A detailed reply to Pete, Dave and Wholeheart and
Pete: If you are actually a bona fide customer. Just send the product back to Island Girl for a refund. Don't use the address on the website, but send to my home/office at 237-A Kihapai Street, Kailua, Hawaii 96734. 1-800-441-4425. You can e-mail me first at islandgirlproducts@mac.com. If you bought from sailboatowners.com, or Lats and Atts, I will work with them on re-imbursement. However, I will need to talk ("grill?") you on the phone for details, so that I can learn from your experiences, with regards to age of gelcoat, did you use compounding with 3M was the weather cold and wet etc. When did you do this - did you use our flow charts & DVDs etc. I really don't need to modify the products anymore since I test every batch on a variety for surfaces from new and old auto paint, reasonably old but IG'd gelcoat (my boat and several boats we detail in HI) as well as some REALLY chalky gelcoat (that grey gelcoat shown in the 3 steps instructional movie). I test each of the nine products myself, in tropical conditions, for advertized effectiveness for length of beading with coatings (at least 2 years with SB Superwax), reasonable shine on white for about one year before touch up, about 6 months on dark green etc). That is why I personally sign each bottle! Now, we did have a shelf-life problem with two products (SB Superwax 5 ears ago) and non-skid sealant (3 years ago)) but that has long since been addressed. I can say with great confidence that if the product don't seem to be working in the "standard" way, contact with me through the tech line (now 510 868 0208) will take care of the problem, providing that you follow our advice. "wholeheart": It is good that you pointed out that points out, gelcoat has varying degrees of porosity that could cause variability in the "only two coats needed" standard recommended coating with the SB Superwax. Indeed, I remember a guy in Florida whose boat looked so great that the guy next to him wanted to use the products on a boat os similar age, but the intitial results were not nearly as good (surface dulling). We later fixed that with introduction of the the catalyst and (especiallly) the silkenseal undercoat with recommendation for extra coats of SB Superwax as necessary. jimq26: 303 was originally introduced as a is sort of a suntan lotion for vinyl. If it shines it has silicones (which will eventually dull) and the anti-oxidants should soak in an prevent new oxidation. The oily consistency (remember penetrol?) should give some depth to darker gelcoat. On white, look out for yellowing that used to be a problem about ten years ago with 303 . On a neglected boat you still need to remove the surface oxidation and smooth the surface since there is no "filling" ability as with poliglow, IG's Superwax or even paste wax. I am going to film some side by side comparisons on my own boat this weekend as this product was never previously accepted for gelcoat in spite of claims that go back about 10 years. The great thing about 303 (to me) is use on sails etc to protect against UV and they have stayed ahead. On vinyl it is inferior to IG's silkenseal (especially with Mirror Hard over it) to prevent vinyl gumminess. That it because it does not form a new "skin" We used to recommend it before we had our own surface protectants. However, as I said, I haven't used 303 for years and it is possible that they improved the formulation for other purposes as we have also done over a ten year period. In separate post I have drawn up a pro and con list of various approaches to gelcoat restoration/protection. As you probably know, our aim is to get a system that is universal for ALL plastics of ALL ages without many duplicated products as saold in chain stores. One thing that I am gratified to see on this thread is slow disappearance of undocumented slander to a more "scientific" discussion of product comparisons. We have movies of various results on the IG website all but 3 (on IG Pink) are available as links from the chandlery on this site. Thanks Jim Willis
