GregP

After seeing the thread a couple weeks ago I bought some of the Crystal Guard "Quick" to try on my heavily oxidized deck. I haven't tried the other products mentioned in the thread so can't give a comparison with them. Overall I think the CG did a good job and, although expensive, was worth the cost for the effort and results I got. Here's the details.

My boat is a 1984 Forumula 402. The deck is all white gel with a blue painted stripe. The boat sits outside all year (winters on my lift). The deck had become pretty heavily oxidized, so much so that you could get white footprints on the dock after walking on the wet deck. The blue paint stripe was also oxidized enough that you could see a blue tint in the water when washing it.

I early on tried to buff the deck, but the wheels loaded up too quick to accomplish anything. I then wet sanded the entire deck with 1500 paper and soapy water which got the heavy oxidation off, but still left the gel feeling quite "soft" and easy to re-stain (with of course "NO" gloss).

I originally thought I'd try just putting the CG over the wet sanded gel, but decided before I started to bite the bullet and buff the deck. Since Sunday was nice and cloudy (I can't move the boat into the shade) I spent the morning with the high speed buffer and a full bottle of 3m Micro-cut. I could only do a very small region at a time, as far as I could reach by bending over while sitting on the deck (the boat is on a lift so I can't stand and reach the deck). (The "spot at a time" approach I think is the reason for the "gaps", see comments further down.)

After doing one fairly good pass over the whole foredeck (still have to do the side decks another day by hand as I can't get under the side rails with the buffer) I washed the boat twice with car wash soap to get all the excess coumpound/dust off. I rinsed it a couple times, let it partially dry, then rinsed it a couple times more.

I started at the nose and put the CG on the freshly rinsed deck doing about a 3'x3' section at a time (as far as I could reach while kneeling on the deck) working backwards so I didn't have to walk on the just coated area. The CG went on ok, but it is difficult to see where you have "misted" on a white finish (there is just the slightest milky hint in the water droplets). I spread it around with their microfiber cloth then moved on to the next section. When I'd done the whole foredeck I started back at the nose drying it with a terry towel. I used 1/2 of their "large" bottle to do the foredeck.

The first thing I noticed was that the boat dried really easily, one pass with the towel and it was pretty dry, didn't need the usual lots of passes to keep from getting water spots.

When the boat was dry I took a look at the deck. I could see some shine, better than the just compounded look but not quite what I expected/hoped. It was a cloudy day, so there was little sun to create any reflections and a white finish doesn't have much natural "depth". I went back to look at it a couple of hours later and it had a much more obvious shine. The lower sun angle probably helped, but it did seem like the shine was improved after a little "drying???" time. By late afternnon I could clearly see the reflection of the deck rails and lift guide poles in the deck from 50' away up on my balcony, something I'd never seen before. Overall I'd say the final shine is pretty comparable to the wet sanded finsh when it had a good layer of water on it.

So, overall opinion: No, it does not look as good as the fresh white Imron on the hull sides, but I could "way not" afford to paint the deck so for the effort (the buffing) and money (the CG) the improvement is pretty dramatic and well worth it. The CG is easy to apply (although their little spritz sprayer could be replaced with a trigger sprayer to be much better suited to something as large as a 40' boat). If it holds up a few months at a time it will be a good trade of time/money as it's much easier than applying a good coat of past wax. The finish feels much "harder" than either the wet sanded or freshly buffed gel, so hopefully will resist restaining.

Although I didn't try the CG on the sanded-only gel, I'm pretty sure I would have been disapointed with the result as I can fairly easily see a couple spots that will need some more buffing and then a new coat of CG. I should add that without the CG I didn't see the hazy spots I'd missed with the buffing as the contrast wasn't as great.

I did not compound the blue painted stripe on the boat. I'd made the mistake before of "bumping" it with the buffer pad and had a helluva time getting the resulting blue stains back out of the white areas. I did use the CG on the blue stripe "as is" (the stripe had gotten the 1500 wet sanding treatment). The CG did make a very noticable difference on the stripe, bringing up enough gloss to get a good reflection visible from as far away as my balcony, and easily showing where I had missed it on the one side at the windshield base (I went back and did a touch-up on it later).

Sidebar: I foolishly tried some Starbrite instant Glass Coat on the wet sanded nose several weeks ago. Terrible stuff. Turned the gel a bit yellow, streaked and cound not get an even finish. It says it removes with mineral spirits, which it kind of does, but not all of it. It's a b!tch to resand off. It did eventualy buff off, but took a lot of compound.

-Greg

Roger 1

Greg;
Next time your in town we`ll go down to FARM AND FLEET to get you a big ole blue tarp and some bungees for your boat so you don`t have this problem anymore.
I can`t believe that you said ''way not''...................Roger

GregP

I've tried various tarps and covers over the years but never found anything that would hold up, not flap in the wind and shed the snow. With a "flat" tarp over the deck it is too hard to get the snow load off since it is so slick that I can't stand on the deck to sweep the snow (this year I had to shovel the snow down to a few inches before I could sweep off the rest. Various frames to make a "tent" ave all been marginal at best in keeping the snow off.

-Greg

BillR

If you used a 1/2 bottle, you used about 1/4+ bottle too much. I know what you mean about being hard to see!
Try this, rinse off the deck again and re dry. To dry use a chamois then slightly buff with a towel.
I'll bet you get 25% better shine after doing this.

mmwalters

After reading your post I think I would to try it. Where can one buy cryatsl guard?
Thanks Michael:

GregP

Could be, they don't have much detail about how much to use, I did one "spritz" over each area. I do have a LOT of deck. It's supposed to rain again tonight (so what is new), so I may get a "free" rinse. I'm curious if it will stay free of waterspots when it air drys.

-Greg

GregP

mmwalters,

Try http://www.crystalguard.com/ and don't forget to read the original thread http://offshoreonly.com/forums/showt...threadid=51067 too.

-Greg

mlitefan

For the conspiracy people out here, I just need to inform you that GregP is really BillR...Or is the other way around...

GregP

In that case, why did all the nice graphics wash off of the side of my boat ??????

-Greg

BillR

Nice pic. That IS a big front deck.