Follow our guide for removing rust stains from your gelcoat.
By Pierce Hoover
By now you've likely logged quite a few memorable summer hours on your boat. That thorough cleaning and polish you did before the season is ancient history, and there might be a few small but unsightly rust stains showing up on the gelcoat. With regular exposure to sun and sea — and sometimes even fresh water — even quality stainless hardware may bleed a bit of rust onto the hull and deck. Fortunately, surface rust stains are typically easy to remove.
What you probably don't want to do, however, is follow some of the well-meaning advice you might receive from friends or read on a Web forum. One such bit of advice that keeps surfacing is to use bathroom or toilet bowl cleaners to remove surface rust stains. This suggestion may be accompanied by precautionary advice such as "use gloves" or "dilute with water and rinse immediately." This is because these cleaners contain a type of acid that not only removes rust and other stains but could also chemically etch your boat's gelcoat.
Another bit of conventional wisdom you would be wise to avoid is using an abrasive cleaning pad along with a powdered cleaner such as Comet or Bar Keepers Friend. The combination of an abrasive pad and abrasive cleaning products can carve small but damaging scratches and grooves into your gelcoat. While this damage may not be immediately obvious to the naked eye — although sometimes it shows up in the form of a flatter finish — these small surface irregularities will make it easier for stains to adhere to the gelcoat in the future.
On a smooth, well-maintained gelcoat surface, most stains are actually quite close to the surface and can be polished out without the need for harsh compounds and abrasive cleaning. Choose products that clearly state they are safe for use with marine gelcoats, and instead of going right to the strongest cleaner available, start with a less aggressive product and apply a bit more elbow grease.
For surface rust on the stainless hardware itself, a good washing and polishing may be all that is needed. For a mild second step, try an old home remedy: a mixture of lemon juice or white vinegar and baking soda. If that doesn't do the trick, use ultra-fine grit sandpaper to gently buff the affected area of the steel's surface. Once the steel is free of any surface rust, you can finish by giving it a light coating of metal wax or a product such as Boeshield T-9 or Rust Free.
For both fiberglass and stainless, the best defense against rust stains is regular washings, so once you have the decks and hull looking good, remember to take a few extra minutes at the end of each trip to give your boat the attention it deserves.
Other Boatkeeper tips featured this month:
- More Electronics from past issues.
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