Testing Archives - NDG PRODUCTS

August 7, 2018

Taking it to the skies

I will be taking it to the skies was the comment made by a well known Gyrocopter owner & pilot.

Gyrocopters are not your everyday flying machine but they have a strong international sub culture who have ozone for blood. It was August 2017 and this fellow had heard about our Products from word of mouth recommendation so he came looking for us at our secret test hideout. we of course asked him how he managed to find us. He said we were not so hard to find.

He wanted to protect his recently completed canopy version gyro which was fitted with a LS1 chevy engine and carbon fibre propulsion blade. This is the Hypercar of the Gyrocopter world with a big investment so it needed to be kept in perfect condition

So we of course said yes we will do it and planned a time to meet at the airstrip, which was a good hour drive away. On getting there we found all sorts of flying machines which was fascinating to walk around and check them out.

This blog will run for 12 months as we track the quality of the work carried out and the how the owner felt NDG coatings performed over the 12 months.

Right, what are we there for: To look at what products we would apply to this machine.

The windscreen we decided on shield 120

The Blades we would use our champion product that is our special tool Hyperseal.

We set up and got started. The paintwork had recently been applied so no significant paint corrections were needed.

Just as we finished the wind started to pickup so the owner quickly got into his flying machine and took to the skies.

On returning he commented on the clarity of the visuals of the windscreen and the smooth feel to the canopy and was very happy with the whole process. So we shook hands and scheduled to return in August 2018.

August 2018

12 months have passed since we had seen the Gyrocopter and we headed out to the Airstrip to take a look and have a chat to the owner.

On arriving we found that there was a new, larger hanger to house the Gyro so he still had it and not felt compelled to sell it during this time

The gyro looked the same as when we had coated it.

The owner said he was very pleased with NDG products and he recommends it to anyone he meets as to him we had ticked all his wants and needs boxes and his expectations were met.

He says that the bug/insects are much easier to clean off the windshields and that all he needs to do is wipe the whole machine with a clean cloth and it looks good as new.

August 5, 2018

Hands-on experiment DIY Style

During our product development process we use focus groups and live off the street people to test our processes so we grab a young couple who were in the street and in exchange for their services gave them a bag of NDG car care goodies.

We we wanted them to do was read some very basic instructions on applying Hyperseal to their car and then go for it with him working on one side and her on the other. Our objective was to backup our claim that NDG Hyperseal is truely a DIY (Do it yourself).

It was an interesting exercise as what we were looking for was can you get the same result using your own style?

So how did they go?

Besides the very difference of opinion as to the right technique and the wrong it was all pretty straight forward. We were asked to give an opinion as to who did the best work? It could have been a diplomatic answer but we hands down said that her work was the best.

Bottom line in this experiment was that it really doesn’t matter what technique you use you will still get a great result with our Hyperseal.

NDG HYPERSEAL IS A TRUE DIY NANO COATING

You can by Hyperseal here

NDG Hyperseal

July 29, 2018July 29, 2018

First cross country test USA

2013 was our first fore-ray into the Nanoscopic world and what we found was very intriguing and we wanted to know more but in order to understand what it was we needed to live with for some time and this is what we did.

One of the very early products for cars was a ceramic coating which we were unsure how to take it to market and fully explain what it did so we do what all car guys do and go on a road trip.

The car we used was and Oxford green 1998 BMW 740IL, perfect for what we wanted to do as that colour shows any marks, blemishes, and any soiling so we starting in Florida we coated the car with the Nano ceramic coating, nano tire shine and windscreen coating, packed up, and headed on a 3,200 mile drive west toward Los Angeles.

We took our time doing the crossing taking 7 days to step foot on Santa Monica pier via Las Vegas. This was the BMW’s 10th transcontinental USA crossing so we had a good feel for any changes in the way the car performed.

Here is what we found

Fuel economy had improved. The car always got 26 MPG but we noticed that we got a solid 28MPG with the coating on the car
The claim of not needing to wash your car again was not accurate. The car still got dirty as it normally would but it was far easier to clean
The ceramic coating did give the paintwork depth and made the metalic flakes shine more
The windscreen coating didn’t work as we were told, that it repelled rain but we did find that it was much easier to clean off bug splatter and that rain drop dispelled very well and the windshield wipers were much quieter
The tire shine didn’t last 2 days so we count that as a non-starter.

After this trip we saw that the products although good they were not great. we believed that they could be made great so we formed Nano Development Group and from that the Brand NDG.

We employed a chemical engineer who specialised in Nano technologies and started on the long expensive road to product development.

We plan to expand our testing to other parts of the world and develop products that are DIY in their application rather than products that need to have specialist applicators.

Stay tuned for further blogs.

July 28, 2018

Keep an eye out for Mad Max

Our long term test car is still at it, driving around the vast Australian landscape but not without it’s challenges.

Just last week we had the turbo Ford in the workshop to do our annual inspection after it had rear suspension failure somewhere out on a country road. It had to be recovered and brought in. The car is now at 230,000kms on the odometer which is far beyond our original 60,000km test and now well beyond the 2nd 60,000km testing and into the 3rd 60,000 test cycle.

