The other day my father left me a copy of a magazine called Practical sailor. It's a magazine aimed at evaulating sailboats and various equipment for sailboats. The magazine is pretty well known for being honest and unbiased, since they do not accept *any* advertising at all...it costs about 35 bucks a year to subscribe. In any case, I was flipping through it and I noticed that there was a test of various waxes for gelcoat. There seems to be a lot of marine specific waxes, but ironically their top choices were car waxes. I'm a big believer in "no more copyright legislation" which equals a need for restraint so I'm not going to post the entire slew of results (see http://www.practical-sailor.com/ for that) but I'll give a quick summary of the most relevant info.
The test was performed by taking a scrap piece of gelcoated fiberglass, applying various waxes to it, then leaving it outside for one year in New England weather. They only applied one coat of each regardless of what the manufacturers instructions were. They drew small circles on the gelcoat using a supposedly permanent marker to mark where what wax was applied to the fiberglass. One of the most interesting things about this test is that the marker turned out to be not so permanent, and some waxes protected the marker from fading better than others! Very interesting indeed!
In any case, the top performers for preventing fading of the marker included but were not limited to Collinite #885 Paste Wax, Meguiar's Mirror Glaze and 3m Paste.
They also tested beading by misting water on to the surface. The top performers included but were not limited to Collinite #885, Meguiars Mirror Glaze and 3m Paste.
For shine/restoration of gloss to the old gelcoat, the top performers were liquids, but none of the liquids faired well in the long term testing.
The other extremely interesting part of the test was the evaluation of a couple brands of "liquid plastic" which I am assuming, and correct me if I'm wrong, is a polymer sealant. The test concluded that these products did well, but not as well as the paste waxes!
The bottom line of the test was that Collinite #885 was their pick and seemed to perform the best. It protected the marker well, it still beaded after 12 months, etc. If anyone wants to see the full test results pick up a copy of Volume 30, #22, November 15, 2004 Practical Sailor at http://www.practical-sailor.com/. There are some pictures and there were a LOT more waxes tested than I mention here. The marine guys would probably get the most out of buying a copy, but I figured I would post some of the info that was relevant to the atuo side of things.
Hope this helps...I think I may be converting to collinite for my winter wax!
The test was performed by taking a scrap piece of gelcoated fiberglass, applying various waxes to it, then leaving it outside for one year in New England weather. They only applied one coat of each regardless of what the manufacturers instructions were. They drew small circles on the gelcoat using a supposedly permanent marker to mark where what wax was applied to the fiberglass. One of the most interesting things about this test is that the marker turned out to be not so permanent, and some waxes protected the marker from fading better than others! Very interesting indeed!
In any case, the top performers for preventing fading of the marker included but were not limited to Collinite #885 Paste Wax, Meguiar's Mirror Glaze and 3m Paste.
They also tested beading by misting water on to the surface. The top performers included but were not limited to Collinite #885, Meguiars Mirror Glaze and 3m Paste.
For shine/restoration of gloss to the old gelcoat, the top performers were liquids, but none of the liquids faired well in the long term testing.
The other extremely interesting part of the test was the evaluation of a couple brands of "liquid plastic" which I am assuming, and correct me if I'm wrong, is a polymer sealant. The test concluded that these products did well, but not as well as the paste waxes!
The bottom line of the test was that Collinite #885 was their pick and seemed to perform the best. It protected the marker well, it still beaded after 12 months, etc. If anyone wants to see the full test results pick up a copy of Volume 30, #22, November 15, 2004 Practical Sailor at http://www.practical-sailor.com/. There are some pictures and there were a LOT more waxes tested than I mention here. The marine guys would probably get the most out of buying a copy, but I figured I would post some of the info that was relevant to the atuo side of things.
Hope this helps...I think I may be converting to collinite for my winter wax!
