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Gel Coat Maintenance Kit
for Dual Action Polishers ]
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| This Gel Coat Maintenance Kit is available with and without a Porter Cable 7424 Polisher and Backing Plate. If you already own a Porter Cable 7424 polisher, it must be equipped with a six inch, Hook and Loop Backing Plate. This backing plate may or may not have come with your polisher. |
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| If you do not own a 7424 Polisher, select the BTS-7424GCDA Kit (below). This kit includes the 7424 Polisher, 6 inch Backing Plate and a Porter Cable Flat Wrench. |
If you need a 6 inch backing plate for your machine, we offer them here: Flexible Backing Plates for the Porter Cable 7424 Polisher. To remove the stock pad that comes on the 7424 Polisher requires a Porter Cable Flat Wrench that comes with all 7424 polishers. If you lost your wrench, we have extras here: Porter Cable Flat Wrench. |
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Continue the maintenance program with a once each year regimen of polishing (called compounding) and re-sealing the gel coat. Using your 7424 polisher with a 6 inch Hook and Loop Backing Plate, this Gel Coat Maintenance Kit contains everything you need to keep you boat's gel coat, standard or painted, looking "like new." The polish and sealant in this kit is more than enough to polish, restore gloss and protect a 28 ft. boat. Our Gel Coat Maintenance Kit includes: |
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Gel coat primer. Gel coat, the smooth glassy outer finish on your boat is porous. Seen under a microscope, gel coat is millions of tiny holes or pores. As gel coat ages from exposure to water and sunlight, these pores fill with oxidized polymer molecules called "chalk". Waxing or sealing the gel coat will slow the oxidation process but not stop it. Oxidation is still continuing under the wax! This is why waxing alone is not enough. Eventually, even with routine waxing, the gel coat will oxidize so severely that it will require major refurbishing. |
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It is prudent to cleanse your boat's finish once a year, remove any accumulated oxidation, and restore the original surface gloss. We call this cleansing process polishing or more technically correct, compounding. Gel Coat Lab's Gel Coat Fine Cut Polish with an Orange Gel Coat Foam Pad on your 7424 machine polisher accomplishes this faster and with less residues than any polish I have ever used. The speed of application and ease of clean-up is one reason this polish is used at the OEM level by boat and yacht makers. |
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After compounding, you must re-apply a sealant. Again, you can do this by hand but a dual-action machine polisher, with the proper pad, will allow you to accomplish this in a fraction of the time it would take to seal your boat by hand. One-step,
Gel Coat Micro-polish & Sealant will take the already polished gel
coat to the next level and seal the shine under a tough, acrylic shield. A note on the Porter Cable 7424 polisher: |
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The pads on this machine do not rotate, they oscillate or "jiggle" in a manner designed to simulate hand application. This eliminates the possibility of creating swirls but it will not restore moderate to severely dull surfaces. If your boat is new or like new, the Porter Cable 7424 can be used in a yearly maintenance program of compounding and sealing to keep the finish bright and glossy. If your boat's finish is quite dull (chalky) or if you've just purchased a used boat with neglected gel coat, it will require a professional, circular polisher to restore the finish. See our Professional Marine Polish & Shine Kit The actual procedure: Compounding is started by wiping a small amount of compound over a 3 sq. ft. area using a dry, Microfiber Applicator Pad. Put an Orange Gel Coat Foam Pad on your 7424 polisher and go over the area until gloss is restored. Finish by wiping off any remaining residues by hand using a dry, Microfiber Wipe Cloth. Continue compounding in 3 sq. ft. sections until the entire vessel is done. Applying the final sealant is even easier. Place a fresh Orange, Gel Coat Foam Pad on your machine, mist the pad with Pad Lubricant and apply two lines of sealant to the pad. Work over 3 sq. ft. sections and wipe off residues by hand with a dry, Microfiber Wipe Cloth. If you want to review the complete step-by-step procedure in more detail, I've published Gel Coat Lab's Product Application Guide here: Gel Coat Labs Bow to Stern Application Guide. |
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