Gelcoat repairs, what is this?

[SimonA]

My boat has an olive green gelcoat and is showing the signs of it's 35 year old age. I have been trying Poliglow, which seems to do a good job of making the gelcoat shine, but also shows up every blemish.

I have these patches on the cabin tops, are they oxidization, or is something else going on here? Also does anyone know how I can remove them?

 

[mad_boater]

My boat has an olive green gelcoat and is showing the signs of it's 35 year old age. I have been trying Poliglow, which seems to do a good job of making the gelcoat shine, but also shows up every blemish.

I have these patches on the cabin tops, are they oxidization, or is something else going on here? Also does anyone know how I can remove them?

If they are not too big (hard to tell on the photo) you could try to pollish them out with 'Tcut' but thats hard work.It depends how deep they are in the gellcoat.If they are too deep get an electric driil with a foam head and some rubbing compound G3 obtained at any motor factor that sells automotive paint.The method to use is put it on the faded area and surounding with a paint brush squirt some water on it the use the foam head very lightly so as not to burn the gellcoat keep the area wet dont let it dry out.When its dry get another foam head to pollish it off (you could do this bit by hand) after that apply a coat of pollish.If this works you might have a go at the rest of the hull you will be amazed at the finnish you can get on old gellcoat

 

[aquatom]

It's a lot quicker to use some 1500 wet and dry sand paper first then polish. You can't do this more than once or twice as you will go through the gel coat.

 

[SimonA]

Thank you.

I went with the wet sanding method, followed by compounding by hand, then cleaning, then applying Poliglow. The results are very pleasing.