Cleaning/Conditioning Old Fiberglass

[l008com]

So back in the day, my dad used to wash down the boat every spring, I think with bleach. Then he'd wax the whole thing. This was 15 years ago. I haven't spend nearly as much time doing this kind of work. But it could use a serious cleaning at this point. The top of the boat has lots of what I think are mold spots, some rust stains from some of the vynil I removed (yes vynil rusts!! heh the metal fasteners that keep the vynil to the fiberglass). The bottom of course has water stains. The floor has a fresh layer of non-slip paint, the kind with sand mixed in. It never occurred to me that it would get extra dirty with that paint. It could really use a good scrubbing. The boat is also a 1984, so all the fiber glass is pretty old. Theres some surface cracking around some of the hold and some corners etc. I'm not looking to do a major restoration or anything. Maybe just something to do a deep clean + wax. Maybe a newfangled space aged cleaner that can do it all at once :-D Although I suppose I don't really want to wax my floor.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Cleaning/Conditioning Old Fiberglass

Many people use toilet bowl cleaner for the gunk....... otherwise you are destined for allot of elbow grease and you could try some 3m fiberglass restorer and a power polisher.

 

[N0 Luck]

Re: Cleaning/Conditioning Old Fiberglass

I used some on and off the other day and its done wonders, in a few minutes spots that Ive scrubed over and over previously just melted away with no scrubing. Its safe for fiberglass and paint, about $14 a bottle, just throw a sprayer head on it and go. dont get it on your hands or breath it in tho, it will burn your lungs

 

[68C15]

Re: Cleaning/Conditioning Old Fiberglass

toilet bowl cleaner sounds worth a try. will bleach discolor the gel coat? I need to get my 65 Johnson looking good again. especially the ugly nasty hard brown stains from the local lakes.

 

[NZjohnson90]

Re: Cleaning/Conditioning Old Fiberglass

My fibreglass hull is 40 years old and probably not cleaned once in that time!! I washed the hull 1st, then ran over the whole hull (very lightly) with 1200 wet n dry paper with a cheap electric sander. Then used a buffing pad made specifically for a standard 115mm angle grinder with sepitone fibreglass cut n polish.

It sounds like lots of work but it's not as bad as it sounds. It only took 1 day, really probably a couple hours overall and cost roughly $20us in total for everything.

I first did everything i could reach on the trailer, then rolled the boat back a couple of feet and did the few bits i couldn't get at the first time.

The boat truly looks like a new boat in comparison.

 

[virii01]

Re: Cleaning/Conditioning Old Fiberglass

Mr Clean Magic Erasers are great on fiberglass (or anything really) for getting rid of scuffs and cleaning up small scratches. On my light beige boat smaller scratches are pretty much unnoticable from 2-3ft or more after a little rubbing with the magic eraser. Cleans up all the rubber and paint transfer on the rub guard as well.

 

[skyboy2410]

Re: Cleaning/Conditioning Old Fiberglass

Bob does the 3M fiberglass restorer work well? Steve