can i wet sand my old gel coat and buff it out to a shine? or is that a no go?

I did it to a 35 Sundancer years ago......the work sucked but the boat looked incredible!!!

It depends on how bad it is, but I did my entire boat by hand, it took me each weekend for a month, wet sanding, buffing, polishing ect.. You can see the difference when I taped off in the beginning. It definitely works, but I wouldn't do it by hand ever again!

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/f...oxidation.html

This is a 14yrs old boat!

I am sure Glassdave will chime in on this and he will steer ya right.

I did a lot of spots on my boat. All the gel was neglected, not real bad nothing more than a good polish. I did have some spots with small scratches, from a bungee hook, that looked like a two year squiggled with an ice pick on a 2' x 3' foot area.

I started with a 220, then went wet 400, 600, 800, 1000 and 1500. I then polished it and it lcame out great so I did some bumper scratches on the side too. My grit steps may have been a little anal but it came out nice.

thanks. i read through that thread and got a few more links out of it.

I used 1500 grit to wet sand then presta super cut compound with a electric buffer. AMAZING. gel coat looks new. Protected it with colonite fleetwax.

Depends on how bad it is. If its heavy oxidized start at 400 or 600 and work your way up to 1500 or so. After that get some aquabuff 1000 and 2000 and buff for many hours. Then wax.... That makes it sound easy, it is very time consuming, if you screw up and blow through you will have to patch in the gell. Be very carefull on the corners and edges.

would it be wrong to use 1500 disc and an AIR orbital w/water?

That will work great. Just be careful and keep it nice and wet. I usually put a little soap in the mix to help break the surface tension. It also helps prolong disc life.

I always start high and go lower on the grit. Light soapy water works great as stated.