Re: Lifting Pontoon Boat for Cleaning
Well, I finally got it done!!!!! I must say--I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever do this again. Polishing pontoons is some of the hardest work I've ever done stooped over 1/2-way. I'd been told and also read in some places to anticipate 20-30 hours of labor, and I thought that was waaaaay too much. As it turns out, it took me more than 30 hours. Oh--and it is nasty work. My wife gave me the nickname "tin man", and I'm still cleaning aluminum dust out of my ears. The pic is attached at the bottom of this post--I'd love to hear comments!! At least it'd make me feel better while sitting here in my padded room
Okay--so here's how it went. The first thing I did was to figure out how to lift my pontoons off of the bunks safely, and even more importantly to have them raised safely so I could work underneath them. In short, I made a large "T" out of 4x4 timbers, about 42" high (measured it for my pontoon) and 6 feet long. I then used 45-degree angle braces to be sure the "T" was strong enough not to bend over the 6-foot length. I used a floor jack, set the "T" on top of it, had a friend raise it until it was snug against several cross members, climbed out from under the boat and lifted. Viola! Worked perfectly. I started at the back lifting it first since it's heaviest (the front actually lifted to keep the 'toons straight) and I placed two 2x4's across the bunks at the weld seams. I did the same in the middle and front. Now--in the back, I had to build a "bench" under the bunks where the 2x4's were because the bunks started to bend badly from the weight of the 2x4's being pressed there (the steel bunk supports stop about 2 feet from the back of my bunks). Once this was done, I lowered the pontoon down and it was nice and stable. Oh--and I had the trailer hooked to a ball hitch on my tractor during this for stability, and also had the wheels of the trailer secured.
Once raised, man-oh-man did I have a mess on the bottom of my pontoons. Caked-on crusty stuff everywhere that my pressure washer and scrubbing wouldn't budge. I had to take a putty knife and scrape the bottom sides of the pontoons, which took a couple of hours to finally get it all off. Once this was done, I used a mild car wash detergent to wash the pontoons along with a soft 3-M pad to scour any mild, built-on stuff. Once dry, I used the sharkhide cleaner (what I used last year to clean my 'toons), which is basically an acid wash. Now--I didn't have any streaking *from* the acid wash, but there were vertical streaks on the pontoons where they had been left underwater (docked) from the previous owner. Hard water stains? I'm not sure. With that said, when you use the sharkhide cleaner it's very specific about keeping all areas covered continuously, maybe to keep streaks from occurring. But I had no problems with that. The washing, drying and acid washing took probably a total of 3 or 4 hours.
Now the fun began. Let me tell you--if I had really any idea of what I was about to begin, I never would have done it. Never. If there are guys out there on these forums that do this for a living, I have all of the respect in the world for you. This was *hard work*. I don't care what you charge, it's not enough. I was so impressed with the Sharkhide cleaner that I also bought the Sharkhide polish. I will say that it was easy to use, and boy does it cut. I had all kinds of scratches on the pontoons, and they're gone--absolutely gone. All but the deepest. Those probably could have been buffed out with enough time, but I'd probably have a big hole in my pontoons if I had tried
However, it did cut too well in my opinion. In their video online, it shows using the side of the buffer wheel, this polished through the scratches, pits, and so-on like a hot knife through butter, but you have to reeeeeeally apply pressure. Not bad for the first hour, but the next 29 will kill you. Anyway, you do each area twice, and the 'toons literally--*literally*--look like mirrors. Let me jump ahead and say I used the Sharkhide sealer after cleaning off the residue since I didn't want them exposed (another lengthy process--more on this later). However, they're mirrors with swirl marks. Here's the problem I had. During the day with the sun overhead, they looked flawless, but that night--when I turned on my work lights--I wanted to bang my head against a brick wall. It looked just terrible. Well, to me, anyway. I tend to be a perfectionist, which can be good on rare occasions, but in such circumstances it's just bad. It took me 30 mins to remove the protectant with lacquer thinner, and I tried dry-buffing over and over with a flat wheel, but to no avail. I was very, very frustrated.
