Hull polishing

[PM]

I re-gelcoated my 41 ft. hull and brought the finish up from 180 grit through 600, then compounded it. You can read a newspaper in the reflection. I learned to compound from a pro that does it every day for a living. I doubt you will find a pro doing it much differently than I describe.

3M's foam pads according tp 3M's website are "used to apply polishes and glazes." The 3M site also has instructions on compounding using their High Gloss Gelcoat Compound. Their instructions differ little than mine. They say to use a superbuff wool pad for their compound. They say that after compounding use finesse-it and a foam pad for an even higher polish.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, just informative.

Pat McGuire, 1978 Morgan Out Island 41 "Galatea"
Merrit Island, Fl. Harbor Town Marina

[Seafort]

Oh well first post here.....


Use bungee cord (Elastic) to suspend your polisher from the guard rails. Saves a few aches and pains and allows larger areas to be done in one go.

It's surprising how many friends you can make when they wander over to see just what you're doing...lol

Dave.

[GordMay]

Welcome aboard Dave ~ and Thanks for the GREAT tip!

[sv_makai]

When we bought our last boat a 13 year old Hunter 335 I went a differnt route. I used to work at an auto restoration shop ans saw the amounts of material that buffing and polishing remove. To get a long lasting effective polish the gel coat has to cut and cleaned down the the lowest pore that holds the chalk.

Since there was no physical damage to the gel coat, ie scratches that minor spot buffing couldn't fix, I tried a product that another friend had used.

Island Girl has a multi step cleaning and wax system. It has a non abrasive cleaner that goes into the poeres and lifts the chalk out and reconditons and brightens as well. The wax goes on without rubbing and two coats made it look like water and 3 was awesome.

The more sun the better the process works, compared to waxing and polishing it is fairly low effort. No hard rubbing.

After completing the finish on our boat at the end of the season people couldn't belive out boat was 13 years old.

The finish doesn't yellow or peal like some others. Practical Sailor did a review and it and Poliglow were rated at the top. After a year it still beaded water and was very easy to recoat and clean!

PS: we love this stuff and no I don't own stock in the company.

[irwinsailor]

I like the bungee idea.

[irwinsailor]

Here is something to try.

[capt lar]

Thanks Gunner. Combining this info with the "shine" thread helped me get a better picture.

Capt. Lar

[irwinsailor]

With the New polishing thread going I started to think about this old post.