Custom Exotica has arranged for me to test Crystal Guard in the worst possble enviroment, on my boat in salt water. We shall see how well it holds up!

The boat is a 34' PowerQuest offshore boat with lots of painted graphics and large areas of white gel coat.

I have tried many "Marine" waxes and found they don't even last 2 weeks. The last wax I recently tried is Klasse. That produced a nice shine on the paint but as usual the white gel coat looked semi flat. In fact nothing has ever made the gel coat shine like the paint.

The paint on the boat is DuPont Chroma Base, with 3 layers of DuPont clear. (automotive paint)

Last weekend the weather was crappy (cool & overcast) so instead of sitting around the house I decided to Crystal Guard the boat.

Application: I washed the boat (1hour), then while wet I applied Crystal Guard to the hull sides, transom, front deck, and forward part of the hull. . . . . and then ran out of CG.

I then rinsed the boat and proceded to dry it with a chamois. (1.5 hours) At this point the boat looked ok, with 'some' haziness. (The haziness was NOWHERE near as bad as on my car which has had 7 coats of Zaino) I then took my microfiber waffle towel and rubbed down the entire areas that were Crystal Guarded. I did not buff like I had to do on the car - instead, just very light rubbing. At this point the finish was really looking GOOD!!! So good that the dock hands came by and asked me what I was using to get that shine. BTW: My boat is kept VERY clean and shiny at all times, so it's not like I was polishing a turd.

Initial impressions: It was very overcast but: The CG shines like crazy!!! The amazing thing to me is the white gel is now like a mirror and you can see a nice reflection in it. It has never shined like that w/ANY wax. The finish is silky smooth like wax. The painted sections are extremely reflective.

To wash, CG, dry and buff, took about 3.5 hours to do the boat. Bear in mind that 35% of that is 10 feet up, over my head. I was using ladders to do the upper sections. It normally takes 3 to 4 hours JUST to wax the boat, so that should be a good indicator on how quick the CG process really is.

As many of you know CG gets better after a few hours / overnight. I can't report on that yet, as I havn't gone back to look at it.

The boat never went in the water due to wx. So as soon as I get some good wx, I'll see how CG looks in the sun and how well it holds up to salt water. THAT will be the real test!!
But so far so good. Better shine than I expected, esp with only one coat.


Quick note: Lots of you that have applied CG to a car with Zaino (me included) reported LOTS of haze and had to do a lot of buffing to get it to shine. I have done another car and the boat, none previously had Zaino. There was only VERY light "buffing" to get a shine.


Pics as soon as the sun comes out, maybe Fri!?! Stay tuned.


Thank You Custom Exotica!



BillR

 

So for us that have Zaino'd, we should first remove it b4 applying C/G?.......G/L with your testing.

<font color=green>GSM</font color=green>

 

This was the quick CG and not the 3 part that needs a spray gun? Thanks for the update.

 

Hi...I recently had an ultimate CG test on my beater Corolla.....
I lent it to my brother because he got in a car-wreck w/ his own car
Please note that he lives deep in the woods, so its very muddy and dirty there, plus it rained for 10 of the 14 days that he had my car...

well, after 2 weeks, my car looked like crap.....i was really mad at him for this, plus it only had a half tank of gas....

anyway....so then i proceeded to wash the car, i had CG'ed the car 5 weeks earlier (CG-Quick)

The car shined beautifully, as shiny as the day i first CG'ed her.

The only downside was that the tree-sap from the leaves has stuck onto the paint. So i had little green spots and leave marks everywhere!!!!! [img]/w3timages/icons/frown.gif[/img]

I got some claybar and that did not work, it only made me more mad because the clay got stuck on my fingers and under my nails (i will use latex gloves next time)

Maybe this weekend ill try paint-thinner then wax it, to see how that works, does anybody have any other ideas on how to get out the chlorophyl deposits?


<font color=green>-Leblau Timmaw</font color=green>

 

Hey rambo.. Don't use paint thinner please. Get bug/tar remover. That should do the trick.

G35C 6MT / E55

 

I have 7 coats of Zaino on my G. There is no way I would remove it.
It was just something I noticed, with CG over Zaino, there is much more final buffing to do.
CG over anything (or nothing) else is much easier. Just very light rubdown of the entire surface after it is dry.
Microfiber towels for buffing is a must. Normal towels require lots more buffing. Have no clue whay that is though.


BillR

 

k dude, i think have some somewhere around here, tnx

<font color=green>-Leblau Timmaw</font color=green>

 

Microfiber towels have more surface area. When microfier towels first reached the consumer market, the were promoted as an alternative to the use of chemical cleaners in cleaning surfaces, just using water because of a sort of "abrasive" effect that microfiber has on dirt, etc. One of the cautions about using microfiber that I've heard is that because of the short fiber as opposed to towels, dirt and other foreign material that gets caught up on the towel can scratch as opposed to thick terry cloth fibers where the dirt has a place to go besides the surface that's being rubbed.

<font color=green>GG</font color=green>

 

In one of the posts, someone said crystal guard had the consistency of armor all. Armor all is quite oily, so I was wondering if crystal guard has any oils in it. I'm in an art conservation class, and our professor told us that oils are fairly unstable and turn acidic over time, while waxes (beeswax, carnuba or synthetic microcrystalline) are all quite stable. Thus, in terms of preserving things (like a piece of wood furniture for example) it is better to wax it than to oil it. Doesn't directly apply to cars I guess, it just makes me nervous to put anything other than wax on my car because we have no idea what is in these products, how stable they are or what the ph is. I guess wax may not be quite as shiny or last as long as synthetics, but if it's the best thing for a 16th century wardrobe, it's gotta be good enough for my car Just a random thought...