How to restore oxidized/chalky fiberglass

[Cameron Jaeger]

How to restore oxidized/chalky fiberglass

I have a 27' sport craft, If anyone has any knowledge on restoring chalky/oxidized fiberglass on an boat please let me know it would be greatly appreciated as I would like to try and restore the ol boat near to her original shine. Information on technique and products to use would be awesome.

[Sk8man]

An inexpensive but labor/time intensive way is to use the Attwood cleaner/wax. I thnk you can get it at Walmart etc. for about $10 or so. It will take the oxidation layer off and also shallow surface marks as well.Then to put a real shine use one  of the many boat waxes out there.

Edited April 6, 2017 by Sk8man

[GAMBLER]

Oxidation remover.  3M and Magellains makes a good ones.  Then use color restorer then wax. 

[lakebound88]

Can't go wrong with a wet sand. Compound then wax.

Making your stories, Reel Stories, since 2011!!

[lost a lure]

polyglow is the easy way out

[Adm Byrd]

X2 on Lakebound88's method.

[CK3080]

I followed this thread and it worked out pretty well.

 

http://www.thehulltruth.com/boating-forum/396344-oxidized-gelcoat-makeover-pics.html#b

 

I bought the boat last year and the blue colored hull was pretty oxidized.  Photo is after first round of buffing on one spot.  Shouldve taken better before and afters, but it worked out well.  By the end of the season though, I'd say 30% of the oxidation was back.  Plan on doing the same process this weekend.

[ontherise]

If it's as bad as mine. Nothing but fresh paint will help. Gotta try though.


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[Xxx]

Your on the right track, I used the most aggressive buffing compound that 3M makes, and that worked great, I think it's like 1100 grit wet sanding paper, I burned out a Milwaukee sander/buffer with vari-speed on the second trip around the boat. Long story short they wouldn't stand by there guarantee  so went to harbor freight and bought 2 for less than the Milwaukee, 7"pads they had all the pads black pads are for aggressive and pink and blue I forget the uses but they work!! After 2 trips around the boat my arms felt like they were going to fall off . After 2 trips with the 3M buffing compound I went 2 trips around the boat with Meguiar's Flagship cleaner and wax it's all in one step, works great. Now every spring and fall I just use the Meguiar's flagship, half the time to a almost new shine. What ever you do, DO NOT USE Polyglow!! It's nothing more than hardwood floor wax and yes it turns yellow after a year or two, then you have a mess on your hands. It needs to be stripped off with with a wicked stripper, you'll need rubber gloves and a well vented area, from the fumes, to me it smells like lacquer thinner. I know of a guy that lives up the street from me, he used this Polyglow on his motor home!! 2 years later it looked like a yellowish white, where it used to be snow white. He ended up taking to a auto motive paint shop, and the ins.co. Wouldn't cover it as it was unprofessional and not the correct product used. So a couple thousands later he had a snow white motor home again. Was told if he used that shyt again don't bring it back!!!  Main thing is by doing it right and what you put into it is what you get out of it. Once you get it to where your happy with it, a 1/4 of the time it will take you the following year to bring it back to new with a single coat of Meguiar's Flagship with a buffer and the correct buff pad, and remove with a 100%cotton towel.

[Cameron Jaeger]

Thank you guys for all the advice, it'll help a lot when it comes time to doing it now.

Tight Lines

 

[TileMan Dan]

Yeah, like some of the guys already stated here. Rubbing compound and time. Wet sanding will probably cut some time out but I couldn't wrap my head around that so I just used a fast cut rubbing compound on the first trip around. Took me two days to do from rub rail down water line. But it did look new again.

[Sk8man]

The stuff I mentioend earlier has a mild rubbing compound in it and is not as aggressive with the gelcoat as the automotive rubbing compound.

[EKoselny]

I have a bass boat that had some pretty bad oxidation going on. I tried a couple of the oxidation removers that are available at West Marine and they did not do much to help it. I looked around online and found stuff called Buff Magic and decided to give it a try. I bought a cheap variable speed polisher from Harbor Freight and followed the directions from a couple of videos that I watched. I was very pleased with how this stuff took most of the oxidation off, even after a single use. I wound up doing two passes over the whole boat and then a couple coats of the Buff Magic wax product. I have to say the boat looks pretty good now. I am definitely happy that I tried this stuff. 

 

http://shurhold.com/buff-magic/

 

I bought in on Amazon, it was a little cheaper. 

[batter up]

Go to marinestore.com and check out the MS GEL COAT RESTORATION SYSTEM. I used it on a Wellcraft that had been sitting outside for 10 years. Did the boat two years ago and it still looks like the day it was done.

[vetting]

What year is the boat?  What color is the gel coat that you are trying to restore?  If its colored gelcoat its a battle every single year.  I wet sanded/buff/polished/wax the white parts and then vinyl wrapped my colored stripe that is 3 feet wide.  I tried every single year to fix the grey and finally gave up last year - filled and faired it and then the wrap went on.

 

 

 

 

[Xxx]

I have 2 stripes  in the color brown, that's a pain in the ass!! When I took the boat to get it lettered and some fancy schemes, the guy wanted to put  vinyl stripes over the brown, I said no, how I'm kicking myself in the ass, but I only had X amount of $$$ that came into play also. Maybe I'll get it done this fall winter type deal, yours looks awesome vetting!!! Really gives me a kick in shins to get er done!!!

[vetting]

Yeah vehicle wraps have come a long way since everyone wraps cars now.  If you do it, go with 3m 1080.  If you have a complex structure or dont feel comfortable using knifeless tape, get a pro to do it.  There are plenty of car wrap guys that would love to do a long flat surface.  I paid a pro $300 plus materials to do mine and took an afternoon.

[A*M]

Do this https://www.fiberglassics.com/research/109-restoring-gel-coat.html 

I use the Starbrite UTEF again once at the beginning of the year and once in the middle of summer. .   Had bad oxidation and it never has come back since I did it 3 years ago. Start with 2000 wet sand.  

 

 

[Paul Czarnecki]

Poli glow


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