Up next .... 35ft house boat

Tex Star Detail

Tex Star Detail

Formerly TexasTB
As the title states, picked up a 25 foot house boat, to be detailed this week.
First boat for me....kinda scared and psyched about it.
I did the ladies Volvo S80 on Saturday and now she wants the boat done.
Went to the Marina to look at it today and give an estimate. I quoted $500 for the outside, but all she wants done is to buff the gelcoat out. Nothing below the rub rail......good.....no hull, as it was very bad. No windows or metal polishing either. She said the floor is fine, and not to clean it. No inside either.
We agreed on a price of $300 just to Buff and clean the transom...nothing else. And the agreement was, that she had to get me more jobs at the Marina, as she says, she knows over half of the people there, and they want their boats done too. And let me tell you, there are some freaking nice boats there looking pretty bad from sitting......

Boat is pretty oxidized, and has a few rust stains on the flybridge. (thanks Greg..LOL) I did not have a rotary, so I will be picking one up tomorrow. Already bought a backing plate and a few wool pads. I figure I will spend about 75% of what I will make, on a buffer and supplies for boat detailing. I guess I need the stuff anyways if I will be doing boats too.....Have to get it sooner or later......:)

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They had one house boat out there that was just absolutly enormous. It was at least double the length of this one and about 2.5 times as tall. Hell, it had a AC unit from a house on the back of it...
They know who owns it, and are going to talk to them about it. They said they would pay to have it cleaned, no doubt. It would be at LEAST a grand. I will get pics of it this week......


For those that detail boats...On the rust, would using CLR be ok? Also, the metal step off of the transom, what can be used on that. They said not too worry about any metal, but I would like to at least do that......
Any Questions or Comments???????
 
That will be easier then most boats. Its all straight without many corners. Boat designers do not make them for detailers. We just use a rust remover for rust stains, you can try that, or whatever you have thats fairly strong. if its light it may even buff out. Just try some stuff out, and don't be worried about grinding a bit with the buffer, it won't burn through.
 
That'll be a fun one Chris. It doesn't look like you have much stanging/laddar room on the sides. I'm sure the results will be outstanding.

What are you planning on using to cut the oxidation?

When I talked to scottlee about gel-coat he siad that it will make holograms with a rotary and that they are even harder to remove than on normal paint- just food for thought if this will be your first time with one. Good luck.

One more thing. Some type of aluminum wheel cleaner may work on that back step. I think Meg's or Eagle One has one out in stores.
 
Nice.....holograms....LOL

I am hoping none will be present when finished....
I will be using a rotary with wool pads and 3M #09006
 
I know. Hard to order and get it here by 6:30 in the morning though..... I'll have to stick with OTC products here in town for now...
 
haha, thats the same stuff we use on most of our boats. Thats our one step product, and we got some better stuff for those who want to pay.

Yea, the key with boats is not to make wild, or strange movements. just go up and down or side to side and keep it the same the whole boat or as much as possible. That compound is fairly strong stuff, any shoe marks or anything will come out with it, just keep rubbing with your applicator. It might be impossible to have NO holograms, but making sure your pad is clean and dry helps alot.

Sometimes we even go over it once to get the majority of the wax, then switch to a softer wool pad and go over it again, this way your finishing pad stays clean and dry.

One more piece of advice, you will want a whole seperate pad for the blue. Trust me on that one. Any color on the white fiberglass seems to instanty dry and then its a pain to get to look good again. But there seems to be a nice divider piece to keep that from happening, if you use a different pad.


Good luck with it.
 
I picked up a couple of of pads and a backing plate. I am having NO LUCK finding a variable speed rotary. Lowes, home depot, wal mart, pawn shops....no one has anything. Just the 15k RPM ones that will instantly hit top speed with a light pull of the trigger......SUCKS....No idea what to do now.....
 
TexasTB said:
Found a rotary, Craftsman, 6 inch, with 2 speeds...1400 and 1650 RPMS.....would that be sufficient for the boat??????????
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Have you tried asking anyone at lowes,home depot? They should have them there. I know sears carries dewalt, they should have their rotary. It goes from 1000-3000 rpm.

The craftsman should be alright, but gelcoat is alot harder and sometimes you could use the extra punch that a dewalt can provide.
 
Went everywhere. Only ones they had that were 7" were not variable speed, and they were friggen HUGE AND HEAVY. 12k RPM, right on start up. Benn to pawn shops, Tractor Supply, Hardware stores, paint stores, auto stores, everywhere.................

Now the hardware stores carry a huge variety of 4.5", but again, not variable speed. I may have to make an emergency order form our sponsors
 
Do you have any Sears around there? All of the stores around here have Milwaukee polisher that is 0-1750 RPM but is a bit heavy. But may be worth checking into for a last minute deal.

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/search.do?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&vertical=TOOL&keyword=polisher

They also list a Makita on their site but haven't seen one of them in the stores yet.

New food for though for anyone- Could Chris get away with using his PC in this situation? I among others may come into a situation like this so this info would help everyone out.
 
budman3 said:
Do you have any Sears around there? All of the stores around here have Milwaukee polisher that is 0-1750 RPM but is a bit heavy. But may be worth checking into for a last minute deal.

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/search.do?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&vertical=TOOL&keyword=polisher

They also list a Makita on their site but haven't seen one of them in the stores yet.

New food for though for anyone- Could Chris get away with using his PC in this situation? I among others may come into a situation like this so this info would help everyone out.
Click to expand...


Yea...I have bee to Sears, 3 times today. Bought the Craftsman Bufer, 2nd trip I took it back, third trip I went to get the Milwaukee Rotary. They were out of stock. I am kind of glad, as that think was extremely heavy and bulky. I would have hated to use it. I finally got ahold of my distributor, (car brite) and he has one Dewalt Rotary on his truck. He is going to make an hour and a half trip,onw way, tomorrow morning just to bring me the Buffer.....
Now that is helping the customer out.

I have to tell you though. I was actually scared I would not be able to find a rotary by Thursday. It seems odd that there are none around here......
 
TexasTB said:
Yea...I have bee to Sears, 3 times today. Bought the Craftsman Bufer, 2nd trip I took it back, third trip I went to get the Milwaukee Rotary. They were out of stock. I am kind of glad, as that think was extremely heavy and bulky. I would have hated to use it. I finally got ahold of my distributor, (car brite) and he has one Dewalt Rotary on his truck. He is going to make an hour and a half trip,onw way, tomorrow morning just to bring me the Buffer.....
Now that is helping the customer out.

I have to tell you though. I was actually scared I would not be able to find a rotary by Thursday. It seems odd that there are none around here......
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You'll be happy with the dewalt. Its on the heavy side but its bulletproof. And it don't bog down.

I don't get why people would want one thats light. The heavier it is the better quality it is IMO.
 
TrueDetailer said:
You'll be happy with the dewalt. Its on the heavy side but its bulletproof. And it don't bog down.

I don't get why people would want one thats light. The heavier it is the better quality it is IMO.
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That is what I heard. I believe it is the DW849 model.....
 
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