We are super pleased with the results we are getting from our products and this car has helped us understand how far we can predict that our product will last for and how robust they really are.

We prep the car with some new experimental products and some of our existing products while the suspension is being repaired.

We wash & claybar the body with Mega Gloss Wash to have a look at the condition of the paintwork and Hyperseal. We find that the Leading edges of the car are holding up well and the Bugs are still easy to remove but the water beading has dropped off. The horizontal surfaces that are most exposed to the sun and acid rain are doing well and no halo’s or swirl marks are appearing and the acid rain fallout is easily removed without any ingress into the clearcoat.
We re-coat the car with Hyperseal. We found the application to be easier than the first time we did it so reapplication after extended periods is no problem.
We take a good look at the Shield 120 that was applied to the windscreen and see that there is very little pitting on the glass and no cracks or impacts to be found. This is 2 years of service for 130,000kms.
We then applied Screen Shield which is a stronger product for impacts and is a permanent solution for the windscreen.
We apply our Long Lasting Tyre shine to all tyres
We apply some experimental products to various components

After replacing the lower coil over suspension bolt (one of the problems with coil overs is that any failure will cause the car to bottom out with no spring support).

Keep and eye out for Mad max — Recovery truck loaded

On the road again

No sooner had we photographed the car and it was on the road again going west into the Australian interior desert for a very long, hard drive to Adelaide via White Cliffs and Broken Hill, MAD MAX territory.

The end of the trip findings

This trip the ford travelled over 5000kms on a variety of terrains in borderline extreme conditions. We check the condition of the coatings after the trip and we are very pleased with the results.

We will take our findings to develop some of the still secret experimental products further and finalise some of the others.

We will keep updating blogs on the test car over the next 12 months when the car will be at the end of it’s service life.

Typical outback test road — Keep an eye out for Mad Max

Mid 2018

It was decided to retrofit the original coil and shock suspension system after several more suspension bolt failures that when happens the car is immobilised. Along with this we started looking around for a replacement car as the reliability of the ford was starting to become an issue.

Some time later we found a 2006 BMW 740Li with 100,000kms and matte grey vinyl wrap. See blog

On driving back from picking up the BMW and a final drive around Mount Panorama endurance circuit a kangaroo jumped out in front of the car and caused big damage to the car..

This spells the end of the road for our long term test car.

Kangaroo Impact

March 7, 2018March 7, 2018

Hard working Polaris quad extreme makeover

It is hard to believe these pictures are of the same bike, but they are. Our camera operator on the day was not the best camera operator but got enough to tell the story.

Our mission was the get this hard life beaten Polaris quad bike, which had been on the used market for some months, back to as close as showroom condition as possible.

We picked up the machine from the Dealer on a cold winters afternoon along with a brand new Polaris quad which we were to coat with NDG Hyperseal to see how the product holds up against the UV effects of the sun on plastic.

We took the units our workshop and got to work.

The Red unit was a high hour and hard life trade-in with reasonable fading on the red plastic and high fading and oxidation on the black plastic and crystallisation of the plastic on the from tool box.

The black painted sections were also faded to oxidation stages and the aluminium was dulled and badly mud stained.

The End results were beyond what we had expected. When we took the quad back to the dealer.

The following afternoon we went back to have a look at the treatment condition on the tool box plastic as it was highly absorbent and we wanted to see if the Hyperseal had soaked in and what effect that would have on the plastic, if at all, to find that the quad was sold and delivered the same day and we were told that the plastic looked new so no problems to report.

12 months later

We asked the dealer to follow-up on the quad with the owner who said that the bike looks just as it did when they bought it and that they were very happy with the way it looks.

What we did:

We pressure cleaned the unit with NDG Bio Crystal Magic which did a great job of removing the mud stains on all the metals.
We then applied Hyperseal to every part of the unit we could reach. In all we spent 2 hours getting the Unit back to an excellent condition.

Hard working Polaris quad extreme makeover

Toolbox was heavily crystallised, now looks new

March 4, 2018March 29, 2018

60,000km Test

1 year and 60,000kms for our test car

We are always pushing our products to the limits just to see what they can and can’t do. 12 months ago this 2011 Ford Fairmont Ghia had just past the 110,000Km mark when it came to our attention on how many Km’s this car drives each week which at that point in time was about 1500kms per week, sometimes more.

12 months on the car has past the 170,000km mark and time for us to have a really good look at the condition of the Hyperseal coating we put on. We had seen the car on and off during that time but it was just for a moment and it was usually plastered with roadworks mud and spattered insects or it had just come out of a automatic car wash and was looking like it was freshly coated with Hyperseal.

So looking at the numbers.

The Average car gets driven 20,000kms per year and that is the top end number for the motoring.
This Ford has therefore driven 3 years of Km’s and out getting hammered on country and city roads all within 1 year and usually not on the same roads.
It was thought to have had over 50 car washes with 100% of them using harsh automatic carwash chemicals.

