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**BillE** · Sep 19, 2012, 04:58 AM

Re: Meguiar's Marine Product comparison to 3M

Good questions, I'm watching this one with interest.

But I will say, M-91 is one product that has 'attitude.' I really don't know how to describe it...horsepower, rocks in a bottle, powerful? But man does it work!

Bill

**Michael Stoops** · Sep 19, 2012, 08:36 AM

Re: Meguiar's Marine Product comparison to 3M

Without a doubt we can tell you that none of our Marine/RV products are repackaged 3M products, and no 3M products are repackaged Meguiar's products. All of our Marine/RV products predate our relationship with 3M and even today the R&D groups of the two organizations are totally separate. Yes, we have access to some of their tech but we don't share formulations, product development programs, etc.

With that out of the way, you're pretty much on the mark when comparing relative cut/aggressiveness between the Meguiar's and 3M products in your first two points. We can't really address your third point because that's dealing with a comparison of two 3M products so your call to them should answer that question.

As for comparing our own Marine/RV products with our automotive products we can tell you this:

M91 is related to M105 but has been altered to deal with the high porosity of gel coat. If you tried using M105 on a dried out gel coat it would become a gummy mess pretty quickly. M91 is a SMAT product but with additional lubricating agents to make it more user friendly on gel coat. M67 is a diminishing abrasive but probably cuts closer to M86. It's a bit of a "rocks in a bottle" sort of product but it's very gel coat specific and works beautifully with both DA and rotary applications and a variety of pads. You'd need to go really mild in the Marine/RV line to find something that cuts as fine as M205. M44 would be closest to M205 but in reality, since it's a diminishing abrasive, it's actually more closely related to something like M80.

Keeping a marine line and an automotive line on hand is a good idea. We don't recommend using our Marine/RV products on automotive paint because they were designed for gel coat, which tends to be far harder than paint, and as much as 10 times thicker than clear coat. On automotive paint they would be extremely aggressive and not leave a really nice finish. On the really mild end of the scale you probably would hurt anything, but again don't expect the best possible finish on paint. Conversely, the automotive line is fine to use on gel coat, but in many cases it may not be anywhere near aggressive enough to do the job. On gel coat that's in really good shape with just light swirls you can make do with many of the automotive products, but keeping two lines on hand if you're doing a lot of gel coat work just makes sense.

**BillE** · Sep 20, 2012, 05:14 AM

Re: Meguiar's Marine Product comparison to 3M

Thanx for the info Mike.

Interesting to know that 91 and 105 are 'kissin' cousins'. Would have thought 91 would be DAT by the way it works.

Bill

**Hoytman** · Sep 20, 2012, 07:39 AM

Re: Meguiar's Marine Product comparison to 3M

Thanks for the detailed response Mr. Stoops. I will be calling 3M this morning to get more information from them on the two Finesse It-II products I mentioned above. I will post the information as I receive it. Also, I copied and pasted my original post over on the Autogeek forum. As I get more information I want to update this thread, and the thread I posted over at AG, and with your permission I'd like to copy and paste (or you can...doesn't matter to me) your reply on the AG forum so that at others may view the information there.

Again, thank you for answering my questions.

**Hoytman** · Sep 20, 2012, 08:41 AM

Re: Meguiar's Marine Product comparison to 3M

Just got off of the phone with 3M. As expected, I got transfered to 4 different people, and I'm still not sure I got the correct information. The guy told me his name, but I didn't write it down because I was so focused on writing down the information he gave me...which I'm not convinced this person knew 100% what he was talking about. Perhaps someone else could inquire of 3M as well to see if they get the same information or conflicting information from what I was given. Below is the information he gave to me.

Paraphrasing below with additional comments from me in parenthesis:
Finesse It-II 05928 and Marine Finesse It-II 35928 are both water based products. The auto version is a machine polish. (Huh? And the Marine isn't?) The auto version has a different lubricant in it with different minerals and the marine version is just a glaze. (Huh? Really!)

The guy told me the auto version had more abrasives in it for the harder clear coat paints "out there." (Huh? Harder than gel-coat? Really!...hence why I don't have much faith in the information given...some of which was repeated by different personel.)

I was also told that the Imperial Compound and Finishing Material had more cut than 3M Super Duty, yet finished down in one-step as a finishing material. He said the abrasives are much bigger in the Imperial Compound and Finishing Material product than the abrasives in the Super Duty Compound. However, if that is the case, then it would be like Mr. Stoops saying M67 has more cut than M91. Obviously, any either of the one-step products (M67 and Imperial C&F Material) are going to finish better.

I don't know...I just don't have much confidence in the information I get from 3M. Never have. Perhaps someone with a little more clout, or someone having good contacts with 3M, could have better luck getting good solid information from them.

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Meguiar's Marine Product comparison to 3M

Meguiar's Marine Product comparison to 3M

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