Foil Polishing

I just spent over 4 hours to get my foil in "like new" condition. Is there any way to keep the foil from tarnishing so quickly? I was thinking maybe putting on a coat of clear laquer or something although I am afraid it might hurt performance. How does everyone else deal with this?

Kevin, Travis, Matt any tips?

Keith, some people anodize LE and LEXs that will stop the tarnishing. For those of us with regular foils I'd say:
- Wipe the foil down after every run
- Do not store the foil in a foil bag, use the bag for transport and in the boat.
- Use a buffer, it makes it much easier than by hand.

I'm not sure of which products work best. I have been using rouge and a buffer. Do it a few times a year.

Also, some water will cause the foil to tarnish faster. Here in Seattle, Lake Washington and Sammamish do not cause much tarnishing.

I wouldn't add a coat of anything. It will spoil the foil's responsiveness.

Jeweler's Rouge ( the white kind ) for touch ups. I use the red rouge ( kind of redundant eh? ) for the initial or heavy work.

A buffer's a great idea, also, I keep a cloth permeated with aluminum polish - the liquid kind - in a baggy in the truck. I wipe the foil down with that rag as I'm drying it. Seems to help a bit.

What's the big idea of asking this on a Sunday>?>? I was playing golf ;)

I was riding! he he he he

Golf with the Boss ( the real work one ) is not to be passed up lightly ;)

Thanks for the comments. Where do you buy Jeweler's Rouge? I used Mothers Metal Polish to clean mine up on Sunday (a beautiful day in Chicago - but my boat is still in storage so all I could do was polish!).

Hardware store in the buffing/polishing section ( or around buffers and air tools ).

The foils used to be powder coated. This is still suitable for use today, but if you powder coat it, take care in that you will have to color sand it all and if you get it too thick in some areas it WILL affect the performance. Plus if you chip it anywhere you will have to feather sand and spray it again, and sand some more. A painted foil wont give you quite as smooth of a ride as an uncoated foil assembly. The same thing with anodizing, if you chip it, how are you going to repair it? Peeling is another issue with anodizing.
Air Chair has a foil sealer available, so it does help to keep it from tarnishing as quickly as it can without it. We went from polishing every weekend to only polishing every 6 months after using the sealer. The sealer seems to work great in most water.

Anyone use an grinder with buffing pad that's an air tool?

I'm thinking about getting one. just don't know if they are worth it.

I have one, as long as you have a big, no real big, air compressor. They are real air hogs. I dont see a real advantage to it over an electric one but sure beats hand polishing.

Well, the compressor isn't HUGE, but it's good enough to keep the 'Burban tires at 50 very easily.

IIRC, it's about a 5 horse, 15 gallon. Basically the home style compressor that's a horizontal tank and a compressor on top.

Bambi,

I just bought an old Air chair...with the powdercoated foil...can it be polished? Do you recommend it?

Skeeter yes it can be polished. You will have to strip or sand off the powder coating though.

www.Wake-Me.com

I had a long time ago one of the powder coated air chairs. I bought paint stripper at the hardware store and stripped it then I block sanded it with multiple grades of sand paper and did a lot of fine tuning. It is pretty rough underneath stock but did make a difference. Good luck.

I just sent my cast Sky ski foil out to get Everlube a new process similar to teflon coating but it comes in colors.

It loks good but I haven't foiled it yet. I will let you know how performance is affected.

I just tired using Flitz this week on my foil. Works really well.

I used rouge to start with then moved to Flitz. I found that applying it by hand (wearing a latex glove), letting it sit for a few minutes and then buffing it off got the foil to a nice shine.

The Everlube stuff sounds interesting. What will happen if you hit some thing and have to repair a ding, does the whole part have to be re-coated?