What to do with gel coat

[Rick]

Alright, this is a new front for me. I have had this for about a year now and had kinda been using it as a beater, but decided it was time to take better care of it. And now that it has 14's, well I just gotta.



It's gel coated. The piece where your feet would drag over when you get it or out of it are scuffed a lot. It spent it's first 3 years of life at a dealership lot so you can imagine how it was probably treated (I have already replaced both half shafts). So I thought DACP would probably be a good starting point. I fired up the porter cable and it worked ok, but wiping it off was almost impossible. I finally had to lay a microfiber against the PC pad and really push down hard on it to get it to come off. The results wern't quite what I was hoping for so I didn't go any farther.

So the question, what do you do with gel coat? Are the marine line products made for gel coat? I'd prefer to use what I already have on it if possible. I have a rotary, does anyone think something like #66 would work well on this?

[Rick]

Anybody?

[Mike Phillips]

Hi Rick,

I think to get those scratches and scuffs out of the fiberglas gel-coat your going to need a rotary buffer and a product with a little more bite. The Marine line products are quite a bit more aggressive than the products in the Automotive line.

Here are two product to try, with either a wool cutting pad or a foam cutting pad.

Color Restorer



Heavy Duty Oxidation Remover



The M-66 might work with a wool cutting pad because the wool fibers in and of themselves are pretty abrasive as far as removing material goes, besides M-66, and M-83, what other aggressive products to you have?

Mike

[Jose Torres]

RE: What to do with gel coat

Just wanted to jump in and add a product to the list.

We've also released a new marine product recently called M67 One-Step Compound. It is a fast cutting one-step compound that cuts quickly and then breaks down to polish the surface to a high gloss. It removes moderate to heavy oxidation, scratches, stains, and water spots from all fiberglass and gel coat surfaces. It can be used effectively by hand or machine application.

[Rick]

I have most of the pro line products. Heavy or medium cut cleaner perhaps? I think heavy cuts the most aggressive product I have. I'm just woundering what the official recommendation was because I had such a horrific time removing the dried 83 that I tried. As far as protectants though any automotive wax should work right?

If I can remove the scuffs great, but if no no biggie. I think it's getting repainted in the not so distant future anyways. Again, I'd like to attempt to use what I have first.

Thanks

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by Rick
I have most of the pro line products. Heavy or medium cut cleaner perhaps? I think heavy cuts the most aggressive product I have.

Again, I'd like to attempt to use what I have first.

Thanks

Hi Rick,

If you have either the #1 Medium Cut Cleaner, or the #4 Heavy-Cut Cleaner, give one of these a try.

Always use the least aggressive product to get the job done"

You could try with a foam cutting pad first and the substitute a wool cutting pad if that isn't aggressive enough.

Another option would be to first wet-sand the scratches out and then remove your sanding marks.

I have to wonder just how hard this gel-coat surface is?

Mike

[Mike Phillips]

Here's the new compound Jose mentioned,

One-Step Compound



Mike

[Rick]

Alright thanks. I'll mess with it tomorrow some and see if I can do anything with what I have. If not then I'll resort to the marine products. And yes the Gel Coat seems to be really hard so something's telling me I'm going to probably end up having to use some pretty heavy stuff, for the scuffs/scratches at least. I'll keep you posted.