Buffing?

[Yazza54]

Can you buff gelcoat? There's some scratches in mine, I've tried the old elbow grease but it's not doing an awful lot.

[Joe T]

Yes you can dependant how thick the gel is, but you need some compound like G3, or if your stuck halfords do some buffing compound.
But to get the best results you really need an electric or air powered orbital buffing machine, its like an angle grinder but with lower rpm.

[singlecoil]

It may be that you will need to use some wet and dry first, it just depends on how deep the scratches are. We assume that they are not as deep as the gelcoat itself- otherwise then you will need to live with it unless you can get some gelcoat of the same colour, and build the area up a bit first.

The idea is to use an abrasive to remove deepest scratch, compromise between getting a satisfactory speed of removal and the difficulty of removing the new, but finer, scratches you are making with the abrasive. Then you move on to a finer abrasive (wet and dry up to 1800, IIRC) then polishing compounds starting with the coarser and onto the finer until the gloss is satisfactory.

I second the advice to get a machine.

[mirach]

if you have scratches then the odds are, you will need to flat them out with wet and dry first, if they are similar in depth to a key,d type scratch in paintwork, then i would guess a gelcoat repair is needed first, if not, then the finer paper you use, the better the finish will be (up to p2000 w&d is good) beware though, gelcoat is easily ruined by rubmarks,(finger flurries). Also different colours have different hardness's? and it is also possible to easily burn the gel,whilst buffing, if this happens it rarely comes back. in my opinion i would seek some pro advice from a local grp laminator or boat repairer.a few quid spent here could end up being a much cheaper option to over-rubbing or burn marks resulting in needing a paintjob

[gtmdriver]

Have a look at the Farecla website and check out their Marine range.

They do specific gelcoat restorers and protective waxes.

[Yazza54]

I've attacked it with farecla gel restorer a few times but only by hand, can I use the same stuff with a buffer?

[singlecoil]

Yazza54 said:

I've attacked it with farecla gel restorer a few times but only by hand, can I use the same stuff with a buffer?

Should say on the packaging, but if it doesn't I think you will find that it is actually intended for machine buffing (not many people would try to restore a GRP boat by hand buffing). Check first, though.

[Paul Drawmer]

I thought when I read Ryan's topic title that there would be stories of die hard naturists driving their kit cars in the snow.