Painted Mast Cosmetic Improvement
Hi Christian,
How do you think the Spar Seal would work on faded, grey/black anodized aluminum winch drums?
As for a black PAINTED mast, mine is 1981 Kenyon. I was considering a re-paint, but just could not justify the expense, based on the value of the boat. I used MaineSail's gelcoat polishing techniques and materials on my totally faded and chalked up mast. I got an 85% improvement on the first attempt which took three 4 hour days in July (6 - 10 am) doing it by hand. The result of this buff out and polish was that it was pretty hard to notice anything bad with the mast when it was up. The chalk was all gone and it was somewhat shiny, but not car paint finish like the portion of the mast in the cabin, out of the weather. If you looked closely, you could see some fade in the lower section, up to the spreaders when compared to the nice shiny section near the gooseneck which is always covered by the mainsail cover.
Last year, I had two days in August with the mast down. I re-did the compound and polish with my Makita 8217 in a couple of hours. I didn't really get that much better shine. I think with more time and a little more experience and technique you might be able to get to near-new finish. I tried wet sanding up near the masthead (where you can't see it from the deck), thinking I needed to take off a little more of the outside surface, and that just scratched up the paint. The mast paint is much harder than automotive paint, so polishing takes longer. The final shine factor requires more time in the polish and glaze final steps to get perfect results. I didn't try the glazing final step on either of my buff outs, but I suspect now that it's how much time you spend on the final steps with the hard paint that get you to near-mirror finish.
If you have a WHITE painted mast, the improvements will come much quicker and it will be much less noticeable if you don't get near-mirror finish. If I had a white mast I suspect I would be plenty happy with the effort I put in the first buff out 4 years ago.
Once you have gotten the technique down by practice working up near the masthead, you really only need to get the lower section, up to the lower spreaders, near-perfect and shiny. You can't really see much detail or of the finish above the spreaders from the deck.
I have pictures I'll post when I get home.
Mark