Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I purchased a gallon of the NAPA Aluminum Brightener but now I'm not sure....

If I use this and decide after that I want my pontoons polished, will this create a problem?

My pontoons are only 3 years old, but do have some black/gray water lines and some black streaks here and there. As it stands, it should polish out nicely with some elbow grease and polish. I can probably take it to a local guy that polishes big rig fuel tanks and wheels and he would give them a real nice polished aluminum finish.

After the acid wash, it may be too difficult to achieve a nice polished finish.

Thoughts?

Thanks

Acid washing is the first step in getting it shined

Here's before acid



After



And polished

i think you need to acid wash first to get the maximum shine, I had mine getting mirror like but only above the water line, below was too pitted so i just gave up on the mirror finish now just trying to get them one shade

I'm lazy so I don't plan on buffing to get a mirror shine. Just being clean and not stained is good enough for me -- makes the boat look a couple of years newer

Having a truck stop near you that polishes aluminum helps a lot, we paid 800 to get the biggest part done and finished the rest our selfs, since we were adding every thing new from flooring up we wanted the whole toon to look new and shiny

I'm pricing out a new Benny with sharkhide applied from the factory but if I want the mirrored looked I shouldn't have the sharkhide applied right away and plan on polishing myself to get the mirror and then apply the sharkhide correct? Or do brand new toons already have the mirrored look.

They don't come polished, so hold off on the sharkhide if you want to polish them, even then you lose some of the shine when you apply the sharkhide

Herb, great pics. I can see the value in the acid wash as the first step toward mirror polishing. The mirror finish looks great!!!

Not to high jack this thread but if I get a new pontoon and I want that mirrored look how difficult or what is the process of going about this on a brand new toon?

curtiscapk wrote:That looks AWESOME! I am going to try the toonbrite cleaner tomorrow will make sure and take pics to compare....

Toon bright didn't far too well. I am not sure if my toons were just too dirty or it just doesn't work as well. The very front and rear turned out great!!! I may try on more bottle. I used half on this side will do other side next weekend.

Craig, it looks like it is trying to work. It may just take more applications to get it completely cleaned. After the first application of the Napa stuff, I had some of the same "clean" streaks that you are seeing. When I went back for a second application, all of the "clean" streaks went away and the toon looked much cleaner.

I wonder if the toonbright stuff you have just isn't as strong. But it does look like it is doing the job.