Just finished doing my complete deck and cockpit with Island Girl products, came out great!! It's an 1987 boat, it's had about 3 or 4 owners, new to me last year. When I got it the boat had been sitting for a while in the boat yard, the previous owners had bought a new boat and thus neglected my to be pride and joy. Needless to say, it was dirty. The previous owners used softscrub on it, they told me. Not wanting to use softscrub for environmental reasons, and also I've learned softscrub is bad for you gelcoat, I used several earth friendly products to no avail. I finally broke down and used a little soft scrub, then some wax the local marina recomended. The wax left a yellow film, the nonskid areas really yellowed up. By then I had had it, decided to leave it until this year. Well the bottom paint had priority this year, so I just got around to doing the deck and cockpit areas with the Island Girl products, what a difference. First off, the Sea Glow really lifts the dirt out of the gelcoat, you could see the difference as you worked. Secondly, you wipe the dirty Sea Glow off with paper towels, so no rinsing of toxic cleaners into the water!!!, so you use a few paper towels. The Simply Brilliant wax makes the gelcoat look new and it's as easy as wiping on with a paper towel!!! I got the nonskid kit for the noskid areas. Ok, that you need to rinse, because the cleaner is IG pink, not seaglow. Not wanting to rinse into the water; after I scubed nonskid areas with IG pink, I was able spunge up most of it with a big spunge and wring into a bucket of water. After wiping with clean water and spunging up, the final hose rinse put very little over the decks into the water. I know, the Island Girl products are more bio safe that most other cleaners, but, still I try not to pollute when ever I can. The IG pink cleaned the noskid areas wounderfully, with very little elbow grease. Next, the noskid sealer went on as easy as just spunging it on. Came out great. Just finished up putting the final coat of Simply Brilliant on the smooth gelcoat areas of the deck and cockpit, looks real nice. Thanks Jim for some great products. I highly recomend them. Jim, heres a product I need, maybe you can work on this next, or maybe you have it! There are a few areas on my gelgoat on deck that are pitted, probably because the previous owners used caustic cleaners. Anyway, luckily it's only a few isolated areas. If the pits were small, of course the seaglow and SB filled them nicely, but if they were big and deap, not much could be done. I need a filler of sorts to go under the SB wax. Sort of a "makeup foundation" for those areas. Matching colors would be a probelm, so it would need to reflect the color of the surrounding gelcoat. Then you SB wax over and it's good for a year.
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Jim WIllis
Now working on instructions........!!
We now send out e-mails asking for customer feedback and one thing is common - the instructions are too wordy and confusing and don't always tie in exactly with those on the bottle. There is also confusion as to what to use where and when (perhaps bound to happen with several multipurpose products. While a video (on a CD) would be great - one answer, suggested by a customer, is the use of step by step flow charts dealing with everything from boat age and condtion and color all the way to routine maintenance of the finish (removing streaks etc). These are shortly to be posted and sent out to existing customers or can be requested. However, main features are: 1. NEW GELCOAT: If your boat hull is new(ish) say less than 3 years old you can merely wash clean thoroughly (water-diluted pink usually does itI and wipe over with one or two coats of Mirror Hard Superglaze. At the end wipe over with microfiber cloth to make sure that there are no runs or "thick spots" in the coating that could be slow to dry. THIS IS FOR ANY COLOR OF BOAT. You could also employ this approach on a hull on which the gelcoat had been restored by our system (below). Probably too on a boat hull restored by sanding/compounding if the remaining gelcoat is not porous. 2. OLD GELCOAT: The full treatment is cleanser/conditioner (Seaglow for white, blue, red other regular colors; Neutral Clear for beige, brown, black). Then seal the porosity with Silkenseal undercoat, then restore shine with Simply Brilliant Superwax (or if you like, Collinite, although it's more work). Mirror hard Supergaze can be used for cleaning and touch up on "run off" area. 3. LPU, paint, chrome, anodized. Mirror Hard Superglaze can be used to seal and shine with. Can be used after polish or chemical corrosion removers. 4. Non-Skid. While Seaglow can be used to clean and preserve new gelcoat the surface can be sealed with non-skid sealant. This is more important on older gelcoat that is porous and more easily stained. IG Pink removed the oxidation and stains first. The non-skid should be used sparingly, especially on fine patterned (=Catalina) non-skid, since pools of partially cured sealant can attract dirt. Dilution of the sealaant helps with this and diluted sealant can also be used for tough up. Another trick to avoid any "sticky" areas is to rinse down the deck with water once the non-skid reaches the "tacky" stage. At this stage the water will remove any components that are not setu up. Main purpose of the sealant is to stop nasty stuff like cetol, old oil, mildew etc penetrating the pores of older decks. Pinek (with water dilution in most cases) removes any oily dirt or deterioarating surface (eventual UV damage) to surface of the sealnt. Can be then touched up. Most dirt should just rinse off with water using light brushing if required. Hope this is some help and thanks for the feedback. One customer called the existing instructions "inscrutible" and I'm not even oriental! Thanks Jim Willis
