Dan G wrote:

AFAIK gelcoat isn't water soluble, but it IS porous. If you allow water
to get into the structure of the coating, it can result in freeze/thaw
damage in low temps, and provides a solution for chemical attack.

With most of the gel coats in use on sailplanes there isnt going to be
enough moisture "traped" by wax to cause any kind of "chemical
attack".My point was that if you dont wax because of a fear of this you
are probably incuring bigger concerns that just moisture.

People get rather pedantic about the terms wax and polish; I'm quite
lazy and tend to use them interchangeably.

Dan, you are not alone here, I think as a verb everyone does this.As a
noun, these are completely separate products with totally different
uses.

To be clear, Mer has a (very) light abrasive action,

Dan, many products work like this.Abrasives in wax have their pro's and
con's, mostly cons unfortunatly.I looked on the Mer website after I
read your post.Have you noticed this stuff isnt clear coat safe?Did you
also notice that they dont recomend its use on aircraft?I have emailed
them about this and they havent gotten back to me yet but I already
know the answer why.
Dan, there are alot of misconceptions out there about car care
products.I think some of this is due to the fact that modern finishes
(And gel coat for that matter) need different care than the car paints
in use 20 years ago.People want to do things the way they always
have.Old habits die hard I guess.


Dan
K Urban