Quote:
Originally Posted by smykowski
I'll wait to see if you hear back from them. Side question....IF it's a normal gel coat, could I use a LC foam pad as opposed to wool? Like either the yellow or orange pad for example? I guess my question is, why is wool so highly recommended? Is it simply because wool cuts faster or are there other properties to wool that make it more desirable than the other two pads I mentioned?
Thanks!
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Wool fibers are a type of abrasive. Together with the abrasives and cleaning agents in a compound or polish they increase the cutting ability.
To decrease cutting ability and leave a low swirl finish you could as an option use foam pads.
Both are good options but historically most people want the cutting speed and oxidation removal effectiveness provided by both wool and compounds.
Of course, I'm the guy that coined the term "Test Spot" in the automotive detailing world and I do the same thing in the marine detailing world, that is I test the least aggressive approach to get the job done.
The caveat being I want the least aggressive approach not so much as to leave the most gel-coat behind but to leave the nicest looking finish behind. When using less aggressive pads and products it's a given you'll leave more gel-coat on the surface, the goal is to reduce the number of steps.
The more aggressive you get the more steps you normally have to do in order to end up with a nice looking finish. Although "swirls" or "holograms" are less of an issue to most boat owners than car owners, it is a factor when you own a dark colored hull as dark colors will show swirls better than light or white colored hulls.
Since you own a boat with a dark blue gel-coat, if you're the kind of boat owner where a nice looking finish is important to you, then "yes" you want to finish out with foam pads and not wool pads.
That's not to say you won't start with wool pads do do the major chopping step but for sure you're going to want to finish with foam. The reason for this is no matter what product you use with a wool pad, each of the individual fibers that make up a wool pad can leave their own cut in the paint and millions of these cuts show up as holograms when using a rotary buffer.
For some however, using a wool pad with a compound even though it will leave swirls is the gel-coat is an acceptable outcome for speed purposes. Especially when it's understood there's going to be a second step to refine the results from the compounding step, (polishing), and this second polishing step will remove the swirls from the fibers of a wool pad.
Make sense?
Of course, in a perfect world you want to be able to use a one-step cleaner/wax with a foam pad as this will clean, polish and protect in one-step. This means you only have to go around the boat one time. Doesn't that sound nice?
Problem with that is if there is a lot of oxidation then a one-step might not offer enough cut, so now you're back to doing
two steps minimum.
Step 1: Remove the oxidation.
Step 2: Polish to a high gloss with a one-step cleaner/wax and leave the surface protected.
Some hardcore boat owners/detailers will break it down even further by doing three steps using products dedicated to perform a very specific step of the process...
Step 1: Remove the oxidation.
Step 2: Polish to a high gloss with a dedicated polish.
Step 3: Seal the gel-coat using a finishing wax.
Going around a boat one time is a lot of work, going around a boat 2 and 3 times is more work. What's faster is performing regular maintenance to keep the oxidation at bay so you can get away with ONLY having to do a one-step process.
That said, if the boat has been neglected too long that's not always an option as a one-step cleaner/wax won't have enough cutting ability to remove the oxidation.
