Boat Restoration Services in Tampa

If your boat is faded, oxidized, or has a significant amount of scratches in the gel coat, we place that into the “boat restoration” category. 

Some boats with light to moderate oxidation can be restored in only a few compounding steps. 

However, if the oxidation is severe (chalkiness is a good indicator), it will require sanding to some degree or another. 

Sanding

Any time a boat is on that line of “moderate to severe,” we always like to play it safe and at least do one sanding step.

Wet sanding a boat guarantees that we’ll have a consistent, new layer of gel coat to compound and polish down to perfection.

If a boat is severely oxidized, it may require a sequence of sanding steps ranging from heavier to lighter grits before switching over to buffing or “compounding.”

If there are scratches that need to be taken care of, dry sanding is a method we can use. Dry sanding will cut through quite a bit of gel coat. This is necessary to get past the deepest part of the scratch.

Once we’ve reached fresh gel coat, we blend it back in so that it’s consistent with the rest of the boat.

Compounding

Compounding, or “buffing” as it’s often referred to, is a way to cut the top layer of gel coat where oxidation is starting to form.

We are very picky about the products we use. Currently, Starke Yacht Care has the highest quality products.

Their Level-R product has a good amount of abrasives built into it and does a great job of removing micro-scratches left from sanding steps as well as cutting through moderate oxidation.

The heavy cutting step is done with a wool pad and tends to leave what are referred to as holograms or swirl marks which brings us to our next step; medium cut.

The Medium cut compound we use (also from Starke) is a diminishing abrasive which means it will do its job at removing the swirl marks but it also diminishes down into a great polish when we crank up the speed on our machine.

Polishing

At this point, the boat is going to be looking great but not quite PERFECT.

The final step before we protect the boat with a wax or sealant is our final polish.

We use our Dual Action or Forced Rotation machine with a foamed wool pad with our polish with eliminates and swirls or holograms that may be left behind from any of the previous cutting steps.

This is the step that gives a boat the “Wow” type of look. A lot of times boats that are brand new out of a factory could benefit from this polishing step simply because manufacturers don’t take the time to finish them down.

We’ve gotten comments after the polishing step like “Man, the boat looks better than when I bought it brand new.”

This is true because many boats have never actually been polished. A well-polished boat is truly a thing of beauty and sometimes you don’t realize that your boat needed it until it’s done.

Detailing

Once the process mentioned above is complete, it’s on to the full detail.