As we know, gelcoat glazes our boats into its finest. Overtime, stains and minor scratches will appear slowly mounting up our boat’s beauty and can reduce your gelcoat’s luster. With gelcoats, you need not to have a costly paint makeover. What you need are gelcoat maintenance routines should be done regularly.
How can you ensure that you are doing the best of your ways to restore it?
Check out tips to get right with gelcoat maintenance:
CLEAN YOUR BOAT’S SURFACE WITH SOAP.
The first thing you need to do is to clean the entire surface of your boat with boat soap. It is much better to use this kind of cleaning agent compared to dish soaps to remove any accumulated dirt. Just mix the right amount of warm water together with soap on a pail, then dip a mop into the soapy mixture, and spread the mop along the boat’s surface.
TAPE OFF ALL FITTINGS THAT CAN’T BE REMOVE.
To avoid any damage in the cleaning process, so as not get scuffed up by the buffer, you must tape off all irremovable fittings like the boat’s rub rail, and other items. Next, get a good oxidation remover and thoroughly buff the gelcoat with a heavy duty buffer. Make sure to place the buffer on the fiberglass first, before pressing the power button, or else your buffer could spill the liquid away. Keep your buffer moving to make an even shine.
APPLY BEE’S (PASTE) WAX.
For the next step, apply a protective coating of bee’s wax by hand. By using bee’s wax, it’ll now be easier to remove fish blood, scales, and chum stains.
APPLY SOME POLISH.
After applying bee’s wax, you need to apply another protective coat that will help seal the gelcoat, making it shinier than ever. In this procedure, you can use either fiberglass polish (for longer-lasting shine) or carnauba wax (for brightest shine). Both of these can do a graceful finish, depends on the quality you want. In applying this coating, you can use a power buffer but remember to change the bonnet first (never to mix cleaners, oxidation removers, waxes or polishes on the same bonnet).
REMOVE SOME EXCESS POLISH AND DRIED WAX.
As the wax or polish dries, change bonnets again and use a clean one to remove excess coatings.
PUT ON A SECOND COAT.
Hey! Think you’re finished? Now it’s time for your boat to have another coating. First coats are not really an assurance to bring out some remarkable shine. Take note, the entire second coat, should be done by hand to prevent so the buffer doesn’t remove much on the first coating as you apply the second coating.
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