Turtle Wax cutting compound on gel coat?

[Stoker1]

Looking to buy a variable speed buffer and do up the old bay rig. Its oxidized pretty bad. Before spending $20+ a bottle for the good stuff I wanted to ask you guys if regular Turtle Wax in the green can will be alright?

I would then go over it with a good polishing compound (think Turtle Wax again) and finish it up.

Did rub out a small spot with it and it turned out alright. Though it did leave a lot of orange residue behind, it came out with a good bit of effort with the polish.

Feedback?

[racerx]

It will take a long time and only give a by the eye better lookin finish ,but when you put it in the sun it wont give the wow kinda look..

[Stoker1]

So go with the stuff made specially for gelcoat?

[mach1magnum]

i used polyglow on a few boats i owned restores to like new no more waxing just a yrly coat of this plastic coat looked great on my boats great for older boats makes them look like when they are still wet http://www.poliglow-int.com/

[tony97gt]

Wax has no cutting properties at all, polish has no protecting properties at all. First you need to do a good strip wash on the boat with blue dawn soap, that will remove any existing wax or surface protectants that might be remaining on the surface. Once you do that you should do a clay bar over it to remove any contaminants that might be stuck to it. Then, you can get a compund to cut the surface and start getting rid of the swirls/scratches. If it's pretty bad I would get a heavy compound and you're gonna need to hit it hard. Gelcoat is very tough and and requires a lot of heat to get it corrected. Once you do that, you can move up to a finer compound and eventually a finihsing polish. your last step should be a wax to protect the surface you just corrected. Now that's a lot of work but once you do that, you will have a deep wet shine on that thing. How much time you put into it, and the amount of money you spend on products will determine how good of a result you get. An orbital buffer will pretty much get you no useful results, it doesn't generate enough heat to work the polish and fix the imperfections. I only use Adam's Polishes from www.adamspolishes.com on my cars and boat. It's not the cheapest, but it's some of the best. Check out their videos on youtube to get more tips and tricks. Volume 8 is the latest.

EDIT: Orbital is the lowest on the scale of correcting power, then comes DA (dual action), then rotary. Rotary should only be used by experienced detailers, you can burn the surface pretty easily.

[JohnR]

Depending on how badly oxidized it is you may want to wet sand in one or more steps before using compounds, polishes, and waxes. I can hunt down the link to the thread where I did mine if you'd like. I was a newbie at it but got pretty good results.

John

[Stoker1]

I did detailing at a Ford lot as a young man with a variable speed rotary buffer/polisher (sorry if I implied oribital). It did take some getting used to the feel but I'm not familiar with gelcoat. In this case, with the rain coming this weekend, I may just get some sheets of 1500-2000 grit wet sandpaper and give a try on a few areas before purchasing the buffer.

[JohnR]

Gel is tough stuff. If its oxidized bad you may want to start with 600 or 800. Mine looked like crap right up until I hit it with the compound. Then it started coming back really nice. Gotta do all the steps or it won'tlook as good as it could when you're done.

[JohnR]

http://checkmate-boats.com/forums/sh...highlight=Buff

[tony97gt]

Start with the least aggressive method first, might save you a lot of unececssary effort.