Hull restoration - advice needed

This link might help.

Wet Sanding the 80's Hull

Nick

We just started sanding down ours. Its an '86 and the dark grey looked horrible. Inthe past, we buffed & buffed with minor results. After following the advice on ccf we found wetsanding is better and faster. Been using 800 & 600 wetsand paper to get the fade out then plan to use 1500 - 2000 on the final pass before compound and buffing.

Been at it for the last 2 weekends only putting in about 4 hours off and on - gotta play too! - each day. We are making great progess. The trick is to work in small sections and don't get ahead of yourself.

I will posts some pics of our efforts in a few days.   

Skicat....that looks GREAT !! I hope I can get at least the same results. Did you wetsand by hand or using a DA or orbital ?

I did my wet sanding by hand. All of the compounding I use a high speed buffer.

I did my wet sanding by hand also. I had one of my kids stand over me with a spray bottle full of water and keep spraying to remove the residue, or if your alone, keep dipping the sandpaper in a bucket of water you have to keep it nice and wet.

I would start with a heavy compound on a wool pad and high speed buffer and see what kind of results you get. don't be afraid to get aggressive with it.

62 wood wrote: kchick, You might want to start on the transom to get a feel for what works best,that way you can try a couple of options without the worry of blending in a whole side.. Im working on a very oxidized blue cuda right now, compounding is working ok for this boat.

Good theory Steve, but he's got a 91 with the euro tail. The transom is likely white (or whatever they call white, silvercloud perhaps?).   His major oxidation is likely in the red stripe which is only along the side. BKH

kraftchick wrote: probably just needing a good compounding. I am going to do it by hand though.

I really, really, really doubt you will get satisfactory results using compound by hand. You would need arms like Superman and it would still take ten years.
I picked up a high speed buffer from Harbor Freight for $30, worth every penny.

skicat wrote: My arms are sore with the buffer.

The trick is to keep your muscles relaxed by consuming lot's of cold beer

It took me many weeks to get the finish back, I had to do the entire boat, top to bottom. It was worth every bit of effort and I'm glad I did the work myself. I learned a lot, and every time I look at it or get a compliment on how great it looks, I get that nice warm fuzzy feeling
My neighbor thought that I had taken the boat and had it repainted.

All these wet sanding threads got the better of me. I noticed even Chopper did it! I have that many things to do on the 2 SN2001's I imported I constantly change tasks at hand.

Anyway I started wet sanding my 89 the weekend. The oxidation on the maroon stripe was bad I had to go down to 400 grit is some parts to remove it.

The fading or yellowing of the white where some pinstriping was next to the stripe never looked like being able to sand out. Went at it for a while with 400 grit but pulled up did not want to go through the maroon stripe as I was removing a fair bit of gel. In a couple of spots it looked as though there was a yellow colour under the maroon.

Will just have to replace pinstriping the same as original pattern and some matching maroon vinyl on front & rear of deck also to cover the fading.

I suppose it was a Florida boat would have seen a lot of sun. I think Pete may have been right in another post it is though the dirt has got into the gel that was exposed (gelcoat is porous?) I think keeping polish on the hull would haved help prevent this but I dont think my 89 ever seen many polishing rags.

Managed to get the transom, one side and the front deck done with 600 & 800 grit over the weekend. I did use 400 in a couple of spots. Sanded the skin of my hands as well!

Not much of a sheen on it yet was going to hit it with 1000 grit before compounding but I managed to buy some compounding grit that says it will remove 800 grit scratch marks will post some after pics when finished componding.

Ha, I know what your arm feels like! LOL

FWIW, your stripe color will probably be underneath most of the gel on the hull. The stripe itself may be very deep, but that is only speculation. I'm not sure how the factory did in when they sprayed the mould, but my dark blue stripe color is under the grey on the bottom....not sure if that is true up on the sides, but I'll probably find out?!!?   LOL

I used regular poly resin with lots of mil fiber mixed in to fix the places I've done so far and then sprayed gel over it. There's more to it like preping the area to be fixed and fairing it in before the gel but not that big of a deal. The mil fiber does make the sanding fun?!!?

You already started the repair by getting the surrounding gel back to 'true' color! Looking good!