'86 Sunsport Facelift

[sydneyACE]

I'm in the exact same boat (no pun intended) as you guys. I started with an electric buffer, wool pad and polishing compound. That made-it shiny but the color was still faded. I then switched to a cutting compound (same wool pad), that worked a little better, but I would still have to stay in one-spot for a long-time. Right-now I'm wet-sanding with 600 grit. I'm afraid to take my stripes-off, because I know then I will be forced to sand-it all the way out.

I'm hoping I can buff-out the 600 grit with just one pass of polishing compound, I don't really want to make 3-4 steps...

Keep-us updated with your progress, I'm gonna work on mine for a few hours today and will follow-up after.

[wiatowski]

So I cut the other side of the boat today and have rough sanded half of that. I decided to finish a small section on the back just to get my hopes up. So I wet sanded 320,600,1200,then used rubbing compound then used Buff Magic.... I didn't put polish on it cause I want to finsh the whole boat first... but I needed to see the light a bit.

Cutting
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Cutting to rough Sanding
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320,600,1500,compound, and Buff magic ... sorry it's wet the weather wasn't co-operating today
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Lets not forget what it started out as
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[DAFF]

Nice progress. Any thoughts on the strip package and colours... By the way your comp is still here !!!

[wiatowski]

I'd like to at least put "Supra" on it the wife wants me to leave it blank.
Finished rough sanding the bottom today and got 1/2 of one side done with 320.
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???????
newlook1.jpg

[DAFF]

Keep her plain-ish. I think the stripe on the all white 10th anniversary boat would be perfect on yours. Try to match the same grey/white as the top portion of the boat. Simple elegant and timeless.

[86 century]

What ever that discoloration on mine is hard as a rock.

150 takes a bit of time to cut it then 220,320,400,600dry,600wet,1000wet, and finaly 3m heavy cut compound.

The more I think about it I should have just painted the darn thing.

[Salty87]

pics, pics...more pics!!....86 century, you're getting some befores & afters i hope!

i've still never seen red gel like wiatowski's from the factory. anyone else seen that before? where's haugy?

paint is nice but gel is more durable. i don't think we'd be reviving 20+ yr old paint jobs as well as some serious elbow grease can bring gel back to life.

[wiatowski]

What ever that discoloration on mine is hard as a rock.

150 takes a bit of time to cut it then 220,320,400,600dry,600wet,1000wet, and finaly 3m heavy cut compound.

The more I think about it I should have just painted the darn thing.

You read my mind! lol are you doing yours a section at a time?

[wiatowski]

O.k. now for my update... worked at her hard today as it's suppose to rain the next 5.... although I will be wet sanding I don't want to do it in the rain. I hadn't yet done the off-white part on the hull. So I broke out the painting tape and though " heck with it I'll just take off the rub rail", so that's what I did.... Honestly it's just because I'm anal when I do repair work. So now the lower half of the boat is completely rough sanded and ready for the the next grit.

Note to Daff... you were right the cap has been off before, but for some reason it looks like they didn't take all the foam out.
the reason the floor moves/ creaks.. you know what I'm talking about... is because they nailed the floor down instead of screwing it. But the stringers look good... Guess I'll have to do a cap off resto one day.

Question to the viewers.... How much of the underside of the hull should I do? what thinking of just doing the first part... I'll include a pic.
suprahull.jpg
I want to sand this before I move on to the rest so I can sand 1 grit at a time.

Here are a couple from today... anyone tell me how hard it is to put the rub rail back on?
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One more question.... How can I take the teak railing off with out drilling out the plugs... any suggestions?

[86 century]

Yes I have taken a few pics.

Im so worn out I cant lift my phone.


My hull has a step about 4" from the bottom it changes to white so you have a lot more color to work on.