22 foot Sunesta

Dear forum members,

Yestersay I did a 22 foot Sunesta that was very heavily oxidized. It is a 20 year old boat and I am not sure if/when it was last polished but it needed it. The gelcoat felt like sandpaper. I started washing down with bar keeper's friend on a wash mitt and then went behind drying it off section by section. This I did really just to ensure anything that could be washed away before introducing a pad to the surface. I then proceeded to buff the gelcoat down with Marine31 heavy cut oxidation remover on LC foamed wool pads on my Makita 5000C. Working in small sections was important because the dry gelcoat seemed to limit working time.

The first thing you notice on really dry, abused gelcoat is how hard a gear driven polisher will bite into the oxidation - and will want to pull away from you. Said another way, you have to pay strict ateention to controlling the polisher and taking extra care to keep the pads lubricated and clean. The aforementioned combination ate through the oxidation and brought back a very nice shine to the coat - and also brightened the white a shade or two. I then followed up with hi Def Sealant on my GG6 using LC thinpro pads to add some durability to this fresh water-only boat.

The first pic pic is the before pic and the others are after pics. There wasn't much sun yesterday so it was hard to photograph well. All told it was around 9 hours and lots of pads! PS one 16 ounce bottle was more than enough - still have half a bottle left.

22 Sunesta - AutogeekOnline Gallery

22 Sunesta - AutogeekOnline Gallery

22 Sunesta - AutogeekOnline Gallery

22 Sunesta - AutogeekOnline Gallery

22 Sunesta - AutogeekOnline Gallery



Thanks for reading
ScottH