Polishing toons, what am I doing wrong?

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BiXLL
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Polishing toons, what am I doing wrong?

#1 Post by BiXLL » Sun May 06, 2018 2:58 pm

I have spent the entire day trying to get started on polishing my pontoons. I did the acid wash yesterday, so I thought I was prepped and ready for a productive day. I have tried Sharkhide Polish, 3M polish, and even buff majic. I have used wool pads and went an bought a cutting foam pad.

On the back side of the pontoon, I must have done it 7 or 8 times and spent close to 2 hours on it just to get it to what I felt was even acceptable! Not the way I would like, with no imperfections showing, but the marks left on the pontoon were not all that hard to overlook. Then I tried a section of the side of pontoon. Buffed and removed compound 4 times and my results are not even close to acceptable, if this is all the better I can get them, its not worth the effort! It just seems like I am not getting enough cutting action to get the marks/stains out. What am I doing wrong

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Soonertoon
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Re: Polishing toons, what am I doing wrong?

#2 Post by Soonertoon » Mon May 07, 2018 10:27 am

Are you using a high speed polisher or a orbital buffer machine? Also have you used the stepped rouge process?
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Coldbrew
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Re: Polishing toons, what am I doing wrong?

#3 Post by Coldbrew » Mon May 07, 2018 3:20 pm

I use Mother's Aluminum Polish with an orbital buffer. I use just the top of the buffer and do a small area at a time while wiping off the black crap with paint thinner. It's quite a bit of work.
I tried other polishes and I always come back to Mother's. Seems to work the best with the orbital buffer.

Here's a link to a pic of my toon. Third post down....

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Re: Polishing toons, what am I doing wrong?

#4 Post by Bryden24shp » Tue May 08, 2018 5:31 am

First thing to do is make sure they weren't coated from the factory, that needs to come off, first, with thinner. Then I always started out with running a DA with 220, the 320 discs on the whole pontoon to take all the crap off before polishing. Makes it a lot easier to get down to the aluminum to polish. Pop as much welding slag off them before starting, it eats the paper fast. I also found that lightly spraying the surface with water in a spray bottle, then polishing makes it cut better, too. No one said this polishing is fun, but the end results are worth it. Especially if when you sell it.
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