Waxing?

[lustyd]

You missed my points. Putting multiple coats of mold release wax on is not in case you miss a bit, it's to build up the layer of wax.

You also said "it's important to understand that the wax doesn't get thicker or provide more protection." this is therefore incorrect.

Yes, but that's a wholly different subject. If you're spraying on wax then yes, you can build up "layers" although in reality it's just one layer getting thicker - that's how wax works. If you're protecting a hull that would be entirely pointless as the wax would very quickly flake off and you wouldn't have a good finish without buffing, and buffing will smush all those "layers" into a single thin one and remove most of the product.

 

[Allan]

Yes, but that's a wholly different subject. If you're spraying on wax then yes, you can build up "layers" although in reality it's just one layer getting thicker - that's how wax works. If you're protecting a hull that would be entirely pointless as the wax would very quickly flake off and you wouldn't have a good finish without buffing, and buffing will smush all those "layers" into a single thin one and remove most of the product.

With respect Mr Lusty, it is not "a wholly different subject". As the OP, my question was basically does wax get thicker if you add more coats. I know of nobody that sprays wax onto boats so that aspect is irrelevant.
As I have said earlier I use 3M liquid wax and therefore use their definitions. Compound (cut), polish, wax. Hopefully that reduces confusion. Personally I'm not a fan of products that contain polish and wax.
Our boat, a late 1990s Bowman built Starlight 35 with a dark blue hull, suffered some oxidation after sailing in Spain and France last year. The previous year, after sailing in Scotland there was very little. I used Buffa 2000 to remove the oxidation before waxing. Next year I will try your recommendation of removing the oxidation with meths or similar.
Allan

 

[lustyd]

With respect Mr Lusty, it is not "a wholly different subject". As the OP, my question was basically does wax get thicker if you add more coats. I know of nobody that sprays wax onto boats so that aspect is irrelevant.

Very confusing then because you agree with me that you don't spray wax onto a boat but for some reason disagree that mould release (where you do spray) is a different subject. In both instances you have a single layer of wax. With one, you buff and spread the wax thinly while the other you spray to build thickness.

Next year I will try your recommendation of removing the oxidation with meths or similar.

It doesn't remove real oxidisation, but what a lot of people assume is oxidisation is actually just chalky wax residue which has been UV damaged. The underlying gelcoat is fine. Unfortunately there are so many posts saying it's damaged gelcoat that people then just polish away their gelcoat, doing more harm than good without ever finding out the truth.

 

[Mister E]

There used to be someone who posted on here that ran a business polishing boats. He gave some really good information in detail about what to use and when.

I think the user name was something like mirror finishers. Unfortunately I can't remember the proper name to give a link.
Maybe someone remembers him and the user name.

 

[stranded]

There used to be someone who posted on here that ran a business polishing boats. He gave some really good information in detail about what to use and when.

I think the user name was something like mirror finishers. Unfortunately I can't remember the proper name to give a link.
Maybe someone remembers him and the user name.

Marine Reflections maybe?

 

[Mister E]

Marine Reflections maybe?

Sounds right.

 

[PaulRainbow]

Yes, but that's a wholly different subject. If you're spraying on wax then yes, you can build up "layers" although in reality it's just one layer getting thicker - that's how wax works. If you're protecting a hull that would be entirely pointless as the wax would very quickly flake off and you wouldn't have a good finish without buffing, and buffing will smush all those "layers" into a single thin one and remove most of the product.

I'm not talking about spraying on wax, i'm talking about hand applying mold release wax. Many coats of this can be applied to build up a layer of wax. Mold release wax is very similar to the stuff you'd wax a boat with, probably just missing the UV protection additives as not needed for mold release use.

The same applies to hand waxing a hull, a car, or whatever. More than one coat can be applied to get a better finish. I've never seen wax flaking off because a couple of coats, or more, have been applied. Some manufacturers actually recommend more than one coat. For mold release some recommend as many as 12 coats, and it doesn't flake.

 

[lustyd]

I've never seen wax flaking off because a couple of coats, or more, have been applied

If you make it too thick it’ll flake off once the UV gets at it. I suspect you do a decent job so it’s never been that thick.

