Polish and wax combination worth it?

[Somerset Jim]

Our boat is 19 years old in a good cosmetic state having been professionally waxed and polished last July and I’m wanting to keep her looking that way. I used to polishing and waxing cars, mostly by hand, but this is a bigger task and I’m looking at buying a machine polisher for the job. There is plenty on which polisher is best from other threads but the products are a different story.

In the interest of keeping the amount of time down I have found international polish and wax which seems to tick the required boxes. Does anyone have any experience of this or any alternatives which may be better?

International Boatcare - Polish and Wax

 

[tico]

personally I use Autoglym polish and International wax as ive found that to be a good combination.... others will have their own views. Couldnt get on with the international polish as I found it really difficult to get off.

 

[Switch]

If your GRP is in good condition then you can't go far wrong with this stuff. The The light and medium cut include wax.

 

[Dino]

I’ve had some good results with 3M Marine Restorer and Wax. It seemed to do a decent job of restoring the shine but I’m not sure how good the wax protection was

 

[GaryJeffery]

I have a 1981 Princess 30 DS took me a while to get the hull gel coat fixed up to a good condition . Once there I have maintained it with Farecla G3 products, I use a 1500 grit wet n dry gently first (wrapped round a sponge), with water to remove any oxidation and okd wax, then rinse off with clean water and sponge if needed, once dry use a rotary polisher with a woolly type “bonnet” with the Farecla G3 fine finishing compound fine cutting cream, wash off with clean water and a sponge after, then I apply Farecla G3 fine finishing wax (has purple bits on the bottle) by hand with a micro fibre cloth you can be a quicker than a machine as you are only applying the wax, not polishing it, use don’t skimp on the wax for best effect, once dried to a cloudy finish, polish off with the rotary polisher using a new Wooly bonnet, repeat the wax steps as many times as you can put up with it, I usually do two, comes up really glossy/shiny and seems to last most of the season being splashed by salty water and regular rinse offs. That whole process takes me 1/2 to 2/3 of a days effort, not rushing. (Boat out of the water) in my late 50’s so I feel the pain after! Only for a day tho. Got the Farecla stuff from East Coast Fibreglass Supplies (in UK) as I was getting other stuff and price was competitive. But you can save a little on Amazon looking at the prices.

 

[andy59]

I use 3m Finesse it to polish and then apply Collinite 885 heavy duty fleetwax, as recommended by Marine reflections ( on here ) when we first bought Sea-Esta. I can't get my head round these all in one polish/wax combinations as IMHO you polish OFF all the ingrained dirt and old wax and then wax ON to perfect clean surface. When you see the crap that build up on the mop head ( i wash it out about 4 times doing hull ) you wonder how a wax application at the same time is possible !.

 

[Somerset Jim]

Thank you everyone. I’m going to use 3m polish and wax since the hull doesn’t look particularly dIrty. if time allows then I’ll go over with a wax finish.