We now send out e-mails asking for customer feedback and one thing is common - the instructions are too wordy and confusing and don't always tie in exactly with those on the bottle. There is also confusion as to what to use where and when (perhaps bound to happen with several multipurpose products. While a video (on a CD) would be great - one answer, suggested by a customer, is the use of step by step flow charts dealing with everything from boat age and condtion and color all the way to routine maintenance of the finish (removing streaks etc). These are shortly to be posted and sent out to existing customers or can be requested. However, main features are: 1. NEW GELCOAT: If your boat hull is new(ish) say less than 3 years old you can merely wash clean thoroughly (water-diluted pink usually does itI and wipe over with one or two coats of Mirror Hard Superglaze. At the end wipe over with microfiber cloth to make sure that there are no runs or "thick spots" in the coating that could be slow to dry. THIS IS FOR ANY COLOR OF BOAT. You could also employ this approach on a hull on which the gelcoat had been restored by our system (below). Probably too on a boat hull restored by sanding/compounding if the remaining gelcoat is not porous. 2. OLD GELCOAT: The full treatment is cleanser/conditioner (Seaglow for white, blue, red other regular colors; Neutral Clear for beige, brown, black). Then seal the porosity with Silkenseal undercoat, then restore shine with Simply Brilliant Superwax (or if you like, Collinite, although it's more work). Mirror hard Supergaze can be used for cleaning and touch up on "run off" area. 3. LPU, paint, chrome, anodized. Mirror Hard Superglaze can be used to seal and shine with. Can be used after polish or chemical corrosion removers. 4. Non-Skid. While Seaglow can be used to clean and preserve new gelcoat the surface can be sealed with non-skid sealant. This is more important on older gelcoat that is porous and more easily stained. IG Pink removed the oxidation and stains first. The non-skid should be used sparingly, especially on fine patterned (=Catalina) non-skid, since pools of partially cured sealant can attract dirt. Dilution of the sealaant helps with this and diluted sealant can also be used for tough up. Another trick to avoid any "sticky" areas is to rinse down the deck with water once the non-skid reaches the "tacky" stage. At this stage the water will remove any components that are not setu up. Main purpose of the sealant is to stop nasty stuff like cetol, old oil, mildew etc penetrating the pores of older decks. Pinek (with water dilution in most cases) removes any oily dirt or deterioarating surface (eventual UV damage) to surface of the sealnt. Can be then touched up. Most dirt should just rinse off with water using light brushing if required. Hope this is some help and thanks for the feedback. One customer called the existing instructions "inscrutible" and I'm not even oriental! Thanks Jim Willis
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Duane Cady
Great Product
I bought the Island girl kit to refurb my old gelcoat on my 85 hunter 31. So far Ive only done the stern, but with great results ! I have 2 issues currently -- The instructions were difficult to put together, but reading both the sheet that came with the kit, and the instructs on the bottles themselves got me through it (barely). I think the hardest thing is that every product (except perhaps pink) just sounds the same .. they all sound simply brilliant, or all sound like wax. I was thinking at the time that they should all be numbered/colored to indicate the sequence and conditions in which they should be used, rather than the names which all seem to be 'simply brilliant'. The other issue is that Im afraid I wont have enough deck sealer. My boat is almost 32 feet. Will the small non-skid sealer bottle do the whole deck ? Bottom line is that Im impressed with what Ive seen so far. Thanks for the great product ! Duane
I bought the Island girl kit to refurb my old gelcoat on my 85 hunter 31. So far Ive only done the stern, but with great results ! I have 2 issues currently -- The instructions were difficult to put together, but reading both the sheet that came with the kit, and the instructs on the bottles themselves got me through it (barely). I think the hardest thing is that every product (except perhaps pink) just sounds the same .. they all sound simply brilliant, or all sound like wax. I was thinking at the time that they should all be numbered/colored to indicate the sequence and conditions in which they should be used, rather than the names which all seem to be 'simply brilliant'. The other issue is that Im afraid I wont have enough deck sealer. My boat is almost 32 feet. Will the small non-skid sealer bottle do the whole deck ? Bottom line is that Im impressed with what Ive seen so far. Thanks for the great product ! Duane
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Jim Willis
Reply to Steve and Jim Cady
Not sure I have your e-mail addresses but if you can send to me at IslandGirl-info@hawaii.rr.com, I can send new "flow chart" instructions that are much more clear and concise. With regards to filling in large pits. I managed to fill in and smooth over pitted cap rail on my boat by adding new coats of Superwx over a period of time. Do NOT use Silkenseal as it is not necessary and you want only resin/wax. This redissolves and smooths the coats underneath to produce "build" - will NOT go yellow like regular waxes and acrylics. If you had really deep pits, you should clean down to the original gelcoat by degreasing and wet sanding. Then use some sort of filler (Marinetex?, although polyester is better for adhesion.) then spray and blend with color-matched liquid gelcoat as in Fiberglass Trilogy II (at topof thisi page). The alternative of using gelcoat paste and filling in each pit will always show, eventually. Do not use any type of paint becuse of adhesion problems. The nice thing about gelcoat is that any small amounts of wax etc remaining can dissolve and float to the top. With regards to machines - "Scumbuster" by B&D may be good. I want to try! Thanks Jim W Do not use any sort of paint for this. The good thing
Not sure I have your e-mail addresses but if you can send to me at IslandGirl-info@hawaii.rr.com, I can send new "flow chart" instructions that are much more clear and concise. With regards to filling in large pits. I managed to fill in and smooth over pitted cap rail on my boat by adding new coats of Superwx over a period of time. Do NOT use Silkenseal as it is not necessary and you want only resin/wax. This redissolves and smooths the coats underneath to produce "build" - will NOT go yellow like regular waxes and acrylics. If you had really deep pits, you should clean down to the original gelcoat by degreasing and wet sanding. Then use some sort of filler (Marinetex?, although polyester is better for adhesion.) then spray and blend with color-matched liquid gelcoat as in Fiberglass Trilogy II (at topof thisi page). The alternative of using gelcoat paste and filling in each pit will always show, eventually. Do not use any type of paint becuse of adhesion problems. The nice thing about gelcoat is that any small amounts of wax etc remaining can dissolve and float to the top. With regards to machines - "Scumbuster" by B&D may be good. I want to try! Thanks Jim W Do not use any sort of paint for this. The good thing
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