Ken, I had a similar project in mind and haven't had good weather or time to tackle it yet. My boat has very little paint left and my hope was that perhaps I could use a metal stripping gel or acid wash, then power wash and see if I can get it down to aluminum. Then I've seen on youtube where really bad aluminum pontoons can be brought to a showroom shine with a combination of a special cleaner meant for cleaning commercial A/C unit coils and a power washer followed by polishing.
I don't need a glowing polished boat, but thought if I could get most of the peeling paint off then use the A/C coil cleaner to get the tarnish/oxidation out of the aluminum that would be good enough for me.
I guess it depends how much paint your boat has left on it.
