Polishing Gelcoat

[wooster]

Hi

My ex-hire has not been polished since I owned her ( about 2.5 years ) and, I'm guessing for some time previous to that.

I aim to do this with a machine polisher. She is around 45 years old so I'm a bit unsure as to whether I should use compound to start with and then move on to polish r or what. I'm scared the gelcoat might be too thin for compound. I am wondering if something like  Fareclar G3  might be too rough or how to tell if this is the case.

Any suggestions?

Should add I won't be doing the hull which has been painted, just the top.

Thank you

[Mouldy]

It’s difficult to say without seeing the boat and frankly I’m no expert.  But if the gel coat is flat and powdery, just waxing it will not restore the shine, if that is your intention.

I use a dual action car polisher with a 6” rubber backing plate, a coarse microfibre pad with a heavy cut compound go get rid of the powdery finish and August Race wax to finish.  When done, it will need to be maintained though, as it will soon go powdery again.  I usually end up waxing our boat every four weeks or so during the summer to keep her looking sharp.

[wooster]

Yours looks great. Now I feel bad ...   

[wooster]

Farecla G3 Scratch Remover is a compounding agent. Too severe/risky? How about G3 All in One Polish? 

[Mouldy]

1 hour ago, wooster said:

Farecla G3 Scratch Remover is a compounding agent. Too severe/risky? How about G3 All in One Polish? 

I’ve not used Farecla.  I use a car product called Menzerna 400 cutting polish.

[wooster]

I imagine it’s similar. I’m not sure how to determine if my gel coat is up to the compounding

[Mouldy]

30 minutes ago, wooster said:

I imagine it’s similar. I’m not sure how to determine if my gel coat is up to the compounding

Just try a small area and see how you get on.  If it won’t stand a compound and wax, the only way then would be to get it painted.

[dom]

As far as I'm aware, there's no way of knowing how thick your gelcoat is.

Gelcoat is originally fairly thick - enough to tolerate wet sanding and polishing. It'll tolerate polishing quite a lot of times before you blow thorough it and hire boats probably get aggressive polishing pretty infrequently. More often than not, you tend to have the opposite problem, ie. a lot of polishers won't be aggressive enough to remove heavy oxidation. Professionals tend to use aggressive higher speed rotary polishers, rather than more forgiving dual action ones.

I suspect you'd be very unlucky to find it's so thin that a single polishing cuts through, but obviously that's no guarantee you won't. I'd use the finest polish you can to start with and work up if it's ineffective.

Ultimately, you've probably got to give it a go sooner or later. Otherwise, you've got to live with substandard and worsening finish - and worst case, if you do blow through, painting the superstructure is less of a negative thing if the hull is already painted. The other thing to do would be to hand polish, which is extremely unlikely to cut through, but less effective and obviously far harder! You could also use something like Meguiars Cleaner Wax, which is a mix of polish and wax, but very soft cutting.

[wooster]

Thank you folks. That's some good perspective. I'm in the process of replacing two toilets, re-painting the nonslip areas on the deck and thought I should really give her a polish. You're right, of course, @dom the time has come to bite the bullet and see how it goes.

I hear what you say about hire boats not having had many aggressive cleanings. Is this pretty much standard? Part of me feels that when they are sitting over winter the boatyard might be tempted to use their labour to do just that. On the other hand would they be bothered? Probably not. I don't know. As you say it's probably a risk I need to take.

@Mouldy thank you. You are broadly in agreement with Dom. Try it and if all else fails get the paintbrush out, though, I'd be pretty unhappy having to do it.

On the whole I will try one of the one step products, maybe starting with the "Meguiars Cleaner Wax" on a patch and if that is too much leave it for now. If it isn't enough, trying something a bit sterner on a bit, such as their "One Step Compound" and see how that goes.

I've got a fair bit of work to get on with so who knows, I might not even get around to it, but i can't felp feeling this is something that needs to be done sooner rather than later - possibly even before I start on the nonslip areas.

 

 

[MargeandParge]

Wash it with wash and wax, let it dry and give it a coat of Show Room Shine available at Lathams or on line its easy. Then see what you've got and go from there . Fireclay G3 scratch remover is good for Marks and scratches. It won't look as good as Mouldies but it will look loads better and you will see what needs messing with.

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

[ZimbiIV]

Every 2 years, when out of the water, I used G10 then 3 coats of wax all applied by hand for better control.

Then deck area waxed twice a year and if I say so myself it did look like new.

paul

[dom]

42 minutes ago, wooster said:

I hear what you say about hire boats not having had many aggressive cleanings. Is this pretty much standard? Part of me feels that when they are sitting over winter the boatyard might be tempted to use their labour to do just that.

My experience only relates to a couple of yards which did more than average to look after appearance during the course of the season, so may differ from others. In general, it was always the case that boats got a good scrub with something lightly caustic. Jif was always popular - I swear it was slightly coarser before it's renaming to Cif, but still pretty gentle. Full on polishing generally only happened fairing in gelcoat repairs.

I think full polishing has become a lot more common in recent years, probably due to the reduced cost of all the things required to do it and better quality polishes. I think smaller yards also tend to do it more often, as they keep older boats going for longer by necessity, because there simply aren't the boat numbers there once were.

Hire boats also tend to get a lot of issues like star crazing, from being slammed into quay headings, so yards would probably use spare winter labour to paint, rather than polish. That's assuming there's any labour to spare. Most of it got used up routinely with things like antifouling, servicing running gear, etc.

I can only recall seeing one boat with gelcoat blown through in recent years. Surprisingly, it was a Storebro, which you tend to associate with heavy GRP layup. The damage was however on a roof area which I suspect had also been walked on a lot over the years.