irritability, vomiting, slowed reaction time.

The side effects of exposure to low concentrations of xylene (<200ppm) are reversible and do not cause permanent damage.

Xylene is also a skin irritant and strips the skin of its oils, making it more absorbable to other chemicals. 

Best advice:  Mask up.  Open all the doors and windows you can.  Keep a lot of gloves close at hand. the stuff dissolves the nitrile gloves I get at Home Depot.

So--I got the boat wiped down with this stuff and started to mask.  Notice a few flakes of paint down by the keelson--which turned out to be pieces of delaminated fiberglass.  Bad words--many bad words.

Cut out the bad glass with a rotary tool--of course there isn't really any room to work. At least there is no punky wood underneath.  So a short time out from painting while we do a repair.  It would probably be okay to just go on--but we're here there is nothing in the way--we're spending buckets of money--let's just grit our teeth and get it done.  Grrr!

I think maybe this can't be blamed on the guys in Arlington WA that built the
boat.  Maybe this is just old age.