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Re: Ceramic coatings on gelcoat?
Originally Posted by
WristyManchego
And how about retail automotive ceramic coatings on gelcoat Mike?
Originally Posted by
Maxreed241
I was also wondering this. I have some leftover McKee's 37 paint coating. Maybe I could try it out???
I don't have any real-world testing to say they don't work or do work but here's the deal, and anyone reading this that owns a boat especially a boat used in salt water will know what I'm talking about.
The marine environment and especially the salt water marine environment is very hard on boats. Gel-coats, unlike car paint have a porocity, that is the are porous. So "sealing" them is different then sealing car paint and more important - getting what you use to seal the surface to hold up over time is the difficult aspect for anything you use to seal the gel-coat.
When I say the word "seal", this means using anything that will seal the surface, this could include,
- Cleaner/wax (has cleaners or abrasives)
- Pure wax (no cleaners or abrasives)
- Cleaner/Synthetic sealant (has cleaners or abrasives)
- Pure Synthetic sealant (no cleaners or abrasives)
- Ceramic coatings
All of the above will seal the surface. They are surface sealers.
So getting a ceramic coating to bond to the gel-coat and also last a long time is the challenge. GYEON introduced their new Marine Gel-Coat Ceramic Coating at SEMA last year, (last November), and we used it in our boat detailing class this last February. Application and removal was excellent. Appearance was excellent. Now the question is - how well will it hold up? Only time will tell.
As far as car ceramic coating go - I have talked to one "real" chemist, with a brand of coatings with one of the best reputations in the market and he told me getting a ceramic coating to hold up over time in the marine environment is tough. And at this time, I don't think they have introduced a coating for gel-coats for marine application and the reason why is they don't want to introduce this product until it truly will hold up. Customer expectations are TOUGH and usually unrealistic so they won't introduce a product until it meets their standards and expectations.
Because I'm not a chemist I don't know that ceramic coating made for a non-porous surface will perform just as well on a porous surface and that is basically the question you two are asking me. It wouldn't hurt to try or do a test if you have a boat and it's in the water.
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Re: Ceramic coatings on gelcoat?
Originally Posted by
Mike Phillips
It wouldn't hurt to try or do a test if you have a boat and it's in the water.
Will be doing exactly that sometime this year.
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Re: Ceramic coatings on gelcoat?
If you where to try a ceramic coating for cars on your boat. I would consider to do the last polishing step with something like Carpro Essence. Essence is a bit different than other primer polishes and I think that Polish Angel Invicible Primer has that in it too. That is they are filling some to get as a leveled paint as possible. So my thought was if you polish with Essence and can fill the porous gelcoat even a little. You could be getting a better results and maybe even the need of useing less of the coating. As I would think a gelcoat would need more of product when useing a coating for cars. Just a thought though. And also if useing something like Carpro CQUK 3.0 I would put the max 3 layer I think it is you can put on. So you get the thickest coating layer as possible. Ohh also if trying the Essence out I would use Carpro Glosspad or another very fine finishing pad to get the pad to fill with Essence as much as possible.
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