Buffing out hazing RV

arcsum68 wrote:

Veebyes wrote:
In the boating world we say that a boat can be any colour, as long as it is white.

Dark coloured gelcoat does not do well with sun. Once it has been let go it takes alot of work to bring it back. It also needs to be done much more frequently to keep it looking good.

Looking at your current state it is not as bad as when you started. A good going over with a cleaner wax, such as 3M cleaner wax, followed by the Meguires Flagship wax again should restore to the condition of your first highly successful efforts.

I have had saltwater kept boats since 1981. A tough environment to be in. There are many great products out there these days but time & sun will always destroy them without regular attention.

I appreciate the advice, but the second time around took a surprising amount of work to get it looking good, felt like should have stripped it first since the previous wax was gumming up my pads. I ended up going to the full rotary buffer and even then I was struggling. I am not about to put the same product on it that never went through a full NorCal summer and looked terrible in 6 months. Maybe I got a bad batch? I dont know, but you know how the saying goes, fool me once...

The Flagship is most definitely not a cleaner wax. Applied over chalking or a degraded surface is going to leave a less than clear deep shine.

My 5er is a late 2007. It is indoor stored in the winter but is outdoors & traveling about 160 days each year. That is an awful lot of bugs getting smashed into the front cap.

After all these years & miles I can't say that the front cap looks new when I am finished with it, using the 3M marine cleaner wax followed right behind with the Flagship, but it looks darned close to new.