Porous gelcoat

[saugeye]

Have any of you seen this before? Very hard to clean.

[77SceptreOB]

Are you saying your gel coat is faded and sun bleached thus it is hard to clean?

[DonV]

Here ya go! Yeah it's a lot of work but this is how you do it!

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-m...olish-wax.html

[saugeye]

I was told by someone that this happens to old boats

[77SceptreOB]

check this thread out...

http://www.classicseacraft.com/commu...ight=poly+glow

[DonV]

Well...no kidding, yeah it does! Stand out in the sun for 40 years like your boat has and see what happens. The sun is really a bitch on most everything including gelcoat. You may have to go the 400, 800, 1200 grit sandpaper route to get rid of the oxidation. Then the polish and wax procedure. Depends on how sever the oxidation is. The nice thing is when you get it done it's much, much easier to maintain the shine.

[saugeye]

Yea it's the top side. Floor, sides gunnels, bow top that are porous. It is miserable to clean. Maybe power wash, then buff it out like was stated in the article.

[saugeye]

Dirt and grime are really tough to clean up

[Bushwacker]

Even new gel coat, which is just pigmented polyester resin, is relatively porous, plus the resin itself isn't really water proof, and it only gets worse with time and UV exposure if not protected. If the boat is in North Dakota, the very labor intensive scrub-wet sand-compound-wax-buff process described in that great link DonV posted might work, but if you were in S. Fl., you'd get to do it all over again in about 6 months!

Although I was admittedly skeptical when I first saw a boat-show demo of it, I've been using Poly-glo for about 7 years now, and I'm a believer! Some minor touch up every 1-2 years sure beats the hell out of waxing every 3 months that it'd take to keep it looking as good as the Poly-glo! They also make some aerosol stuff called Poly-strip that does a real good job if you need to remove it. The cleaner used with the 3M pad in the kit will do a pretty good job of removing heavy oxidation, especially if used full strength, but it sounds like some light wet sanding of the topsides might be advisable, depending on what it looks like after the initial cleaning. Start with the topsides and work down, and use some good nitrile gloves! That cleaner is strong stuff and latex gloves don't hold up very well to it! After cleaning the gel coat should look uniformly dull and faded, but the coating, which appears to be some sort of urethane emulsion, will add lots of gloss and totally seal up the porosity. If the coating lasts a year in S. Fl., it should easily last 2-3 years in North Dakota!

[saugeye]

Most of my issue is with the floor. Grime and sediment are nearly impossible to get out. And is it common to wax the floor?