Wet sanding gel coat

The hull on our E-32 III (1987) is getting a bit dull, especially at the dark blue boot & shear line stripes. I've polished the hull myself in the past and also had the yard do the job too with "OK" results. An outside (of the yard) vendor, who has done some nice work for me in the past, took a look at the boat and suggested wet sanding the gel coat. Anything beyond that would require painting the hull which I think is a "dollar too far". His estimate reads like this: De-stain, Wet sand gel coat surface, Machine compound, Machine polish, Machine wax using the UV Profile product line. His estimate is $1,100 for a 32 foot hull. Has anyone ever had any experience with wet sanding? I understand the concept and logic seems to say that it will give me a good shine but we all know how logical thinking can go sometimes. I'm not expecting a brand new looking hull, just one that has little or no haze especially in the blue stripes with an improved shine that will be easier to polish and wax myself later. I live about 80 miles for the boat and I'm a "seasoned citizen" so although I could do the work myself it would be a bit difficult and I figure I'd give the pros a shot at it first.

The path to a shine

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-maintenance/52772-tips-compound-polish-wax.html

This column is IMHO the gold standard for shine on an Ericson. Even the pictured example in post #1 is an Ericson.

Might be a good idea to print the essay out for easy study.

I and the Admiral have done one total buff out with FinnessIt, but we were younger by a decade and the yard loaned us their scissor-lift for the weekend, along with reasonable rent on their "pro quality" Makita buffer.
Our arms got tired. The shine lasted for several years.

What we did not do was wet sand. I am a bit paranoid about how much surface gelcoat molecules to remove without thinning down the protective layer too far.

If your "hired arms" are enthusiastic about Maine's procedure, that's a good sign. If they are not, I would think twice about engaging their services.

And or course, YMMV.

Do let us know what you decide to do.

FWIW, everybody wet-sanded the hulls of Solings before every regatta, back when it was a serious Olympic class. Lasers, too. The idea was that it improved attached flow over a wax surface. Dunno about the actual effect, but everybody did it and we still had gelcoats after years.

The guys who wax my boat twice a year are always able to bring back the cove stripe to near-original blue using their own tricks (probably brutal compounding), but it only lasts a few months or so and then starts to fade again.

I had an Ericson blue boot top stripe repainted in Awlgrip, which was about $1000 and looked great. So I would wet sand or do whatever it takes to regain color, and if eventually the colored gelcoat wears through, have it painted. Faded stripes are the first thing that makes a boat look old.

A number of boats around me have been entirely painted, deck and topsides, after 30 years--I'm thinking of a pretty Yankee, a Merit 24 and a Hinckley 40. But my Ericson gelcoat has many years to go and I doubt painting will ever be necessary. I did have the (huge) reverse transom painted because of gelcoat issues as the result of very large ancient Vinyl letters. That experience suggested that touch-up painting with two-part is practical, should parts of the deck, for instance, begin to show wear-through.

Christian Williams said:

FWIW, everybody wet-sanded the hulls of Solings before every regatta, back when it was a serious Olympic class. Lasers, too. The idea was that it improved attached flow over a wax surface. Dunno about the actual effect, but everybody did it and we still had gelcoats after years.

The guys who wax my boat twice a year are always able to bring back the cove stripe to near-original blue using their own tricks (probably brutal compounding), but it only lasts a few months or so and then starts to fade again.

I had an Ericson blue boot top stripe repainted in Awlgrip, which was about $1000 and looked great. So I would wet sand or do whatever it takes to regain color, and if eventually the colored gelcoat wears through, have it painted. Faded stripes are the first thing that makes a boat look old.

A number of boats around me have been entirely painted, deck and topsides, after 30 years--I'm thinking of a pretty Yankee, a Merit 24 and a Hinckley 40. But my Ericson gelcoat has many years to go and I doubt painting will ever be necessary. I did have the (huge) reverse transom painted because of gelcoat issues as the result of very large ancient Vinyl letters. That experience suggested that touch-up painting with two-part is practical, should parts of the deck, for instance, begin to show wear-through.

