Shiny gel-coat

[adj]

The discussion concerning orbital buffers has prompted this question.
What is the proper way to clean and protect the gel-coat finish?
At present, I wash and dry my rig and then use McGuires flagship that I purchased at West Marine.
After reading the comments on the orbital buffer, I am now looking for the right stuff to use.

[adj]

The discussion concerning orbital buffers has prompted this question.
What is the proper way to clean and protect the gel-coat finish?
At present, I wash and dry my rig and then use McGuires flagship that I purchased at West Marine.
After reading the comments on the orbital buffer, I am now looking for the right stuff to use.

[Fred and Bonnie]

I do the polishing the old fashioned way, by hand, and use the buffer to bring out a high luster with a microfiber bonnet.

Fred

[Lug_Nut]

If you are going to do your own wheel polishing on your gelcoat make sure you located directions for doing so. Wheel size, wheel RPM, compounds and wheel technique is quite important to ensure not to damage the surface. I recently saw a program describing such projects and I was surprised how much you really have to know. Doing it correctly however sure produces great results.

[Fred and Bonnie]

Your correct lug_nut, most of the instructions call for wheel speed much lower than the everyday buffer/polisher. I was leary of using my buffer, 2400rpm, for anything but the final buffing, after the wax/polish had been removed by hand.

Fred

[NeilV]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Lug_Nut:
If you are going to do your own wheel polishing on your gelcoat make sure you located directions for doing so. Wheel size, wheel RPM, compounds and wheel technique is quite important to ensure not to damage the surface. I recently saw a program describing such projects and I was surprised how much you really have to know. Doing it correctly however sure produces great results. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's so true. Saw a young kid borrow a commercial buffer to do his own and he didn't bother to learn all the details first. He did learn afterwards how much it cost to send it out to a paint shop to fix what he had done. He wasn't bright enough to stop at the first sign of damage and continued on the mess up the whole thing. An education can be quite expensive now can't it.

Regards,

Neil