Updating my system

[GeorgeG]

I have been using Meguiars products on cars and boats for decades with great results but it's time to update my system to take advantage of newer products and reflect the fact that my boat is much older and the gelcoat is more worn. My old system for boats consisted of rotary/DA orbital/hand applied, 49/44/45/56, wool/cutting/polishing pads. I have some questions to help me get started trying some new combinations.

1) Is most to least aggressive imperfection removal?:

91
67
49
44
50/61
63/56

2) Is the new 2.0 pad system enough of an improvement to invest in new backer plates and pads and if so, how are they better?

3) I see that many of the products are listed as either machine or hand applied/removed. Which produces better looking results?

4) When using a machine, are the above products better as hand apply on and machine off or machine on, hand remove?

5) A boat in similar shape as mine was really brought back to life and in talking to the detailer he uses a different approach than I am used to. He omits any 91/67/49/44 even though there is oxidation and instead does multiple rounds of cleaner wax ending with pure wax. Is this a good approach?

Thanks,

George

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Updating my system

Hi George,

Great bunch of questions so let's see if we can help you wade through the product mix and different processes. First off, your list of most to least aggressive is spot on, so that's a great start!

Regarding pads, if you're going to continue to use a mix of rotary and DA tools, for the most part you can stick with what you're doing now. Our latest pads, which actually replace the Soft Buff 2.0 7" pads, have actually been split into rotary specific and DA specific pads. The foam on the cutting and finishing discs is different than the outgoing Soft Buff 2.0 pads; the burgundy cutting pad is designed to run cooler and finish better than previous. The finishing pad is a good bit softer than the previous finishing pad and will finish nicer than previous.

Best results are almost always going to be via machine. Machine polishing will get you to a better finish in a lot less time, too, especially when working on older gel coat. Gel tends to be much harder than automotive paint, and when it oxidizes and ages it can be a real chore (as you well know) to bring it back. Since your boat is getting on in years we highly recommend the M67 One Step Compound for your initial cut and correction, and it works great on a DA especially with the new thin foam cutting disc. A rotary will certainly cut faster, but you run the very real risk of leaving buffer trails (aka holograms) in the finish that then need to be removed with the DA. If you an skip that step completely and just use M67 on the DA, we say do it!

We can see where the detailers approach of multiple passes with a cleaner wax can make a noticeable improvement, but we're concerned that there is a lot of hiding going on, and less actual correcting than you may want. Cleaner waxes, by nature, contain all three of the correct/polish/protect steps in a single product. Correction (cutting) is minimal with a cleaner wax, but it will remove some oxidation especially if aggressively applied with a machine. But the polish in a cleaner wax can go a long way toward concealing oxidation as well. Heck, we can apply M45 Polish to a badly oxidized gel coat and make it look a whole lot better with minimal effort, but we haven't actually fixed anything and the gain will be very short lived. Add to this the fact that this particular detailer was doing multiple applications of the cleaner wax and we wonder why he's spending so much time with a light duty product when he could do one pass with M67 to seriously remove the oxidation, fine scratches, etc in one go. Follow that with one application of Flagship Premium Marine Cleaner Wax to refine the surface, boost the gloss, and add some synthetic protection in a single step and you're done. Two steps, actual correction, and most likely a much longer lasting finish.

[GeorgeG]

Re: Updating my system

Mike

Thanks. If I use a machine, for the 3 classes of products (A: 91/67/49/44 cutting, B: 51/60 cleaner waxes, C: 45/63/56 pure polishes and waxes) do I:

1) Place material on pad, apply/cut to gelcoat, wipe off remaining by hand

2) Hand apply material with brush/cloth/applicator to gelcoat and then buff it off with the machine

3) Something else entirely

The detailers theory on abandoning the cutting/removal first step on older gelcoat is to avoid starting down a rat hole of removing aged damaged gelcoat only to make things worse because you open up more dry pores and then have even worse problems. It does look pretty good considering the starting point and I have seen myself on older gelcoat that you can go through the traditional 3 step process and have good looking initial results followed by disappointment in a couple of weeks as the finish fades back to dull. I have never kept a boat this long and am trying to learn the best approach in my new world. When they are new, it's a lot more obvious how to just touch up some minor imperfections and gloss it up.

Thanks,

George