I currently have a 2015 Naish Mana in the GS construction, which comes with a 'matt' finish all over. It's starting to show a few marks & minor scratches here & there, and was thinking of ways of 're-finishing' it - perhaps with an automotive 'Cut & Polish' type product like ArmorAll Cream Cut & Polish or something similar.
Anybody done something like this at all? Am I barking up the wrong tree here or might it do the job? I can't imagine any kind of 'reaction' with the paint/gel coat but not sure? Don't imagine it would add much weight to the board given the weight of the product in 1 tin is negligible (~250gms)
Not interested in making it super glossy - just would like to get it looking nice again and maybe the compound might help protect it a little from future marking & scratches?
Any input, advice or heckling (if I'm way off-base!) would be appreciated.
Cheers 
For small scratches, just a matt automitive varnish in spray.
Otherwise it depends on the depth of the scratches
- if they need filling, fill them with solarez or resin+microspheres. sand the paint before for it to stick durably to the glass, and cover with a clear PVC take to "shape" not have to sand it too much.
- find the exact color (ask the maker of the RAL (or pantone, or...) reference and use a spray bomb of the exact color. Use many thin layers, I typically do at least 5 layers
- finish with varnish, matt or glossy depending on the board. I use 3 thin layers.
Unless you already have experience of painting eg. automobiles etc then it would be a surprising amount of time and money to get it looking appreciably better. If you want to do it just for the fun and experience of it then fair enough. But otherwise either take it to a pro or leave it as it is would be my advice.
It's a shame that the premium brands don't make more of an effort to produce boards that are fit for purpose. It's perfectly possible to produce boards that hardly chip at all unless you really hammer them. But we keep on buying them at $$$$$$ despite the crappy constructions and so they keep on making them as cheaply as they can, and so some brands' boards look like they belong in a trash can after only a year or two of normal use, unfortunately.
I've got a Starboard raceboard that looked like it was 20 years old after just one season. And I have a Jimmy Lewis raceboard that cost a lot less new and still looks almost pristine after the same amount of use. Go figure.
Select to expand quoteArea10 said...
Unless you already have experience of painting eg. automobiles etc then it would be a surprising amount of time and money to get it looking appreciably better. If you want to do it just for the fun and experience of it then fair enough. But otherwise either take it to a pro or leave it as it is would be my advice.
It's a shame that the premium brands don't make more of an effort to produce boards that are fit for purpose. It's perfectly possible to produce boards that hardly chip at all unless you really hammer them. But we keep on buying them at $$$$$$ despite the crappy constructions and so they keep on making them as cheaply as they can, and so some brands' boards look like they belong in a trash can after only a year or two of normal use, unfortunately.
I've got a Starboard raceboard that looked like it was 20 years old after just one season. And I have a Jimmy Lewis raceboard that cost a lot less new and still looks almost pristine after the same amount of use. Go figure.
I appreciate what you're saying, but in my case I don't have an issue with the quality. It's had some knocks and scrapes that were not the boards' fault, and to be perfectly honest most people couldn't care less about the minor marks etc. but my OCD is kicking in a little and I figured I'd ask if the cut & polish would be a possibility. Colas' suggestion sounds a bit beyond the time investment I'd be willing to make at this point, but thanks for the input. Area10, I can understand why you'd be frustrated! Not the case for me, but I get where you're coming from.
Besides...if I can get the Mana looking all bright & shiny I've got a better chance of moving my other half onto it, and I'll be able to upgrade... #ulteriorMotives 
On a related topic is there any dramas with mixing microspheres with solarez am after a white finish on a very small repair.
So I gave it a go - used a Cream Cut & Polish compound, buffed off with microfibre cloth. The main aim was to give the areas that held a few scratches in the matt finish some protection, and as a bonus it's added a bit of a 'satin' finish to the surface. Pretty happy with it - only suggestion I'd have if anyone does similar is to apply the compound in a linear manner (ie. with the 'grain' of the board - tip to tail) rather than with swirls as directed on the product. That probably works better on car duco in hindsight but I did the bottom in swirls, then reassessed for the foredeck and it came out well.
Long story short, it should have some better protection from scratches and was worth the exercise 
Foredeck - cut & polished on the left, how it was previously on the right
Bottom before
Bottom after
Select to expand quotemattyongoldy said..
On a related topic is there any dramas with mixing microspheres with solarez am after a white finish on a very small repair.
Do not do it!
Solarez needs UV to cure, but glass stops UVs, so if you put enough glass microspheres to have a white opaque finish, it will block the UV and prevent the hardening.
You can mix microspheres in 5mn epoxy glue for very small repairs, but I would advise using a proper epoxy resin: glue doesnt harden as much as real resins, the trick is to buy a scale to weight the resin components to 0.1g precision (about $10 on amazon), allowing you to have perfect mix ratio for the components, even for very small batches.
And if you tape over the repair and heat it at 40C for curing (desk lamp), it cures quite fast and is handy even for small repairs.
It is also possible to mix microspheres with cyanolate glues, but in my experience cyanolates are very difficult to work with (and sand). The idea is to fill the hole with microsphere and wet it with cyanolate glue, instant hard repair.
