Polishing Polyester Gelcoat Mold To Mirror Finish Help


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aza993a
aza993a
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Rubbing compounds vary greatly in their grit, it's probably fairly course and most will give a very haizy finish.  Need to follow it up with at least a polish, you can stop there or follow that up with a machine glaze to yield a brilliant finish. Would probably do sanding discs on a foam interface 2000 grit wet, 3000 trizact or light cut rubbing compound, polish, glaze. 
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Edited 11 Years Ago by aza993a
Hanaldo
Hanaldo
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That's why I said ALMOST impossible. I know it can be done, I do it on a daily basis with moulds that are too small and tight or complex for the machine polisher, but it's a lot of work and it does take a bit of practice to get a good result. I never bother trying to polish 1200 either, if I'm machine polishing then I go to 2000 and if I'm hand polishing I go to 3000, otherwise I'm there all day and I loath hand polishing. 
dbcrx
dbcrx
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Hanaldo (21/09/2014)
Yeh hand polishing gelcoat is almost an impossible task, given its abrasion resistance. You really need a machine to do a great job.
It's not impossible at all. I do it quite often for small repairs. You will want to sand to 1200 or 1500 though and you do need a good cutting compound followed by a fine polish.
whitecel
whitecel
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Thanks guys.  Well looks like I had a pinhole pop up and I'm all out of gel coat.  Think I'm gonna just make the part and sand down the entire part and clear coat it to get the gloss.  So I guess it's ok to have a dull finish on the mold since I have to clear it anyway Smile
Edited 11 Years Ago by whitecel
Hanaldo
Hanaldo
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Yeh hand polishing gelcoat is almost an impossible task, given its abrasion resistance. You really need a machine to do a great job. 

That said, polyester gelcoats can also lose their gloss if they get too hot during the layup process. So if you lay too many layers in one go and it exotherms badly, you may struggle to bring the gloss back. 
George Sychrovsky
George Sychrovsky
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You have to machine buff it with buffing compound


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whitecel
whitecel
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Hey guys,
  I made a made out of my solo cowl for my motorcycle and I had to sand down a little alligatoring.  After sanding it down, I went with 220->400->800->1000.  Then I used turtle wax rubbing compound followed by meguiars gold carnauba wax.  After all that, the part is still dull and doesn't look at all like it helped.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance
GO

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