Cleaning pontoon tube questions

cbavier

cbavier

Lieutenant
Joined
Apr 8, 2007
Messages
1,363
I recently bought a used pontoon that has scummy tubes. I am asking for help from the experts. I have three questions.

1- I have Starbright Hull cleaner with Oxalic acid. Will that clean the tubes and make them bright again?

2- Will it kill my Grass?

3- Will it harm the Aluminum?

Please answer all three questions if you can and thanks in advance.
 
L

lakegeorge

Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Mar 19, 2002
Messages
660
Re: Cleaning pontoon tube questions

You should get your toon manual from the builder and see what they recommend. Godfrey recommends that you NOT remove the oxidation in their manual. There must be a reason for this.

Alot of people use acid and sand their logs, The logs are only .080 thick and you don't want to be removing any of the Aluminum.
 
EricJRW

EricJRW

Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Feb 3, 2010
Messages
488
Re: Cleaning pontoon tube questions

Don't have any answers, but there is a similar longer thread with much discussion (and opinion) on this subject:

http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=430843&highlight=shine

Oh, I do have an answer, sort of. One of the products used for pontoon cleaning is an air conditioner coil cleaner... It seems unlikely that it would kill the grass, since many A/C units are surrounded by grass.
 
E

EGlideRider

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined
Dec 14, 2008
Messages
1,000
Re: Cleaning pontoon tube questions

cbavier said:
I recently bought a used pontoon that has scummy tubes. I am asking for help from the experts. I have three questions.

1- I have Starbright Hull cleaner with Oxalic acid. Will that clean the tubes and make them bright again?

Yes but the brightness will likely last less than a season.

2- Will it kill my Grass?

Yes unless you spray lots of water on it afterwards.

3- Will it harm the Aluminum?

It is an etchent so it will remove a small amount of aluminum.

Please answer all three questions if you can and thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Good luck. I gave up many years ago on having shiny toons. I keep them clean and smooth but don't worry about them being shiny.
 
T

Traceyh

Seaman
Joined
Aug 16, 2010
Messages
66
Re: Cleaning pontoon tube questions

I just bought a pontoon this year that had sat in the river water for who knows how long, and had stuff growing on the bottom of the toons and engine.
Each time I take it out, after it has soaked in the water for a couple hours, i use a scotch brite pad on it just to remove whatever the grown on stuff is... each week I do just a little more. I am not looking for shiny, just smooth and clean.
I dont want to remove any aluminum.
 
cbavier

cbavier

Lieutenant
Joined
Apr 8, 2007
Messages
1,363
Re: Cleaning pontoon tube questions

Traceyh said:
I just bought a pontoon this year that had sat in the river water for who knows how long, and had stuff growing on the bottom of the toons and engine.
Each time I take it out, after it has soaked in the water for a couple hours, i use a scotch brite pad on it just to remove whatever the grown on stuff is... each week I do just a little more. I am not looking for shiny, just smooth and clean.
I dont want to remove any aluminum.
Click to expand...

Same here. I'm not looking for shiny just clean. Maybe shiny above water line??? I don't want to scare the fish away. :D
 
2

2nd chance

Cadet
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Messages
17
Re: Cleaning pontoon tube questions

I just pulled my pontoon out of the water , (there going to drop the water level by 5 ft for a month ) I had the green stuff caked on all over the toons ,
I used ! The works toilet bowl cleaner! 5 bottles on my 20 ft tubes
$1.00 a bottle at dollar tree then power washed sections a little at a time
the tubes came very very clean. do not do it on grass it will kill it .
Found that out the year I bought the boat it had 3 years of build up on toons. the works did a great job of cleaning them up ( had to use about 12 bottles but it worked) I highly recommend it.
 
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