In steps Mother's fine aluminum polish (fine being the grit). Now--this stuff doesn't touch sharkhide polish for cutting ability. I tried using Mothers on the inside of the 'toons from the start (I was running out of Sharkhide), and it took a good 4 or 5 polishings in the same area to get it as clean as one polishing with the sharkhide. HOWEVER, using Mothers after the sharkhide was just absolutely, stunningly beautiful. I used the flat part of the buffing wheel, wiping the Mothers over the *entire* area to be polished before buffing (with Sharkhide, you use a spatula and just put a dab here and there in the general area you plan to polish), turn the RPM's to full (btw--I used a Makita professional buffer with variable speed from 1500 to 2800 rpm), and buffed over the polish. Let me tell you--no matter what angle or what light, these pontoons are 100% swirl-free. Thus, if anyone asks if it can be done, the answer is yes. I'm not so sure it can be done with just a single polish, however, as advertised on the Sharkhide page. If you don't mind some swirls, maybe so. Or I could just be doing it wrong, which would not be a surprise (the their credit, Sharkhide does recommend using a variable speed buffer with min RPM of around 500, but none of the body shops I called had anything under 1200 rpm). I was very, very, very impressed with the finish quality of the Mothers polish.
Okay--I actually polished, cleaned and sealed the pontoons 1/2 at a time (outside left, inside left, outside right, inside right), but for the sake of this story, the actual *polishing* easily took 20 hours. It is really that labor intensive. The worst part was the front. Due to the bends, angles and the "?fins?", you get to do all of this by hand (same with the very bottom of the 'toons--the buffer couldn't reach under there). To hand-buff those to the same, shiny finish as the other areas using a 1500-2800 rpm buffer took some serious elbow grease, and lots and lots of repeat polishings. But... I got it done. Now--just when I thought the worst was over, I had to clean the pontoons before applying the protectant. Boy do I hope the protectant works. Now--it supposedly won't keep gunk and dirt from getting on the pontoons, but it seals the aluminum so it won't re-oxidize and lose the luster. We'll see. It had better! Anyway, cleaning the residue is awful. Just awful. Let me tell you--when you're through with the polishing, it's virtually a flawless mirror finish. You'll see pockets of residue here and there, and I wiped most of it off with a soft, dry cloth. The 'toons look clean, but ALL of the reside has to be off to make sure the Sharkhide protectant is directly on the aluminum.
So... you use lacquer thinner to remove the reside of the Sharkhide polish, and isopropyl alcohol to remove the Mother's residue. I started with alcohol. I literally wiped and wiped the same area 10 or 15 times for the jet-black residue I was picking up to turn into a light gray. This is why they recommend paper towels. I used the paper towels that are 1/2-size, and used 4 at a time folded up. I would use it for a swipe, use the back, refold it, reapply the cleaner, swipe it and so-on until the paper towel was thoroughly used. Once it was clean with alcohol, I used lacquer thinner. I thought they had to be mostly clean, but no... even more came off with the lacquer thinner. It took me 5 of the *huge* bottles of alcohol, two gallons of lacquer thinner and 6 jumbo rolls of Scott's paper towels to clean all of the pontoons. This easily took 4 or 5 hours in total.
Finally, the easy part. Applying the Sharkhide protectant. Douse a cotton baby diaper with the stuff, and rub it on in one direction, turn and go back in the other direction with a 1" overlap. Once you've done the area, repeat going the the directions opposite that you just went. This probably took 30 minutes total. Now--it took 30 mins for me to run out of protectant. If I had 5 gallons of the stuff I would have spent hours on this step just to be sure the work I had just completed would not have to be repeated!!!!!! I do plan on ordering another quart and reapplying in a week or so (you have to wait 2-3 days min between additional coats).
Now--the results. I always wondered if this would improve the performance of my pontoon, and it certainly did. Using my GPS, I gained a *solid* 3 to 4 mph top speed, but the biggest difference is in the lower rpms. I have no doubt the biggest improvement came from removing the jagged, hard, crusty stuff from the bottom of the 'toons, but feeling the aluminum before and after polishing was a world of difference, too. Water is a much more dense fluid than air (I guess this is obvious, trying swinging your arm in the air and do the same underwater), and there's a lot of the pontoon in the water. Thus, any reduction in drag coefficient makes somewhat of a difference.
So--there you have it. I love the way the pontoons look, it gave me (I feel) a great boost in performance, but would I do it again? Nope. Not a chance. Hopefully the Sharkhide protectant works, and I'll post back here at the end of the year to update everyone (it's supposed to last 2-3 years if you pull your boat out of the water, which I do). If not, I'll sit back and let the 'toons re-oxidize and be happy about it.
