Refinishing an aluminum hull

[Chubminnow]

Can anyone here give me some insight as to how to do away with some of the oxydation and general over all dullness of a 14' aluminum V-bottom? Methods, compounds, etc...

[trentonc2000]

painted or unpainted?

[Chubminnow]

Unpainted

[Moose1am]

You can clean the aluminum to make it shine like new with phosphoric acid and a lot of elbow grease. Do a small section at a time and rinse thoroughly with plenty of water. Start cleaning at the top of each small section and work downward. Using circular motions with a scouring pad and the acid cleaner. I found some acid gel that was pretty thick and would not drip and run as much as the pure liquid type acid solutions.

Phosphoric acid is rather mild.

You might also try using Muriatic Acid too. Just make sure it's not too concentrated or else you may have to dilute the concentrated acid with some distilled water. I think that Muriatic acid is just Hydrochloric acid in a concentrated form. Muriatic acid can be used to clean concrete as well.

I got my bottles of phosphoric acid gel from a Kuester's Store in Evansville, IN. but they went out of business and I have no idea where to find that stuff these days. I am sure that it's available somewhere else though. Try Lowe's or Home Depot or Ace hardware stores or a True Value Hardware store.

Like I said it's a very tough job and requires a lot of elbow action. It took me three days to clean my 16 ft aluminum boat. But my boat is so heavy that I can't take it off the boat trailer. If your boat is lightweight you should be able to take it off the trailer and put it up on sawhorses and get the job done faster.

Might consider wearing some goggles to protect your eyes and some rubber gloves to protect your hands. And then maybe you could use some power tools to help speed the job up. An air tool that uses circular cleaning pads may help speed the job up.

But here is the final rub. I had my boat sparkling clean and shiny as new until the first time I put it back into the waters I fish. It took only one trip to the lake I fish to put a new coat of black stuff on the boat's hull. I decided that I was not going to clean the boat anymore like that if all it took was one trip back into the water to make the boat hull dirty again

Maybe there is something you can put on your boat to prevent the newly cleaned aluminum from new oxidation. Maybe a wax job after you clean it.

Or like the other guy said. Paint the boat?

Can anyone here give me some insight as to how to do away with some of the oxidation and general over all dullness of a 14' aluminum V-bottom? Methods, compounds, etc...

[Chubminnow]

Heck with it, to much work and ain't got that much time...I'm just gonna use it as the Cumberland River Fishing Machine that it is.