I do not know the looks of your transom or the type of paint used for the
lettering.
However, painted letters and figures can be removed using a razor blade. It
requires a little practice and some time.
Once the lettering are removing, as stated you will noticed raised letters
where the area around the old letters were painted.
The only way to remove these raised old letters embedded in the gelcoat is
to use sand paper providing your have enough gelcoat left on the transom

Start with wet sanding paper of 300 grits using water as a lubricant. Then
use 400 grits and work your way up to 1200 grits.
Then you use a fine compound on all the transom. On older boat you may not
have enough gelcoat left to do what I just said.
When you do not have enough gelcoat left on your transom the best thing to
do is to removed the raised areas. Then have a new name made with vinyl and
stick it over the old area.
On a last resort is to remove the raised areas made by the old lettering.
Prep. the transom, get a chip of the gelcoat. get it color matched and
purchased two part paint to do the complete transom. The later looks like a
long process but once you get started it goes fast and you end up with a
nice looking transom without the elbow grease use to compound and waxing.


"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 14:28:03 GMT, "Benning Wentworth"

said:

The name of my boat, on the transom, has been on there for years. Long
before I bought her. I tried to remove the hailing port paint for a new
look last spring; couldn't get it all off. I tried all the usual
methods.

I had to the hailing port on my transom a couple of years ago. Found that
oven cleaner took the old name off pretty easily. If you look closely from
very near, you can still see the raised letters where the area around the
old letters hadn't been reduced by compounding over the years, but you
have
to look pretty closely. Then I ordered a vinyl decal for the new home
port.