How to wetsand, cut and buff a gel-coat boat

[EXTJosh]

Re: Pictures: Shearwater Extreme Boat Detailing Class

This was awesome!!!

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: Shearwater Extreme Boat Detailing Class

Here are the final results from a LOT of hard work and teamwork...

:dblthumb2:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: Shearwater Extreme Boat Detailing Class

More....

This is the flash off my camera, if you look closely you can see my outline in the hull... (barely)

:dblthumb2:

 

[FrankS]

Re: Pictures: Shearwater Extreme Boat Detailing Class

Nice work Mike on the post and the pictures! :dblthumb2:

The guys did a great job as usual. rops:

Chris did a fine job on the motor. :buffing:

We'll have to see what we can do about helping John get his 1987 Yugo. Im the MAN

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: Shearwater Extreme Boat Detailing Class

Here's some shots of the products we used...

Marine 31 Products

Flex PE 14 Rotary Buffer & Flex 3401 Forced Rotation and Forced Oscillation Polisher

Rupes TA50 Mini Sander (used as a Mini Polisher)

Porter Cable 7424XP

Rupes for Machine Damp Sanding
And to machine sand the black gel-coat hull, we used the Rupes 5" #3000 grit discs, 5" Rupes Interface Pads and the Rupes Duetto.

The Rupes Duetto 12mm Orbital Polisher or Orbital Sander

Close-up pictures of the new Rupes Duetto 12mm Orbital Polisher



I think this is the the first boat machine sanded using the Rupes Duetto and Rupes sanding discs in the United States? And documented?


I love doing firsts in the industry...


:dblthumb2:

 

[johnpingol]

Another great experience with Mike and the Guys, I honestly didn't think it would turn out so good. It shows the right process, products and technique yields awesome results. Yugo? No way, more like a 1974 Vega.

 

[House of Wax]

HO LY crap that is amazing! This has me super pumped to do my boat that I bought used last year this weekend

 

[Znig22]

This looks great Mike, You and the guys nailed it! Thanks for sharing the knowledge and products with us all.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Another great experience with Mike and the Guys, I honestly didn't think it would turn out so good. It shows the right process, products and technique yields awesome results.

Thanks for all your hard work John to help with this transformation.

Yugo? No way, more like a 1974 Vega.

Sorry... couldn't help but play that game,

Create caption for this picture....

John
In the background John contemplates his life and thinks about buying and restoring his dream car a 1987 Yugo.

Just to let everyone know, I also took some pictures of this boat outside the next day, will post them as soon as I can.


:dblthumb2:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

This has me super pumped to do my boat that I bought used last year this weekend

Just tackle it step-by-step.


I did some testing on the side of this boat and while we could have just used rotary buffers and the heavy cut compound in the Marine 31 line after testing it was faster, MUCH FASTER to wetsand the hull and then remove the sanding marks.

The water spots in the hull actually penetrated deep into the gel-coat, it was very surprising.

So before tackling the project be sure to do some testing to find the process that works the best for the condition of your boat.

 

[Tato]

Wow!, I told earlier this was an ambitious project, and looking the follow up pictures, it went even further than possibly expected!

Congratulations to everyone who worked on this boat, it looks gorgeous after you all touched it. I'd call it the 'Midas project', turned into gold after all your care, no doubt about it.

Mike, thanks for sharing, also for always joining people together to make these wonderful things happen in this enjoyable, friendly and respectful manner.

Kind Regards.

 

[David at LC Pads]

Looks fantastic! Oxidation removal on boats is a lot of work!

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Wow!, I told earlier this was an ambitious project, and looking the follow up pictures, it went even further than possibly expected!

Congratulations to everyone who worked on this boat, it looks gorgeous after you all touched it. I'd call it the 'Midas project', turned into gold after all your care, no doubt about it.

Mike, thanks for sharing, also for always joining people together to make these wonderful things happen in this enjoyable, friendly and respectful manner.

Kind Regards.

