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Aqua-Buff tip

S

smit401

Active member
I just got my latest supply of aqua-buff delivered on friday and wanted to start on the starflight. My daughter came home from college for mothers day and of course I had to check out her car.
I saw how cloudy and faded her headlight lens's were so I hit them with the Aqua Buff and they now look like new. If you have those faded lenses keep this in mind it works great !!!!!
 
I got half of my convincor polished with the Aqua Buff 2000 compound. It is looking great.....like it looked new. My gelcoat basically on the front half above the rub rail was looking very oxidized and dull. This stuff is very easy to work with and works great for the price. Once she is done I will hit her with two coats of 3M marine wax with Teflon and be ready to go. I had a lot of scrubbing to do before hand because I had quite a few set in stains and river nasty on it. I first washed it with dish soap, used the Simoniz acidic hull cleaner (worked great on the river stains with almost no scrubbing but didn't touch the other stains) then I scrubbed the whole thing with Soft Scrub with Bleach on a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser....those things work great too. It was a ton of work but it looks as clean and white as she would have when it rolled out of the factory.
 
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any tips for how to keep the aqua-buff contained? last summer when I did mine, the gelcoat came out great, but everything had little whitish blue spots from the compound spraying all over the place, took forever to clean up.
 
i am just going to remove all the hardware, wind shield, and tape off the cockpit. this stuff makes a stupid mess.
 
All I can say is compounds clean up easy with a pressure washer untill they bake dry! I have stoped buffing cars every hour to wash them so that the crap dont dry in the jambs and what not. Makes it a lot easier than trying to scrub it out later!
 
yellowfiero88 said:
All I can say is compounds clean up easy with a pressure washer untill they bake dry! I have stoped buffing cars every hour to wash them so that the crap dont dry in the jambs and what not. Makes it a lot easier than trying to scrub it out later!
Click to expand...

I hear you man. I was buffing last night with this 2000 and i got a call from work I had to take. Well, all the lil splatters dried. I have to start all over now. :brickwall:
 
yeah that's why I stripped everything off my boat it makes a huge mess. my motor is covered in the spatter from it so I am going to need to clean that all off eventually.
 
Here's a quick question for you guys-

I used the 2000 on my Enticer, but I'm wondering if I did something wrong.
Followed all directions, but after wheeling the 2000 out, the gel looked just as oxidized as it did before the AB. I messed around with it for a long time, then just finally gave up and waxed it. It looks great after the wax. What did I screw up?
 
ToP_Enticer said:
Here's a quick question for you guys-

I used the 2000 on my Enticer, but I'm wondering if I did something wrong.
Followed all directions, but after wheeling the 2000 out, the gel looked just as oxidized as it did before the AB. I messed around with it for a long time, then just finally gave up and waxed it. It looks great after the wax. What did I screw up?
Click to expand...

The only thing you didn't do was after AB buff the boat out w/ Meguiars no.7 to bring the shine back out then hand wax the boat. See my thread on "sanding the gelcoat".http://checkmate-boats.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13528
 
So now that the wax is already on, there isn't much point in going back to use something like #7, is there? Maybe next year.
 
I know mine had some area I had to go over a few times before it started to really shine and make sure it stays wet while wheeling for a while.
 
if you are not seeing a difference with the 2000 then switch to the 1000 fast cut. I believe that will make a difference for you. try a little spot first and you will be able to tell if it will work for you.
 
Can I just clean the gel, then hit it with the 1000, or would I need to use something to remove the wax first?
 
ToP_Enticer said:
Can I just clean the gel, then hit it with the 1000, or would I need to use something to remove the wax first?
Click to expand...

AB will cut the wax, it's like liquid sandpaper. I've had to go over mine in certain spots before. Then buff it w/ no.7 follow that by hand wax.
 
If you didn't get the results with the 2000, then you should start with the 1000. Did you have high enough RPM's on your polisher? I always keep a spray bottle with me to mist on the boat as I work to keep the AB wet. Also it is a good practice to hose down the area(where your spray goes)BEFORE it has time to dry.
 
Lets back up here a minute , the 1000 is for really bad oxidation and to the point where you can almost feel metalflake, the 2000 is for just hazy to medium oxidation. Mine was medium hazy, and i did a 2 ft by 2 ft spot at a time at the highest rpm that the harbor freight high speed buffer would do and kept the compound wet. as a matter of fact i went thru 2 pads on the top of the boat.
th_Picture028.jpg th_Picture029.jpg
 
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