Boat Detailing! Couple Questions...

[WannabeG]

Yea, i know this isn't auto detailing, but I couldn't find a boat detailing area haha.

Anyways, might be detailing a couple boats here, and was wondering if anyone else has done them. I have hand polished, but never swirl removed. I know that the gel coat is soft and supposed to glide over the water, so you probably want a fairly light pad (for a boat obviously) or do you go aggressive, then light similarly to auto detailing??

Seems a little less intensive than a car from the videos I have watched, but on a much larger thing.

Any tips/pointers would be great. Thanks!

[Mike Phillips]

I would say gel-coats tend to be fairly hard, especially modern gel-coats as technology is always changing. I've worked on some pretty old gel-coat hulls and they always seem to cut a littler easier than anything made in the last 20 years or so...

If you look at Marine compounds, they also tend to be a lot more aggressive than automotive products and there's a number of reasons for this...

If you're just trying to remove light oxidation you might be able to get away with a DA Polisher with a foam polishing or cutting pad and strong cleaner/wax.

If you're trying to chop off heavy oxidation and staining then the fastest way to do it is with a wool pad on a rotary buffer with an aggressive cutting compound.

Sometimes wetsanding is the best option, I sanded down the sides of my hull to remove years of oxidation and faded gel-coat, came out pretty good.

[WannabeG]

Ok, i learned a lot from that!

Will any old car pad work for a boat? Say lake country orange pad and maybe some medium marine polish?

Might give this a try this weekend on my buddies boat and see how it turns out.

Thanks a lot!

[Mike Phillips]

Ok, i learned a lot from that!

Will any old car pad work for a boat? Say lake country orange pad and maybe some medium marine polish?

Might give this a try this weekend on my buddies boat and see how it turns out.

Thanks a lot!

You can always test and check your results and make sure you're getting the results you want before buffing out the entire boat.

If the boat is oxidized you're going to want to use an aggressive foam buffing pad or a Surbuf pad with an aggressive compound or an aggressive cleaner/wax.

The XMT #4 actually works really well on oxidized gel-coats as it's kind of like liquid sandpaper.


Be sure to wax the gel-coat at a minimum afterwards, polishing can help too, especially if the boat has a color to the gel-coat.


Check this out...

1967 Starline Deville - Extreme Makeover















All done...




Lots of this...