Well the Audi A6 Avant full detail is complete..Is a Boat next?

[ReflectiveAuto]

Well this was a total pain in the A*S detail as you can see from the pics. I had to wash it 3 times then finally got to use the Nanosking to take off the contamination well here are some before and after pics. The owner loved it so much wants me to fully detail his 18ft Bayliner...for those who have done boats any tips for me?

[primo spaghetti]

my advice is make sure your polish/compound is white (so long as the hull is white which i'm pretty sure bayliner is).

Gelcoat is full of porosity (little pinholes of air) which COULD hold your product and is a PITA to remove. If it is white, obvisouly it will be less noticable if you cant get it all out.

depending on the level of care the boat has previously had, you also might have to step up the compound step to a rotary with a wool pad...gelcoat really oxidizes strangely and gets a real chalky type of oxidation, which can occur in as little as one season.

[ReflectiveAuto]

Thanks...so is it just like buffing paint? the same steps? I guess I will need marine products for the boat then?

[primo spaghetti]

yeah pretty much the same process...

well i do think the marine stuff is different than the automotive lines. I know some products are specifically designed to work better or specifically with gelcoat than other automotive applications...but I have seen alot of guys using the marine/rv line of DG on the cars with great sucess..so someone obviously thought about experimenting!

Anyhow, what we used to use on boats when i worked at Neptunus (big expensive boat company) was aquabuff 1000 and 2000, but i have no idea where you could even get it.

i have read that the duragloss marine/gelcoat specific stuff seems to get great reviews/results.

here is a good thread to look at too...it had some posts for other gelcoat questions.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/boat-rv-detailing/51945-what-expect-boat-gel-coat.html

[primo spaghetti]

have a read here too...

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/boat-rv-detailing/44909-correcting-oxidized-gelcoat.html