Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I finally polished the toons and the looked great until I pulled the boat out of the backyard. There are swirl marks all over both toons. I used a standard buffer with a wool pad and used 3M marine aluminum polish. I am not very happy with the look and may very well be doing them again. Any suggestions?? Thanks...

Wipe them with mineral sprits and see what happenes

I like the micro fiber pads for finish work. Swirl remover might work but some of the powermetal stuff at Autozone or advance auto should do the trick. Need a slightly abrasive to remove the swirls. I just went straight micro fiber (the blue) pad doing mine an never got the swirls. Should be a quick fix with either mothers or meguiar.
doc

Stick it in the water, load it with a case or two of beer and most likely... the swirls won't be problem any more...

What he said!!

Thanks for the info.. Although the latter sounds like the ideal way to go I am gonna try using the mineral spirits. If it doesn't work well then I will go with micro fiber pad and redo them..

Putting it in the water will work to, I didn't wipe mine down after polishing last time and all the kids got gray from the material left on the toons, but they cleaned up before I had to take them to the house.

Mineral Spirits isn't going to touch those swirls. They are in the metal, not ON the metal. You need to go back over with a lighter compound/swirl remover. 3M makes a good swirl remover made for dark colored vehicles ( which will work good here to because swirls show up easier on dark cars/polished toons). I like to use Meguiars M205, which is soo fine that I have never had to polish more afterwards to remove swirls. Also, use a softer buffing pad. I like Lake country pads, and if you use a Blue/Red/Black pad, with the lighter compound, you should be good. My guess is that your wool pad did just as much damage ( swirl marks ) as the compound you used did. Wool is used for Heavy correction, not fine tuning.

Keep at it, because it looks really good already.

might try a random orbital polisher too.

Hey, Evo28,
I see your's is an Evolution Power Boat. I think they may be headquartered in my neck of the woods now (Phoenix area). Are you in that area? I spoke with them about possibly building a boat for me, but I ended up buying a used South Bay instead.

By the way, I know the toons are not quite where you want them yet, but they still look really nice. I have a lot of work to get mine that far along.

Thanks for the advice guys! I am gonna go over it this weekend with the swirl remover and orbital polisher and see what the results are..

woolznaz wrote:Hey, Evo28,
I see your's is an Evolution Power Boat. I think they may be headquartered in my neck of the woods now (Phoenix area). Are you in that area? I spoke with them about possibly building a boat for me, but I ended up buying a used South Bay instead.

By the way, I know the toons are not quite where you want them yet, but they still look really nice. I have a lot of work to get mine that far along.

Yes, it is an Evolution. Great boat, never had any problems with it! I live in Cali but I use the boat in Lake Havasu in Az. I know Evolution just moved out to Az last year prior to that they were located in Ohio.

Thanks, Evo. Sorry to hi-jack your thread from the toon polishing questions, but your boat just caught my attention. I was very impressed with the Evolution boats, by the way. I'm sure it's a great boat! We are in the Phoenix area but I hope to make it up to Havasu sometime this summer. I've never been up there so I may run some questions by you at some point. Havasu sounds like a lot of fun!

I've done the acid wash and polished with a buffer twice. I use a foam pad. I can get the swirls out with Maguire's, but here's the problem I have now. The last time I polished I also coated with Shark Hide. Before you apply Shark Hide you have to wipe down the toons with thinner until no more black comes off the cloth. The thinner obviously would remove the swirl polish. Now I just live with horrible swirls, but I love Shark Hide. Any suggestions? Another great use for Shark Hide around here is to protect aluminium wheels and pickup tool boxes. Oregon uses a deicer on the roads that is brutal to aluminum, but with Shark Hide not a single pit.

suggestions?


let 'em turn gray.
we all know they're aluminum, not chrome.

This is aluminum not paint, you have to move it around and the foam pad is not going to do the job and the you only hid the swirls you didn't get rid of them.

Save the foam pad for the car, it's made not to damage paint.