Does Starboard Discolor?
Andrew 00:08
Alright guys, so King StarBoard specifically from a UV perspective and you know, in theory
StarBoard should be very UV stabilized. It's what it is designed to do. It's a high density polyethylene
that with additives specifically to make it more durable in the Marine industry with UV being a
critical part of that, but that I'm sure you get questions regularly about that. What's kind of your go
to answer, don't give the company line and be honest about what you see
Matt 00:30
Yeah, I know, I mean, the answer is, it is UV stable and I have not seen any discoloration as
a result of UV exposure. And I would even say, you know, if you ask me the question of how
many phone calls I've taken for, I bought a StarBoard door, I bought a piece of StarBoard and put
it on my boat and it's discolored. I've taken zero phone calls about that in 10 years.
Andrew 00:51
It's tricky, right? Because I think if what you're asking is, hey, if I buy this material and I put
it on my boat, am I going to come back in three months, six months a year and go oh, wow, that
change colors? I think the answer to that is unequivocally No. That's not an issue. If you're asking,
Hey, I have a StarBoard on my boat and 20 years later, is it going to look identical? That answer's
no. Right but I don't know that that UV not in a significant way.
Matt 01:18
I think we can say it's definitely not UV.
Andrew 01:21
It’s a dirt, grime, wear you know,
Theo 01:23
But I think it's safe to say that everything on that boat is going to be exposed, you know, the
same variables, the same elements and it might all kind of fade together if it didn't fade at all, and
It might actually look natural right?
Andrew 01:34
That's a good point. Yeah, I mean, you know, a 20 year old boat, the gelcoatdoes not look the
same as brand new gelcoat. So you get the same thing going on. So you know, here's a good point,
from time to time we get someone who wants to, let's say they needed to replace just a door and
the frame they wanted to keep and this was 15-year-old door. Right. I would be concerned.
I don't think that even if you match the color, I don't think it's going to look identical just because of wear and tear. But I don't think that's the spirit of what most people are asking about when they're asking Hey, is it StarBoard UV stabilized? We cut a lot of it. And we often get pitched on some other high density polyethylene materials. And the one thing we, one of the reasons we haven't ever really gone too far down the rabbit hole with switching over is just that hey, I want to be able to put hands on my head on the pillow at night knowing that there's not 1000s of new production boat doors that are discoloring in the field, you know, so we feel really good about it. We endorse it. And I wouldn't stress about StarBoard and UV stabilization.
Matt 02:33
100 percent agree,
Theo 02:34
Absolutely. And in the most nuanced cases where you're working on a 20 year old boat and
you've got to match it up perfectly. We just send a sample chain, right., we look and
see do we need to shift one way or the other like color gradient? Problem solved.
Andrew 02:45
Absolutely.