My 1996 Nitro 884 Savage Project

[Eric Combs]

Hey All -



As some of you may have read, about a month ago I purchased a 1996 884 Savage (for $3,600, wooo!) which had some pretty tough gelcoat issues. I originally thought, because of some of the fading and what not, the areas affected were decals or stickers - unfortunately, they were not. Apparently, darker Nitro gelcoat oxidizes pretty badly if not cared for properly. At any rate, I spent hours and hours, scrubbing, buffing, waxing, wetsanding, etc to get it looking as good as I could. Finally, I got to a point where I think I'm happy with the way it looks and can finally move on to other things on the boat (like replacing the carpeting.. fuuuuun... right?!)



Here are a few pics of the before and afters of what I was able to accomplish.



Before:

After:

Before:

After:

I've got a Picasa album if you want to look at it. It has a bunch of pics of things I've done to the boat, already, and I've got quite a few more. The link to my album is posted in the link section of the post.



What do you all think?!
https://picasaweb.google.com/combs....&authkey=Gv1sRgCIKahpGUk6CzPQ&feat=directlink

 

[Max Neathamer2]

Eric,



Looking good..



Max

 

[john horn]

looks good

 

[Tim Greifer]

Looking NICE!!! The gel coat is looking really good. Good luck with the carpet. I want to tackle my carpet as well, but not too confident in my abilities!

Hopefully your carpet will turn out as good as your buffing job on the paint. Keep us posted!!

 

[Tom Jones]

Nice! That's what I'm looking for. A reasonable fixer upper.

 

[Greg Meyer]

Very nice improvement (and I am sure a tremendous effort by you), great looking.

 

[bob szymakowski]

I am working on a 190 TF 1994....what kind of polish did you use>?? looks great

 

[Eric Combs]

Thanks everyone!! It did take a lot of work but it was well worth it.



Bobski - I used Meguiars one step compound for most of it but I did a mix of rubbing compound and wet sanding, too. For the wet sanding I did 1200 grit first then 2000 to smooth it out. Then the compound and finally the one step. To be perfectly honest, the one step did a fantastic job. You won't be disappointed.
http://www.amazon.com/Meguiars-M673..._1?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1315262323&sr=1-1

 

[Texas Transplant]

Very nice. I did a little bit of that to the back 'corners' of my Stratos when I sold it. It's amazing what some elbow grease and the contents of that blue bottle will do (used the same stuff).



Tex