Hi to everyone. I found some very useful tips on getting my color back on my boat. This is all new to me, going from aluminum to something with paint. If you want to save yourself a wallet full of cash, give this a try. I put a few other posted ideas and got one heck of a result. The boat I bought was in excellent conditon from the rubber side bumper up. Everything below it had no shine at all and even after polishing it would feel rough to the touch and also was very chalky and had no shine at all. To start with I used common paint thinner to remove any wax build up. As everyone knows paint thinner evaporates quickly but noticed if I had the rag really saturated, it would stay wet longer. If I rubber longer on one spot, the chalk and rough dimply surface disappeared. I was left with not bad a surface. There were swirl marks and some deeper scratches. Bought a various package of sandpaper. 400 800 1000 and 2000 grit ... On the quite bad areas I started with the 400 and wet sanded. Worked my way up to 2000. Without waxing I was left with an impressive shine. When finished wet sanding, I used a very inexpensive Turtle wax rubbing compound with a power polisher. Found I didn't need to use very much. I think the grit was more course in the rubbing compound than the 2000 grit paper but it brought out what I had missed by wet sanding. After completing with rubbing compound, I moved on to Turtle Wax polishing compound. And wow. A new finish. For the final touch, I used Turtle Wax. Couldn't believe my eyes. A new boat. I tried the rubbing compound on the the rails and anything else metal. Worked great. I can now see a great reflection on every part of my pride and joy. And it all cost me about 35 bucks..... and alot of elbow grease. I'll post a pic soon. Everyone knows how much they love to show off their babies. LOL. If anyone has any questions, please ask. And thanks to the few that made me aware that boating season is only 7 or 8 months away. Am I the only one here that counts down the days to summer? Florida is sounding better all the time. 