 

[Thresher]

I'm not talking about spraying on wax, i'm talking about hand applying mold release wax. Many coats of this can be applied to build up a layer of wax. Mold release wax is very similar to the stuff you'd wax a boat with, probably just missing the UV protection additives as not needed for mold release use.

The same applies to hand waxing a hull, a car, or whatever. More than one coat can be applied to get a better finish. I've never seen wax flaking off because a couple of coats, or more, have been applied. Some manufacturers actually recommend more than one coat. For mold release some recommend as many as 12 coats, and it doesn't flake.

Just out of interest. Why do you use mould release wax on your boat instead of the stuff that they sell us in automotive shops and chandlers?

 

[PaulRainbow]

Just out of interest. Why do you use mould release wax on your boat instead of the stuff that they sell us in automotive shops and chandlers?

I don't use mold release wax on my boat, never said i did. The thread has been discussing was and release wax since post #5

 

[KREW2]

Marine Reflections maybe?

Yes very good info.
Using his tips I bought my 22 year old Westerly storm from a neglected drab matt white, and a very oxidised blue stripe to showroom conditions.
Wash down with oxalic acid and boat shampoo, rinsed off. Armed with my Dodo juice spin doctor polisher and about 300 pounds worth of 3M pads compounds and wax I beavered away for about 2 weeks.
I won shiniest hull of the year award at our club.

 

[Marine Reflections]

Hi, my apologies for resurrecting a thread from April, but I've only just stumbled across it and found it interesting.

After polishing our dark blue hull, I normally give it a few coats of wax. I use 3M liquid wax. I would be interested to hear if anyone has any knowledge about what improvement I would get from adding more coats?
Allan

More than a few decades ago I was looking after a Stevens Steelboat called Sea King on the Thames and the owner would insist, I apply two coats of 'polish' after a thorough wash down.

Now after washing down almost 12M of boat, chasing off spiders and cursing at geese for leaving me flying presents on the cabin roof, it was an epic task to apply a polish to all of the paintwork - twice!

The 'polish' used was Auto Glym's - Super Resin Polish (still sold in Halfords etc today) strictly speaking it's what I would think of as a 'cleaner polish', there would be an element of surface prep within the product that my washing wasn’t able to provide.
This wasn't grit-based, so the cleaning part was chemical, probably petroleum distillates, uurgh.
I remember thinking, why twice? Surely the cleaning part of the polish is taking off the protection side of the previous application.

I discussed this with the owner over a cup of tea, and he replied, "it's double the protection and also in case you missed a bit".

A few months later I convinced him that a better method would be to use the cleaning polish as the first coat, followed by a second application that focussed more on protection rather than cleaning.
Despite great results at the time, the products of course are not worthy of the combination, today you would use a stand-alone product for preparation (one that had zero protection ability) and another for protection (that had zero cleaning ability). The 'prep and protect' route however was a winning combination.
Now they sell 'wash and wax' or 'cut and polish' in one bottle, it’s tempting to try and save time and initial outlay, but I would personally avoid combining stages with one product in this way. Not to say it won't work, just a preference.


Would you see an improvement by adding more coats?
It would depend on the wax/polish/coating/spray protectant etc and its make-up.
If you had a hard curing stand-alone protective wax, adding another coat on top would, of course, add that extra depth, but many waxes sold to us mere mortals are not like this. Some waxes are astonishingly expensive, google the most expensive waxes and then observe the madness.
Rather than pursue this avenue of having more durability or protective quality with multiple coats versus single applications, perhaps it’s better to consider why we wax or protect the surfaces at all, what are we hoping to achieve?

I always compare a wax or protective coating to an apple skin.

I have an apple in my rucksack right now beside me, emergency food that won’t melt in the heat when left on a pontoon whilst working. The skin on the apple protects the venerable moist fruit within, when I take a bite out of it, rest assured it’s going to be refreshingly delicious. However, observing the fruit after the bite and you’ll soon see oxidation at work, turning the fruit brown.

All sorts of wonderfully difficult things to understand are happening here such as the exchange of free radicals on the surface, the same is happening on our surfaces. An oxidised surface is just that, one that is or has been overly exposed to oxygen.

Consider the depth of apple skin, compared to the depth of fruit it has to protect. All it needs is enough thickness to seal off to oxygen.

