Glidecoat offers a range of high-performance ceramic coatings to protect your boat from the harsh marine environment. Their products offer superior protection compared to traditional wax, making maintenance a breeze and allowing you to enjoy all of the fun that goes with owning a boat with less time spent cleaning. In an interview with Nautical Ventures, Christian Westhorpe gives a run-down of the Glidecoat Top Coating application.
Video Transcript
ERIC: Hi everyone! My name is Eric Brad with Nautical Ventures Marine in Danger Beach, Florida. To my right side is Christian Westhorpe with Glidecoat. Now Christian, you're the application specialist, you're the jack-of-all-trades. We've got a boat here with some serious TLC issues my friend.
CHRISTIAN: Yes we do.
ERIC:Looking kinda dull and you've got some products with Glidecoat that will change this whole thing around and make it look beautiful. What do you got for us?
CHRISTIAN: Yes. So today we are going to be going through the Glidecoat Top Coating application and as you said here we have a 26' Hurricane that is obviously pretty beat up with some heavy oxidization. You can see here in the black. Just a lot of surface scratches and stuff like that. This thing is just lacking that luster that it once had. With our products, we are going to be able to bring it back to its former glory.
So this is the Glidecoat Top Coating Kit that we are going to be using today. I'm just going to go through the products that we're using. First off we want to start off with the Nano Wash. This is the non-abrasive wash just to get all of the surface contaminants off. Next because of this boat being in such bad shape we're going to have to use a super cutting compound first. Now this one is a heavy grade abrasive just to get really all of the deep oxidization off. Next we are going to use our Nano Compound which is a medium-grade compound. This is just to further get any of the surface imperfections, the hazing, oxidization, off of the surface. Followed by the Nano Polish. The purpose of this is just to get the shine up. Ultimately what we want to get is just the showroom finish with that product and just smooth the surface out. Before we apply the coating we want to use the Surface Wipe which is an alcohol based decontaminate, just to get all of the dirt, anything that is on the surface, before applying the coating. Now we've got this. This is the magic stuff here - the Liquid Crystal. This is our final step and we're going to apply this with a sponge to get that lock in the surface and get the showroom shine we are looking for.
ERIC: So Christian, why the level of preparation you just outlined? What's the purpose?
CHRISTIAN: So the purpose of doing all that preparation is, our product is designed to enhance the surface, but mainly it is going to seal and lock that surface in. So, we want to get it as good as we can before actually applying our coating because our coating will just emphasize and lock in what the current surface of the boat is. So if I were to apply it on this, it will just emphasize how poor the surface is. So we want to do all the prep to make sure its as good as it can get before applying our coating.
ERIC: So the shinier that is before application, the shinier you boat is going to be.
So how do you monitor the before and after to gauge how well the products have actually performed?
CHRISTIAN: Right, so we use what is called a Glossmeter. It is what I have here. What it does is it actually shines a beam of light onto the surface and measures the amount of reflection. This gives us great numerical evidence of how the product is testing and what the jump is before and after.
So I'm going to take one reading here on the white and it is 33.3.
ERIC: Is that considered bad?
CHRISTIAN:: That is very bad. So to give you a point of reference... we got 29.6 on the top there. To give you a point of reference, a brand new gel coated boat ranges in the area of 85 to about 89.
[Montage of application process]
ERIC: Christian - I am blown away. Look at this transformation.
CHRISTIAN:: It looks pretty good.
ERIC: Before and after. It looks spectacular! Great job by the way!
CHRISTIAN:: Thank you!
ERIC: Now we had a gloss meter reading before which was pretty low, what about right now?
CHRISTIAN:: Alright, let's take a look. So on this white area, we had about a 33. Now we're measuring at 83.4, so that's pretty significant jump there. We'll move it up to the black and we're actually getting a 94 reading. Compared to a 29 earlier. And that is actually performing better than brand new gel coat coming out of the factory. And even the white area is about equivalent to what a brand new gel coat would be. So taking it from where it was before to better-than-new.
ERIC: So Christian, in laymens terms, you've basically sealed the pores of this boat, have you not?
CHRISTIAN:: Exactly. That's what allows us to make the maintenance so much easier. Because any of the dirt, grime, salt, fish blood is not actually getting into the pores of the gel coat allowing it to just simply come right off.
ERIC: A lot of guys, they wax their boat, it lasts six months if you're lucky. What's the longevity of this particular application?
CHRISTIAN:: This product is going to perform three to four times longer than a wax. So it's going to last up to 18 months here in South Florida and even longer in Northern areas.
ERIC: Glidecoat, you've made me a believer my friend!
CHRISTIAN:: Awesome, thank you!
ERIC: Glidecoat.com, of course hear more about this on the Weekly Fisherman at 9:40. Christian thank you so much. Look forward to having your product on many of my new boat sales hear at Nautical Ventures.
CHRISTIAN:: Yes sir!
