Resurfacing Aluminum Boat.

General boating discussion
PappaPepper
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Resurfacing Aluminum Boat.

#1

Post by PappaPepper »

After years of getting put into docks, rocks and beaches the sides of the boat are looking fairly beat up with scratches and light oxidation/corrosion. I’m wondering what it would take to restore the boat back to its “nearly” original smooth surface. Any thoughts?
kmorin
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Re: Resurfacing Aluminum Boat.

#2

Post by kmorin »

P'Pepper,
the orginal may of may not have had the mill scale removed- that means getting back to the shiny original plate might be a bit of work?

However, in general there are lots of abrasive disks that can be used to remove scratches, even deeper ones, and then continue graduating in finer and finer grits till you bring the boat to a full on polish. I once saw a 22' skiff that have been polished to a mirror final pass was with cotton/sheep's foot buffer and polishing compound- the type used to bring classic show cars to high buffed finish.

There are a couple of notes that may be worth consideration? Most tools are rotary where a flat disk of abrasive material is held to the surface and the grit of the disk is transferred to the metal. But this can leave 'patterns' or swirl marks if the grits are not carried to a fairly fine level- each level means holding the disk of that graduated grit to the entire sides of the hull!! Say 10-15 grit changes and you've sanded the entire topsides that many times!!

Another tool that is very effective for this type of work is a drum or roller sander - the most cost effective one I know about is available from Eastwood https://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-conto ... drums.html I have one and use it for all sorts of surface prep work.

But its not all that light wt- and holding it up to your boat's sides for hours may get to be a pain in the neck (literally). But it comes with many different levels of grits down to polishing/buffing and would leave a more or less uniform 'track' horizontal to the hull/chine/waterlines.

there are quite a few ways to rig a 'guide' to carry most of the tool's wt and give the sanding/buffing patterns some uniformity- many people don't care for the random swirls of the 4"-9" circular sander tools' tracks.

hope this helps with a quick review of what you're asking in your post?

Cheers,
Kevin Morin
Kenai, AK
Last edited by kmorin on Sun Sep 20, 2020 10:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: typo's
kmorin
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welder
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Re: Resurfacing Aluminum Boat.

#3

Post by welder »

Each BATTLE SCAR has a story I'm sure and that's why I LOVE ALLOY but, Kevins advice above is on the money, be prepared to get some major arm pump running a drum sander.
Don't forget pictures, before and after.
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Re: Resurfacing Aluminum Boat.

#4

Post by skypoke »

That's a good deal on the drum sander. I was wondering if there is any kind of scotchbrite pad for a handheld belt sander that might work to leave the right looking grain as one of these drum sanders.
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kmorin
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Re: Resurfacing Aluminum Boat.

#5

Post by kmorin »

sky',
if you rig a pipe/pole/guide above, and hang that SCT (Eastwood drum sander) on the guide, then you could push pull the tool back and forth and might end up with longwise buffing patterns.

Say for example, a roller carriage running on a pipe or other extrusion- while the tool was carried on a line hung down- now, the tool's work force can be guided against the topsides in a back and forth motion but not form an Arc due to hanging from one single point?

Another method might be to set up some pipe jacks with a 2x4- or 2x6 between them and run the tool's main wt on that? using a drawer slide as the main wt bearing attachment to the tool? Anyway, that would provide a horizontal guide but not require you holding the entire wt of the tool.

At this age, I can lift my drum roller onto a flat surface (before 2:45 pm in the afternoon) but not do too well holding it with the drum vertical and then cleaning the sides of a skiff free hand!!

Eastwood has both flap and 'Scotchbrite' (tm) mixed drums and straight Scotchbrite(tm) type drums, as well as finer grits of a few types to help get the brushing patterns to lesser and lesser levels of "tracks" and more and more polished.

I like the tool for the cost, and I've had one for a couple of years, but lifting it to use is a chore!

Cheers,
Kevin Morin
Kenai, AK
kmorin
Craigb
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Re: Resurfacing Aluminum Boat.

#6

Post by Craigb »

I've done a few hulls with the SCT. Running it the short way on the panel(not lengthwise of the boat) then going over by hand with a hand pad and water seemed to level out the surface fairly well. The machine did most of the work and easy to guide by hand in the short span of a hull panel, and the rub over after blended it up nicely. After a few weeks in the water and some dock scrubs, nobody cared.
kmorin
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Re: Resurfacing Aluminum Boat.

#7

Post by kmorin »

Craig, you must be one beefy young man! Your tracks were vertical? if I understand the post? But even so, more than I can get done - gravity seems to pull on tools more (and harder) as my time goes by!!!!

Any pictures of the project or results for others to consider?

Cheers,
Kevin Morin
Kenai, AK
kmorin
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