Rather than the depth of protection being the deciding factor for durability, it is more down to the quality of the wax, its ability to not melt in the heat, fight off UV etc. It is one of the reasons why more modern protective coatings are ahead of the game. The variables here are vast, such as harder and softer paints and gel coats, surface condition etc.

Other reasons for using protective waxes/coatings/liquid polishes etc is to help the surface be more rejective, dirt is easier to wash off, also the surface has that wetted look. For surfaces that are on the cusp of being oxidised adding a wet look of polish/wax does wonders, for a while.

I often say that I can gain a shine from my living room carpet if I spill a drink on it, the shine will last for as long as it takes for the carpet to absorb it, or for it to evaporate. I should add here that I honestly wouldn’t just sit there and watch a drink get absorbed into my carpet, it’s an example, just thought I’d clarify before you get a mental image of me at home hovering crisps off of my shirt.

My point is that if you are seeing improvements visually from adding a wax or coating albeit temporarily, the surfaces themselves are not ready for protection.

The surface condition itself is the main form of protection, the wax/coating is a cherry on a well-baked cake, not to be confused with being a creator of reflection or a finish to buff. If you feel two coats of wax would improve durability or appearance, then sure as eggs is eggs your surfaces need either cleaning back to raw, and/or working down, rather than adding stuff on top.

That may mean (as someone above pointed out) that there is old stuff on the surface from waxes to water spot build up, this needs to be cleaned off and the surface taken back to a raw condition.



Terminology

It has been ever so confusing over the years as the terminology has morphed, the above use of the word ‘polish’ seems to be no longer the norm, polish now has an element of grit particle, an improver so to speak rather than be, to ‘add’ a coat of polish, it is now termed ‘to polish’, all very confusing.

I’ll refrain from entering the following into Google for a definition, this is how I see the following, it’ll be interesting to see how others term them.

Polish – An improver, either via chemical cleaning or very fine particles. Example – 3m Finesse it. A salad cream consistency of a product, can be applied by hand or machine.

Compound – Surface corrector, I think of a cutting agent when this term is used, toothpaste consistency. Say Farecla 200 as an example, nearly always via a machine.

Wax – Protection only. Usually applied by hand with a sponge applicator.



Tony

 

[ChromeDome]

After decades of annual spring preparation, chasing the latest magic products every year and spending a lot of money on them, I had a product that would last 5 years (they claimed).

By the next spring, water was still beading on the boat, but a winter's dirt and grime still prompted me to do a full cleaning and finish with a protective wax.
So, the idea of perennial protection becomes irrelevant if you do annual rubbing, polishing, and waxing.

I'm aware of the many 2-in-1s (or "a lot of things-in-one"), but I like a step-by-step approach better.

 

[alahol2]

For those not in the know here is Marine Reflections opus magnum... Protection Product Test

My gripe now is that the clear winner on price/performance has been discontinued by 3M with no obvious replacement.

 

[Mister E]

For those not in the know here is Marine Reflections opus magnum... Protection Product Test

My gripe now is that the clear winner on price/performance has been discontinued by 3M with no obvious replacement.

Thanks for posting this. I think that whenever a question is asked about polishing then a link to that thread would be the most useful.
Someone who knows what they are taking about in a non argumentative way.

 

[Dino]

I’m going to jump in here as it looks like a suitable thread. I have a 1998 Broom mobo. It was originally UK based and was then moved to Spain for 15-17 years. I bough the boat 2 years ago and decided to have a go compounding the gelcoat. The hull was in fair condition but came up well with a foam pad and Menzerna 400 heavy cut compound.
The superstructure and decks are not so good. There appears to be brush marks all over the gelcoat. I’m not sure if these are a result of an incorrect mould release wax being left on the gelcoat or if someone brushed something all over the superstructure and decks and let it stain the top surface. I have wet sanded a few areas and managed to get through some of the marks. This was a test area where I wet sanded, compounded and then polished and it came up really well.
I haven’t had a chance to do the full superstructure yet but I did notice that the marks were worse after the winter. I tried treating the marks with Oxalic acid and it lightened the marks but didn’t remove them. I’m planning to do a full wet sand and compound on the superstructure in the spring and I will seal it with a polymer sealant.
Is there any other chemical I can try that might remove these marks?
Is there anything I can do to remove these marks on the non-skid decks?