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Christian: My thinking is about along where yours is, give the wet sanding a shot and then if the boat gets dull then repaint it. I actually did that myself on a Hunter 285 that I owned. Roll and tipped it and it ended up looking good with a little paint sagging that was hard to see. If I did it on my Ericsson I'd get a pro to do it. If I were closer, younger and had the right equipment then I'd do the work myself but I know my limitations.

wet sand

Follow Loren's advise and follow Main Sail's direction completely and you will NOT be disappointed. I bought the buffers, different pads to apply compounds, finesse, and buffing. All of the suggested compounds and wax's. Results were great! Better than I ever expected for a 31 year old boat. Shined up very well and is now easy to keep up with it. It took me a weekend to do my E-38 by myself. Remember THE 5 P"S ( proper planning prevents poor performance)and all will go well. I printed out the instruction and took them to the boat with me just to be sure I didn't goof up. STAY AWAY FROM WET SANDING UNLESS ALL ELSE FAILS!!! Good luck!

I wet sanded a previous boat (S2) and was very happy with the results. I suggest you start with something like 1000 grit, rubbing compound, finesse-it and see if that makes you happy. You can go more aggressive on grit but go as fine as you can to remove as little gel coat as possible. The basic idea is the same for cars, furniture, or boats....get the surface flat, remove the scratches, polish (which is really more removing of scratches)

Current boat (38-200) was awlgripped when I bought it and while I agree the cost is hard to justify, it sure is easy to maintain....

I would advise against wet sanding if possible. The wet sanding process is simply expediting the time presumably it takes to get to good gel coat. It is simply a matter of the removal process. whether compounding or wet sanding you are removing material. For anybody that thinks running a buffer is hard work than go ahead and wet sand because that is incredibly laborious and you will be doing as much if not more compounding. At least try this first and save yourself allot needless work.
It is rare to find a boat that can't be brought back to high gloss with good a compounding. That being said few people own the professional equipment it requires to get good results which you MUST have if you are going to wet sand. If you wet sand you will be doing as much or more compounding that you might if omitting the sanding. polishing anything is a simple process, you are simply removing material until you expose the surface you find satisfactory and then progressively making it smoother with finer and finer amounts of abrasion.
Note that any dark stripe will fade much more quickly than a white hull and that is to be expected even on a new boat.

I have allot of experience with boats, aircraft and fine automobile finishes and my advise would be to buy a quality orbital buffer and from pads of various densities (abrasiveness) as well as some good quality compounds and waxes. This will bring back even the dullest of finishes 95% of the time. It will take allot of elbow grease, good methods and patience but you will be rewarded with a beautiful hull.
Gelcoat on these boats was sprayed pretty liberally but it is only so thick, so anything you can do to preserve the thickness of the finishes will be good for you, the boat and the next owner will appreciate that he has not been left with a 1/2 mil. of gelcoat and the glass printing through.

FWIW I have had much success with Gel Coat Labs products and foam pads. If I ever have to resort to heavy compounding I still use a wool pad on a rotary buffer (a real buffer is variable speed) I prefer a dial in setting over trigger speed control. Makita makes a good machine.

Let us know how you do.
Capt. Ian

On with the wet sanding

I thank you all for your insights and advice about wet sanding. I've decided to go on with it for a couple of reasons. I did had the hull compounded and polished three or four times with not quite satisfactory results and that was done by pros. There was still a fair amount of hazing in the blue stripe areas and not the kind of shine I expected on other parts of the hull. The wet sanding I'm going to have done will be preformed by a professional boat service company, not by me. Like Clint Eastwood said in a movie once, "Every man has got to know his limitations." I can and have done a lot of projects, including hull polishing, on a boat but doing a wet sanding and all of the rest involved goes beyond my limitations, and what I'm comfortable with, so I'd rather leave it to a pro. (BTW: Not the same pros that polished my boat before.) Also, I live 150 miles from the boat so the cost of motel, meals, equipment and supplies need to also be added to my decision. Interesting enough the opinions about wet sanding that I've read about on line seems to fall 60/40 with the latter against. But in the end wet sanding seems to be the best solution and it will probably be the only time I have it done. Hopefully the shine I get will be easier to maintain afterwards.

Wet Sanding: An Affiramtive (if alternate) View

When acquired 7 years ago, this Olson had been sitting in the elements, neglected, for at least 4 years, if not longer. It was impossible to tell when the hull had last seen any attention, it had an oxidized/dusty/zero sheen. Not pretty, by any stretch of the imagination.