Thanks for your comments and kind words.

Happy to say... there's more boats for the future... in fact, we might have a 1960 Glastron wetsanding project here next week.

It has fins!

 

[aim4squirrels]

Mike, a couple of questions if you don't mind...

In your opinion, would the flex 3401 have been enough to remove the holograms in the gel coat caused by the previous detail? I know you had sanding to do due to heavy oxidation, but if some detailer were to run across a boat in better condition with holograms to deal with, could the forced oscillation machine handle it, or would a rotarywith foamed wool or heavier down cutting pad be enough? Gel coat is much different than clear coat.


Also, has any company to your knowledge come out with a coating for gel coat? Sealants are more common, but a boat that can spend a couple seasons in the lake without needing to be pulled out to be refreshed seems like it would be a big winner.

 

[House of Wax]

I'm really interested in hearing about the coating thing too. My in laws have a boat that stays in the water all summer and the red in it fades bad every year

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Mike, a couple of questions if you don't mind...

In your opinion, would the flex 3401 have been enough to remove the holograms in the gel coat caused by the previous detail? I know you had sanding to do due to heavy oxidation, but if some detailer were to run across a boat in better condition with holograms to deal with, could the forced oscillation machine handle it, or would a rotary with foamed wool or heavier down cutting pad be enough? Gel coat is much different than clear coat.

Great questions, thank you for asking them....

The answer in my opinion is "no". The holograms appeared to be deep into the gel-coat from what I could tell after doing some testing with the rotary buffer.

To recap from the beginning of this thread because a picture tells a thousand words, here are the hologram pictures I posted that were already in the boat when it arrived.

Holograms in gel-coat

The below picture is a full size section cropped out of the above resized picture. The lines you see running back and forth across where the flash from my camera is lighting up the side of the hull are holograms from a rotary buffer.

How deep holograms are depends on a few factors,


1. How coarse the abrasives were in the product used.

2. How hard the last detailer pressed the buffing pad against the gel-coat.

3. How worn out the wool pad was as a worn wool pad becomes more coarse and abrasive and the opposite from gentle to the surface.

4. How often the detailer cleaned the wool pad and what they used to clean it with. A screwdriver tears up a wool pad, a steel pad cleaning spur cleans without tearing.


I did not test to see if a Flex 3401 by itself would remove the holograms because of the severe oxidation and deep water stains but in my opinion, had the hull been in "new" condition with ONLY the holograms I don't think the Flex 3401 would have removed them or at least removed them effectively enough or fast enough to warrant the use of this tool.

Also, has any company to your knowledge come out with a coating for gel coat? Sealants are more common, but a boat that can spend a couple seasons in the lake without needing to be pulled out to be refreshed seems like it would be a big winner.

At this time I don't know of any companies that are coming out or launching a new coating for boats. I believe GTechniq offers coatings for boats and actually got their start in the marine world, not the automotive finishes world.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

I'm really interested in hearing about the coating thing too. My in laws have a boat that stays in the water all summer and the red in it fades bad every year

That's probably always going to be a problem as the pigment used to create the red family of colors seems to be more prone to oxidation than any other color. At least that I've seen in my life.

The best practice for any boat is an answer nobody likes to hear but here it is anyways and that's regular maintenance. It's faster to go over a boat real often with a light polish and sealant to maintain a show room new appearance.

It's faster to use a one-step cleaner wax a few times a year than wait so long as to have to do the kind of work we had to do to restore this boat.

 

[House of Wax]

Thanks for the tip. He polishes and waxes it at the beginning of the season every year, but I don't think he does much else throughout the season. I had already planned on suggesting he at least get some spray wax or something to apply occasionally over the course of the summer

 

[aim4squirrels]

Awesome, thanks. I'll look into that GTechinq line.

 

[Shaggy1970]

Mike,
How many man hours did the project take, would you say? Also looks likes all the work went into above the water line. Any tips for tackling a project that needs help below the water line?