Portholes | Stripping Caulk

I posted last May about removing the portlights when the boat was back in the workshop for repainting.

One of the portlights was very difficult to remove.

This was because I had used old caulk to seal this particular portlight in place. The caulk had partly cured inside the tube and although it dispensed easily, it set to a hard and inflexible consistency which refused to release the portlight.

I eventually prised it loose with an old screwdriver but this left a thick, solid ring of hardened caulk on the inside and the outside.

It looked like this.

No solvents that I tried had any effect, so it would have to be cut away.

I used a small slim-bladed pocket knife and a small Bahco scraper with a new blade to do this.

Here they are.

It was painstaking work, taking care not to damage the hull but also removing every trace of the old caulk.

It was successful eventually, and a wipe with some solvent left a clean surface ready for paint.