boat polish

[Guest]

Anyone want to comment on Lotus Cars in GRP ?

For many moons Lotus have been using GRP shells on the cars such as Elite's etc.

Many manufacturers of Auto polishes have used Lotus cars as advertising tools .......

Strange that !

 

[castaway]

Re: Anyone want to comment on Lotus Cars in GRP ?

Are they not painted though? Suppose that would make a difference.

Nick

 

[VicS]

I used G3 rubbing compound from Farecla Products (www.farecla.com), obtained from a local car paint stockist, on a very faded and dull red hull with excellent results. Farecla now market a fibreglass rubbing compound under the "Boatpride" brand name. See the web site for the full range of products.

The key to success is to use a proper compounding mop, on a polishing machine or slow speed electric drill, kept wet. Do small areas at a time say 1sq. m. You can finish off with a silicone free polish but I'm not sure that it contributes much.

The results were truly spectacular but it takes a while.

 

[romany123]

Hi Vic
yes thats the stuff I use, its worth the effort. I applied newglass to my hull yesterday and the results where spectaculare, I was a bit worried after the first two coats that it was looking patchy I ended up putting six coats on it took me about 3 hours but well worth it and i still had a fair bit left its realy easy to apply no hard work. The most difficult bit is doing a propper cover ,its hard to tell where you left off so i used blue tack to mark rhe area I had done (not rocket science but it works). The true test is what it looks like next year.



Dave

 

[Guest]

Is silicone based polish a problem for GRP hulls? I have intuitively avoided using any, but am I just being paranoid?

Ray

 

[vyv_cox]

Boat polish update

Thanks to a shortage of time on the day, the hoist came for my boat at launch time when I had only polished one side of the hull. The whole hull had been washed with a boat detergent product and Black Streak Remover (highly recommended). The polish being used was a Teflon based liquid, I think by Starbrite but I may be mistaken. It was applied with an automotive orbital polishing machine. The boat is normally berthed facing south, so that sunlight is more or less equally distributed over both bows.

By August the polished side was looking very yellow, the unpolished side distinctly less so. I cleaned both sides using Teak Brite, containing oxalic acid. Both sides of the hull were restored to whiteness. Last weekend the polished side was again distinctly yellow, whereas the unpolished side looked as white as I left it in August.

I think that this experience supports what others say in the thread. Try a small area in a long-term test before committing to the complete hull. Next year I intend to use fine rubbing compound only and see what happens. Farecla seems like a good one to start with.