Faded Gelcoat - use what to restore?

[Roy Kemp]

Hi folks,

As you've all seen pictures of the £500 Autotest Phaeton, you'll probably have noticed that the black gelcoat has had a hard life and is in need of some TLC. Steve had a quick go with some crappy polish and it made naff-all difference. It's properly rough to touch so it'll need cut back prior to polishing.

So, a case of attack it with T-Cut or is there something more specialist to be using?

Cheers

[Brian (up north) Morris]

check out maguire`s marine restorer and polish ......

[Brian (up north) Morris]

only any good if its gel cote no good if its been sprayed 

[Paul Thomas]

Iagree G3 soapey water and a mop

[James Doulton]

I ordered some of those Meguiar's products from Amazon, but I can't tell you how they work because they haven't arrived yet. They seem to have a good write-up. You'd have thought that I could just buy something in Bristol, with its marine heritage, but no - had to go to Amazon, what is the world coming to?

[Scott Grimson]

When i used to work with GRP i used a product called Faracla, awesome stuff and comes in different grades, most GRP workshops and suppliers use it. I cant recommend it enough. 

[rob saul]

Depends how much time you want to put into it ?
If its really bad you can get better results an save yourself some wasted polishing time by hitting it with wet+dry first
Maybe 1200/1000 maybe even 800 of its really bad
When it comes to polishing i Much prefer 3m over other stuff but it does cost more
You can get fast cut plus for the initial cutting and extra fine plus to put the shine on
When you do compound there are different foams,if your compounding for example and "cutting" through the surface you will use a lot firmer foam
Been doing composites for 30 plus years now

[Roy Kemp]

Thanks for the suggestions so far, chaps. I'll look into the Meguairs and Faracla stuff.

As I'm more inclined to drive cars at speed through forests as opposed to cherishing and polishing them, do you just whack a polishing mop into any old angle grinder, or you you need to buy a rotary polisher? Or is it impracticable to attempt to do it by hand?

Not looking for show-standard results - it's got enough crazing and cracks that we could polish it forever and it would never be particularly nice! 

[Roy Kemp]

Cheers man - one of the quarters is already rubbed down to the matting. Guess someone might have used an angle grinder at some point in the cars' history!