With guidance from the Yard's fiberglass guru, steps were taken the 1st winter to bring the hull back to life. This statement helped: "these boats built in the 80's had much thicker gel coat than anything being built today".

First there was a clean and rinse (all inside an unheated space, using buckets of water, no hose). Then, section-by-section, 2' x 2' at a time, the hull received a 400-600-800 wet sand treatment. It was more of a 'caress' than a 'sand', with the 400 grit caress more aggressive (but still a caress) than the final 800 grit caress. We used our sense of touch as much as we used our eyes to affirm we were doing good and not harm.

The 'sweat equity crew' helped compress the time, a lot, and there was no noticeable difference in their results (guidance helps!). "Easy does it!" was the guiding principle. We became one with the hull, learning every nick, nuance and imperfection.

After a wet-wipe and dry, the hull was then machine buffed (variable speed Makita = awesome) with 3-M Purple Imperial rubbing compound, then waxed/buffed/polished with Collonite (we've changed to NuFinish and love the time savings and the results).

The 'yard walkers' (and talkers!) comments can be summarized thus: "it looks like a new boat". When informed of the man-hours it took to achieve the results, most shook their heads and muttered 'my boat's not worth it' and walked away.

The current Spring Ritual is to clean the hull and compound with 3-M Purple, wipe with a terry cloth and apply NuFinish as directed. Done and Voila! Looks the same as it did in the Spring of 2011.

Grizz said:

After a wet-wipe and dry, the hull was then machine buffed (variable speed Makita = awesome) with 3-M Purple Imperial rubbing compound, then waxed/buffed/polished with Collonite (we've changed to NuFinish and love the time savings and the results).

The current Spring Ritual is to clean the hull and compound with 3-M Purple, wipe with a terry cloth and apply NuFinish as directed. Done and Voila! Looks the same as it did in the Spring of 2011.

​

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Looks terrific! I'm curious about this NuFinish stuff. Can you elaborate a bit about this product in terms of the effort of application, the results compared to standard waxing, and its longevity? I note that this is a polish and not a wax.

This is an interesting thread. I spent 3 days buffing out my red E27 just to have it revert back to chalk in a weeks time. I used the 3m product line and a machine polisher. I have now just applied a test patch with Buff magic and am interested to see how it lasts.

Alan Gomes said:

Looks terrific! I'm curious about this NuFinish stuff. Can you elaborate a bit about this product in terms of the effort of application, the results compared to standard waxing, and its longevity? I note that this is a polish and not a wax.

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You might want to do a search on NuFinish and other similar "finishes" on this site and others.
This is really a "YMMV" situation.
:nerd:

NuFinish: 1 View

Alan: a bit of background to fill in some gaps (I hope). We've compounded and waxed this hull every spring since it was wet-sanded the winter of '10-'11. Last Spring, on the recommendation of a harbor mate who has used it for 5 seasons, we tried NuFinish, thinking worst-case scenario that even if it failed miserably, we could revert to prior systems for the 2017 season.

At best, our season is a 5.5 month season, so 'forever' isn't a criteria. When the hull was pressure washed in harbor in early October, just prior to unstepping the mast, it still gleamed and water flowed and beaded as it did in late April, so NuFinish passed that test.

As to 'application', it was literally a 'wipe on, let dry (a bit) and hand buff to a shine' in 2' x 2' sections. This saved hours that we didn't have last spring. The results passed the 'Twenty Foot Vision Test' the entire season.

I've learned that hulls, hull prep and hull wax-and-shine procedures achieve almost deity status for some owners. We've chosen a system that works within the time-frame of our season and the limited amount of time we have each spring to commission the boat. So far, so good! Our process begins again this weekend, beginning with a wet-sand & full wipe/dry of the VC-17 wetted surface area. Once completed, we can begin to compound above the water line!

This 2¢ reply offered free of charge...

My 76' E27 was very chalky from the day I bought her, and I always assumed it would need a wet sanding to bring the gel coat back to life. However, after finding Main Sails post on the Sailnet forum I decided to give it a go with a nice buffer, compound, polish, and wax. I'm glad I did and can attest that if you follow the procedure as laid out you should have great results. I also went with the Presta product line over 3M. It took me 2 weekends to complete the work with some hired help, but we did the topside as well.