The inspection

The car is a state rep’s car for the farming and hardware company called Fjord . We arranged for a visit and a wash with NDG Mega Gloss wash and a look, touch and feel of the paintwork. We also took the car to one of the local detailers for their opinion (truely unbiased opinions come from him)

But first before we washed

The car had taken a lot of large stone impacts on the Bonnet/Hood and there was a lot of insect splattering on the Bonnet and wing mirrors.

Tar and other grime on the side doors
After washing with Mega Gloss wash

After Washing with Mega Gloss wash

All the grime and most of the insects came off with the washing
The Mega gloss and super light refraction that Hyperseal imparts was still just as good as the day it was applied (the owner says that it looks back to new each time it is washed)
We used NDG Bio Crystal magic to remove the remainder of the insects that were harder to remove and found that they had not compromised the Hyperseal protection and had just been baked on with the summer heated hot air flowing over them.
We did a quick claybar on the bonnet and wing mirrors to remove any acid rain and diesel particle adhesions and as we had hopped for the car felt as smooth as it was shinny. (One of the features of Hyperseal is you can do spot repairs without special equipment or special skills).
Once the inspection was over it was time to go out for a sunset photoshoot. (pics below)

The next test phase.

Considering that this car maybe sold within the next 12 months, it’s job is complete. For the effort the owner made in doing this long term test we will coat the car with a new layer of Hyperseal and this time we will do the rims which we didn’t get time to do 12 months ago. We will then ask the owner to take more photos of places he and his car go.

Summary

We are always surprised at how strong NDG Hyperseal is and here is an indisputable test that we had no influence over and the results are spectacular. The local detailer concurred with our observations pretty much work for word. Excellent. We are very thankful to Garry for doing this long term test.

July 23, 2017November 10, 2017

Outback Desert Testing

With all our products we like to test them in the most extreme environments and there is no better place than Outback Australia.

The outback is an area that is known for a very sparse population, including animals that extends for thousands of Kms and miles in all directions.

Basically you are on your own.

Our testing was our Hyperseal on a 1014 Toyota Prado that was one of 6 other cars that ventured into the outback.

The timing was not great as the outback had seen a lot of rain which turns a normally ultra dry desert into a series of many thousands of delta type water canals and mud, mud that seems to not end.

This was a great proving ground for our testing which in this car was our hyperseal polish and 2 weeks of punishment.

The test was a success.

After 2 weeks in test the Prado was basically clean. The most noticable part was the windows that were not treated and had turned the typical red dust coating that is so typical of any trip outback.

The owner said” that the mid just beaded up the surface and when it rained just dropped off” and ” none of the others knew of any test coating on his car but all asked why his car seemed so clean” and that ” after driving through the salt bush dunes and being the lead car the typical pinstripes were not there but were on all the other cars, amazing”

Hyperseal was tested with the objective of seeing how the product can withstand the rigours of offroad driving.

We didn’t anticipate the extreme weather but we are more than pleased with the results of this test.

Since this time we have seen a good progressive take-up of Hyperseal being used for SUV body work and their accessories.

July 21, 2017March 7, 2018

Road test across the USA

For this Blog , Road test across the USA, we will give you a look at one of the many ways we test our products prior to launching any of them to market. We took one of our US based cars to a drive across the USA from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to the Pacific coats in Los Angeles to test the beta version of Hyperseal, long life tire shine and leather care.

For this we coated the car front to back on the driver’s side with Hyperseal and the Windshield with Shield 120 and the tires with Long life tire shine which were applied the day we were leaving. To prove a point (that NDG Hyperseal is a DIY product) we did the application in a normal household garage using the basic tools of car detailing.

To start we put our feet into the warm waters of the Atlantic ocean as we plan to do the same thing when we arrive at the Pacific Ocean. We started in a typical Florida super-low cell storm to flooded roads and multiple end to end car crashes all around us to early hour pushing through Alabama where sleepless drivers suffering from micro-sleeping leave the dead straight freeways and roll over (we have seen this every time we do this drive).

On sunrise we arrive on the Texas, Louisiana border where we have a good look at the X5’s condition. It’s turning into the real Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde with the drivers side soiled but no where near the condition of the passenger side which was sporting the typical overnight driving look with splattered bugs and dirty road spray. We pushed on to west Houston for a lunch break and to resupply before hitting the every boring drive to San Antonio to visit the Alamo and get a few key photos. From San Antonio we hit the hill country and then into the central and west Texas desert, stopping overnight at Fort Stockton for a bit of shut eye.

Morning came and the heat was already waiting for the next leg to El Paso by mid afternoon for a refuel, lunch and then push onto Tucson Arizona to our USA Head Office location for a good look at what the drive has dished up so far. Next day we loaded up and continued starting about 1pm for the more rustic part of the drive via Phoenix AZ and then into the High desert plains to Thousand palms for a camp out beneath the stars and a typical cowboy campfire meal.

Next morning we pushed to get to the Pacific by Midday where we symbolically put our feet into the much cooler water of the Pacific ocean.

Looking at the X5 BMW there was a stark difference between each side of the car so it was an excellent test bed for analysing the results and in this case ultimately improving Hyperseal and Shield120 and the Long life tire shine.

We carry out many tests all over the world all the time. Some of these we will blog about from time to time.