Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Oh, boy. I think I might have let my reach exceed my grasp.

According to my wife, I cannot leave anything alone. She calls me a 'compulsive fixer'. Ok... Just because I go get a screwdriver out of the truck and adjust the door closer at the local IHOP does not make me a compulsive fixer. (In my defense, the door was slamming closed and driving me nuts)

Anyway, My new to me Bennington has relatively cruddy toons. Previous owner left it in the water the whole time. So I start reading on this forum about cleaning them, and bought the NAPA aluminum brightener. It worked great, and was easy as hell to do, and made a HUGE difference. But it left the toons a bit 'chalky', for lack of a better term. Digging the clean toons, but not digging the white look, I break out my orbital polisher and some rubbing compound. In about 40 minutes of work, I managed to shine up a 10"x10" section of one nose cone. Clearly, this aint gonna work.

So I go and order a high speed variable polisher. I kinda been wanting one for a while now anyway. And I saw the video of the sharkhide polish, so I order a pound of that. And then I figure if I am going to go thru all that work, I might as well put the sharkhide protectant on it too. So now I'm a few hundred bucks into it and there is no going back. Now I just gotta wait on UPS to bring me my goodies.

Then the real work begins.

tim

Damn do I kow that compulsive fixer feeling! Can't wait for the pics!

You need to haul that sucker to Truman!

Just remember, when you think its clean enough to put protectant on. Clean it some more! JT

Sharkhide protectent is great stuff and will make your hard work last. post pics when you get them done.

Go get some Tripoli and save your self time instead of using the milder polish, even with Tripoli it takes a long time to get it done

It's worth it as we got nothing but complements since the first day it went back in the water.

HandymanHerb wrote:Go get some Tripoli and save your self time instead of using the milder polish, even with Tripoli it takes a long time to get it done

It's worth it as we got nothing but complements since the first day it went back in the water.

Holy hell Herb. Thats amazing!

I dont think I want to remove my deck to make it easy to polish the toons, though...

Tim

Shiny.

Ever hear of using Marvel Mystery Oil to polish them?


A buddy of mine swears by it for cleaning gunk out of guns.

I've used it for that as well as using it to clean just about anything greased up or gunked up including removing cosmoline.

As I was researching Sharkhide, I found a video of a guy using Marvel Mystery Oil to clean motor cycle aluminum and wondered if it'd work on pontoons as well.

Cowracer wrote:

HandymanHerb wrote:Go get some Tripoli and save your self time instead of using the milder polish, even with Tripoli it takes a long time to get it done

It's worth it as we got nothing but complements since the first day it went back in the water.

Holy hell Herb. Thats amazing!

I dont think I want to remove my deck to make it easy to polish the toons, though...

Tim

It's a lot worse to remove your deck and not polish the toons!!!!!!!!!!!

Got a couple hours to spend on polishing today. I had something to do in the afternoon, so I knew I wouldn't get too far. I still need to give it a rubdown with lacquer thinner, but so far, so good. I only went down to the waterline at this point. The sharkhide metal polish seemed not to be able to do much with stuff under the waterline, so either I need to get some Tripoli as Herb suggested, or I will leave it like that. I'm kinda digging the 2-tone look.

Again, about 2 hours work so far.

Tim

One trick is to use the correct applicator. They have different colors for different purposes.

For my Porter Cable dual action polisher, you use a wool bonnet to apply the polish--in 2' x 2' increments. After about 90 seconds, the White Diamond metal polish dries up and mostly blows away.

Hi, Obviously it is toon up time! I have a very similar problem with lime build up, except that I have not found anything that will remove the crude on my pontoons, I've tried a multitude of products that just don't seem to penetrate the deposits, even an orbital sander with #60 coarse paper does very little, unless I spend a couple of hours on an approximately 1 sq. ft. area and then I am just to the point of getting to the aluminum. I have spoken to a couple of places that tell me they can sandblast the deposits off, but it will pit the pontoons and make it more susceptible to attracting crude. Has anyone had their toons sandblasted with good results? I've also wondered if I could paint the bottom half of the toons with epoxy paint and get a smooth finish. Jordeli PS I'm too old and lazy to attempt the job myself!

almost there. I ran out of polish, so still got a bit on the right side left to do. I also need to give it a good soap and water wash now, but here's what the right side looks like..

It's slow going, and my polisher tried to kill me a couple times, but man! what a great look!



Tim

That's really looking good, Tim. Thanks for the pictures. I've been putting this offer for a couple of seasons now and I'm thinking this is the year I shine them up. So far, did you just wash them off with the NAPA aluminum brightner and then go straight to the Sharkhide polish? Any other steps taken so far?

What's next? Lacquer thinner and then the Sharkhide protectant? Keep us informed on the play by play if you will. Looking great so far!

I have sharkhide. But honestly, after getting both sides done, I really don't feel like spending another weekend with the lacquer thinner and tons of paper towels. I am gonna just put the sharkhide on a shelf and see what it looks like at the end of the season. From my understanding, It should hold the shine with a quick brush-up polish towards the end.

If I am wrong (and there is a good chance of that happening every day) then I'll polish it back up and do the whole lacquer thinner/sharkhide thing next spring.

Tim