Loren Beach said:

You might want to do a search on NuFinish and other similar "finishes" on this site and others.
This is really a "YMMV" situation.
:nerd:

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Loren,
Any chance you could summarize the concerns? Is this kind of like PoliGlow, which gives a good result initially but which some owners say yellows over time and then might be beastly difficult to remove in order to revert back to waxing? Or is there some other main issue with going to polish vs. wax?

Thanks.

Alan Gomes said:

Loren,
Any chance you could summarize the concerns? Is this kind of like PoliGlow, which gives a good result initially but which some owners say yellows over time and then might be beastly difficult to remove in order to revert back to waxing? Or is there some other main issue with going to polish vs. wax?

Thanks.

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Good questions.
There is no fair way to compare lingering old concerns with what is very likely a newer and decent product. I have personally seen a boat with a spalling-off clear coating (one of the products similar to the ones mentioned) about a decade ago.
The owner was unhappy with having to remove the remaining coating, which was arduous given the ease with which patches of it fell off.

New technology combined with newer application experiences might produce a far better result.
And then (more weasel words...) there may be surface preparation issues that gave these products a bad name. It's easy to imagine an owner taking short cuts in the application procedure when he purchased the product for the basic reason that he wanted results "without much work" !

Hope this clarifies my reservations a bit.

A pause for time to catch up...

There will be an update to this thread by mid-March, as the question remains (unanswered) "will compounding with Purple 3M permit a fresh application of NuFinish w/o complications?". The belief at time of writing is that it will, but that will be confirmed in the next few weeks, with a picture attached to affirm.

Stay tuned...

Grizz said:

There will be an update to this thread by mid-March, as the question remains (unanswered) "will compounding with Purple 3M permit a fresh application of NuFinish w/o complications?". The belief at time of writing is that it will, but that will be confirmed in the next few weeks, with a picture attached to affirm.

Stay tuned...

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I'll look forward to this update. But what I'm wondering is, what is there about the current state of your finish that makes you want/need to compound it again, rather than just adding another coat of the NuFinish? You you need to compound it every time you reapply it, or do you go for a certain number of reapplications before compounding it again?

Habit, simple as that

Alan, the answer is 2-fold: 'habit' and 'results'. We've gotten good at the procedure, are not aggressive with our 'caress' each spring and the hull sparkles when completed. With 2 Makita's whirring on 2 borrowed rolling scaffolds, we can knock out the compounding in 4 hours (steady, no yakkin'). If there's a 3rd pair of hands, they can tuck behind our progress with NuFinish and the hull is ready same day; quicker even still with a 4th pair of hands. I could probably switch to 3M Finesse instead of Purple (much finer compound), but I haven't found the knack when compounding with Finesse, so we've stuck with Purple.

Remember that Deity mentioned previously? This counts as our 'Rite of Spring', sore shoulders and aching back to attest.

[edit] Your question is valid. I may try a test on a 2' x 2' section w/o compounding to test the assumption of simply adding another layer on top of the existing. If it looks like it needs to look, 'voila!'. I certainly can use the time saved for other things! Thanks.

Grizz said:

Alan, the answer is 2-fold: 'habit' and 'results'. We've gotten good at the procedure, are not aggressive with our 'caress' each spring and the hull sparkles when completed. With 2 Makita's whirring on 2 borrowed rolling scaffolds, we can knock out the compounding in 4 hours (steady, no yakkin'). If there's a 3rd pair of hands, they can tuck behind our progress with NuFinish and the hull is ready same day; quicker even still with a 4th pair of hands. I could probably switch to 3M Finesse instead of Purple (much finer compound), but I haven't found the knack when compounding with Finesse, so we've stuck with Purple.

Remember that Deity mentioned previously? This counts as our 'Rite of Spring', sore shoulders and aching back to attest.

[edit] Your question is valid. I may try a test on a 2' x 2' section w/o compounding to test the assumption of simply adding another layer on top of the existing. If it looks like it needs to look, 'voila!'. I certainly can use the time saved for other things! Thanks.

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I'd be most interested in the results of your test.

I may try the NuFinish and see how it works.