Polish? Wax?

[sheilalc]

I have a 2012 Limited 242 and the blue on the top part of the boat is fading. Can someone tell me what you recommend to bring the color back and what I can use to cover a couple scratches. Thank you!

 

[Wake_Dude]

I've had good success with this formula with a previous boat; you're probably going to get 100 different responses, but here it goes.

Items needed:

Variable speed rotary polisher/buffer.
Wool buffing pad.
Polishing Foam Pad, blue.
3M Marine Rubbing Compound
3M Marine Finesse-IT II Glaze
3M Scotchgard Marine Liquid Wax
A case of your favorite Beer!!

-Wool pad w/rubbing compound, lower RPM range, don't crank it up! Take it nice and slowwwww...... Don't want to risk burning through your gelcoat. Back and forth/circular/variable motion. Never sit in one spot.
-Wash boat thoroughly!!!
-Foam pad with Finesse glaze. Slightly higher RPM. Same variable movement with the polisher.
-Wash boat thoroughly!!!!!
-Apply wax.
-Pass out because this took all day and your drunk. LOL
-Next morning, wake up and say "damn, that shit looks good!".

** Now, if you have scratches, wet sand those shits out prior to buffing with water and a few drops of liquid soap mixed in a spray bottle. Use progressively finer grits as necessary until you are at 1500-2000. Starting grit depends on how deep the scratch is. Wash boat thoroughly!!! Proceed to polishing steps above.

 

[zipper]

This Spring I used these 3M products on 31 year old oxidized gelcoat and had great results.





Hard to see the true results on a white hull, oh and yes it was a 35' hull of a sailboat and a lot of work.

X2 on @Wake_Dude 's last item on the list if you don't have to drive back from the boat yard. lol

 

[dan144k]

There also is a product called Shurhold Buff Magic, to get rid of scratches and oxidation and it works well.
Then follow up with a marine polish. Final sealer a lot of people use Rejex to make the shiny last longer.
Make sure to get a dual action machine, it is safer to use than a pure orbital

 

[johnso30]

Just use caution with wet sanding. You will only be able to remove surface scratches. If the scratch is too deep and you keep going after it with sanding, you can end up removing all the gel coat.

Like Wake_Dude and Zipper, I would use a rotary buffer with compound - I’ve been having good success using Ardex 600 and then following up with Menzerna 400. That will clean up light scratches and remove oxidation/fading. I would do that first, and then if after doing that that there are still deeper scratches that you want to take care of, then research how to patch gel coat.

 

[zipper]

How about a picture of the oxidation on your blue gelcoat to see what you are dealing with. Before I bought a rotary buffer, all I had was a porter cable D/A. I had a lot of oxidation on my orange hull, so I removed the graphics on my 07 in 2017 and started wet sanding with 3M 1000 grit, in hindsight 800 might have been a better paper to start with. I took a weekend and wet sanded the hull with 1000 then 1500 then 2000. I then used the d/a and foam pads with a heavy cut oxidation remover/cleaner. Then a polishing compound and finally wax. Since then I added the Shurhold rotary polisher and wool pads, which are more aggressive than a d/a with foam pads and work much quicker. The sailboat I did this Spring took me a couple of days, only because my arms were falling off. Here are some pics.of the AR230 in 2017.









This ^^ was after wet sanding with 2000 grit. Then I buffed and waxed.



And this is how she looked last August 2021 before we sold her. Easy to maintain once the oxidation is gone.