Gelcoat took way to long, need rotary

[Lakeside Detail]

Hi guys, I worked on a sea-doo speedster today that had faded and oxidized gel coat.

The most aggressive combo I had was a rupes 15 and foamed wool pads with m105. Of course I had very poor pad rotation with the foamed wool so I had to use a megs MF cutting pad too. The correction process was very slow and the whole day I wished I had a rotary and wool pad. The same customer has another jet boat that he wants me to do, but this one is even worse condition!!

I've never operated a rotary before but I have good common sense plus I have been using DA for a while. I am ordering a DeWalt DWP849X tonight plus some wool pads and delaying the second boat until next week.

What are some good wool pads to order? Also a good compound for gel coat? I tried d300 but the pink residue was a bear to remove from white gel coat. I assume I need at least m105 as far as cut power. I need something that is easier to remove the residue from gel coat.

[statusdetailing]

Go with marine grade compounds. AG sells some good compound/wax (AIO) combos. Meg's makes good, durable wool pads. Most automotive products are going to leave nasty residue and get in the pores of the gel coat and dry out. No bueno.

[statusdetailing]

Marine 31 Gel Coat Heavy-Cut Cleaner Wax, best boat cleaner wax, gel coat cleaner wax (http://www.autogeek.net/best-boat-cleaner-wax.html)

I know Mike has some good reviews on this product. If I remember right, there's even a video floating around.

[Lakeside Detail]

Yeah, I have that marine 31 product. Just bought it. Heavy cut cleaner wax. Doesn't cut near enough. Maybe on a rotary it would. M105 was way more effective for me. Way more. If I were relying on marine31 Heavy cut cleaner wax I would not of got the job done period! Funny, everything I read on here about boat detailing and I must of missed the post about car products leaving residue that wont come out of gel coat. Most were pushing product that didn't work at all for me. After 6 section passes the gel coat looked the same!! No joke. I wasn't going to bring it up but seeing the link just made me, lol

[davidc]

3M is pretty much a standard for wool pads

Dave

[David Hayward]

Yea a rotary will definitely make quicker work of real bad stuff. Here is the last boat I finished the hull on. I'm doing top side Saturday I'll get some good pictures with my dslr. This was oxidized enough to leave chalky white on my hands when wiping it. It's a 33 foot 1988 tiara.

I used my griots garage da and a 6.5 inch pink Lake country css pad cleaning the pad regularly with the pad cleaning bucket system. I use chemical guys phase v polish and finished with chemical guys jet seal.

Best pictures I could get only had cell phone for these before and after.

[davisautodetail]

I tried the Marine 31 on a heavily oxidized boat recently, on both rotary and wool and my flex with cutting pad. I actually found that the M101 worked faster and with better results on this particular boat, better cut, and less effort. I send the Marine 31 back to AG. It's good stuff, but I found the M101 better for what I was working with.

[Andr3wilson]

Scholls makes excellent wool cutting pads. Really hard. Foamed wool isn't super aggressive.

[primo spaghetti]

Scholls makes excellent wool cutting pads. Really hard. Foamed wool isn't super aggressive.

true story...

and you have to get aquabuff 1000 and 2000 for the compound/polish.

[statusdetailing]

Sounds like you know all the answers already. Rotary is definitely the right choice or a forced rotation machine like the flex at the least.

[Lakeside Detail]

Yup sure do, thanks guys!!