Boat Forum / Building / October 2005

The original gelcoat is the surface of choice. Once you paint, you start
a maintenance cycle.

Davis makes a product called, I believe, Fiberglass Stain Remover, which
is essentially oxalic (sp?) acid in a jelly base that does a great job
of cleaning up stained fiberglass.

Use that, and follow up with one of the many mild polishing compounds
(perhaps someone will pipe up with brand recommendations) then wax, and
you should be able to get it looking almost good as new.

Unless the scratches go through the gelcoat, you might want to wait and
see what they look like after stain removal before playing with fillers.
It is incredibly hard to match white surfaces and you may find you draw
more attention to the "scratch" by trying to fix it than leaving it
mostly alone.

You might also look at the Sailnet.com website. The store is defunct,
but they are leaving the web pages up, along with a store of 1,500 or so
articles, many of which are on maintenance of different boat surfaces, etc.

Have fun,

Jonathan