Pink stains on vinyl. And a solution!

[charlesml3]

Gang,

Over the past couple of years I've unfortunately had some "pinking" of the vinyl in my boat. It's one of those things that doesn't affect many boats, but the problem is widespread. It's caused by a microorganism. You can read all about it here: https://gestaltscientific.com/overview/

So I had some light pinking in various places in the boat and had mostly ignored them. I knew where they were because I cleaned the boat. It really didn't bother me until other people started seeing them. I did quite a bit of research here on PN and other places to conclude that there really isn't any household cleaner that'll get rid of it. Letting the vinyl sit in the sun for several days would fade it, but the spots would always come back. I finally decided to try the solution from Gestalt Scientific.

The package arrives and it's actually pretty nice. The instruction manual is detailed and very specific. It illustrates the process very clearly so I'm not going to go into every step. In short, you identify every place you have pinking and purchase enough of the product to do the job. The website tries to help you figure out how many cartridges you need, but I found it to be short. If it says you need one, buy two. And given their shipping charges, definitely buy more than you need but I'll talk more about that later.

Next, weather. This solution is HIGHLY weather dependent. You need warm days and sunshine. It cannot be cool or overcast. It takes several treatments to get all of the pinking out. A minimum of 4. There is a chart in the manual that indicates the interval between treatments. It's weather related.

The vinyl must be CLEAN. Before you do anything, clean every location with rubbing alcohol. You must get all of the 303, sunscreen, etc off the vinyl before you treat.
Mark the areas clearly with blue painters tape. This is important because after the 2nd treatment, these spots are going to be hard to find. The painters tape will make sure you're reapplying in the proper places.

Here are a bunch of photos. The pinking isn't obvious in all of these due to the camera in this phone: https://imgur.com/a/L1yNcRN. You can see the pinking as well as the painters tape indicating where I'd be applying the treatment.

One of the things the manual leaves out is the fact that you do NOT have to treat on consecutive days. I talked with their support and they said it was fine to treat one day, take a few days off (perhaps because the weather changed) and then come back to finish the job.

So the information you've all been waiting for. Does it really work? Yes, absolutely it does. After just 3 hours into the first treatment I was having trouble finding about 75% of the pinking I had. It was gone. After the 3rd treatment, I couldn't find any at all. It's important to not stop after the pinking is gone! You have to get down at least 4 treatments to make sure it doesn't come back. Keep at it.

Here are a few photos of the vinyl after 4 treatments: https://imgur.com/a/amHkHmV. I didn't photograph every place because they were all basically the same.

Pros:
- It works.
- It's isn't that difficult to apply.
- Their support seems pretty good.

Cons:
- It isn't cheap. A single cartridge is $48. They then add on $10 for handling, sales tax, and then shipping charges from Oregon. I was in for $72.50 by the time it was done for a SINGLE cartridge.
- The cartridges have an EXTREMELY short shelf-life. 14 days from the time it ships. You have to jump on it immediately.
- Once a cartridge is "activated" you must use it all or throw out any extra. It will not keep.

Summary: The solution from Gestalt works. It's expensive, their shipping charges are absurd and it has a ridiculously short shelf life, but applied according to the instructions with the correct amount it will mitigate the problem.

-Charles

[GMLIII]

How many cartridges did you purchase? From your pictures it did not look like you have any real large areas to treat

[charlesml3]

I bought one and that was BARELY enough. I really wish I'd bought 2 right away. It would have let me apply it thicker.

-Charles

[Infinity]

You applied it only to the exposed surface of the vinyl? Can it be used for other colors besides white (even tho I know that is the color that most widely shows the effects), almost sounds like its some kind of dye that does not allow any other color to bleed thru it. Probably a lot more scientific than that, I read a lot about this a couple years ago, there was speculation that it actually started in the foam and spread to vinyl, or at least spread to the foam from the vinyl....lots of rumors....some people said that heat contributed to it a lot and having a black cover that touched your vinyl typically started it off, or would bring it back to life after being covered a few days and you had to leave cover off and vinyl exposed to sun for a couple days to get it all white again. Some would put towels between the sundeck and the cover and swear it worked, the next guy would say it did nothing to help.
I actually had some vinyl that would darken up and start showing a slight pinkish color ONLY where the black cover touched it, it was annoying as ****.
Pretty cool, this is the first time I have heard of a solution that works. You will have to report back on how it stands the test of time, or if it re-appears down the road. Hopefully not!

[charlesml3]

To answer the questions:

- Yes, it's applied to directly on top of the vinyl. It soaks through in the sun and removes the pinking from below.

- It cannot be used on any color other than white. Probably not a problem since it's unlikely you'd see pinking on any other color.

- It's not a dye. It's a microorganism.

- Chemical pinking or bleeding is completely different and this solution cannot address it. Chemical stains usually come from clothing that bleeds or a boat cover that leaches something onto the vinyl.

I'll be keeping a close eye on this to see if it comes back. According to the manufacturer, this solution will prevent it from reappearing if it's applied according to the directions.

-Charles

[glassywaters]

Seems like good research to me. After all, isn't it Nobel Price week?

[Infinity]

To answer the questions:

- Yes, it's applied to directly on top of the vinyl. It soaks through in the sun and removes the pinking from below.

- It cannot be used on any color other than white. Probably not a problem since it's unlikely you'd see pinking on any other color.

- It's not a dye. It's a microorganism.

- Chemical pinking or bleeding is completely different and this solution cannot address it. Chemical stains usually come from clothing that bleeds or a boat cover that leaches something onto the vinyl.

I'll be keeping a close eye on this to see if it comes back. According to the manufacturer, this solution will prevent it from reappearing if it's applied according to the directions.

-Charles

I meant that the solution to get RID of the pinking....sounded like a high tech dye for the white vinyl. That is probably not the case and regardless, it looks like it worked really well and your white vinyl looks like it turned out perfect. Certainly a nice find, I bet a lot of people would love to know about this, for a few years it was a huge issue and talked about a lot! I know the manufactures have been adding treatments to the foam/vinyl to keep this from happening in recent years (tho they seem careful to not directly bring up this subject) and you hear about it less and less tho obviously its not gone if it happened on your 2017 with premium vinyl.
All the vinyl skins on my 2014 were replaced this Spring under warranty (nothing to do with this problem since they all say this is not a warranty issue since it is a micro-organism) and I have been very anal about keeping my vinyl in top shape, hoping I don't have issues like this...my guess is that warmer, more humid climates like were we live in the SouthEast probably are effected more often....and nice to know I have options if it does rear its ugly head since majority of my vinyl is white. Glad you shared and posted this.

[charlesml3]

No it's not a dye for white vinyl at all. The chemical is pretty much clear.

The boat manufacturers really don't like talking about it. Funny how my old 99 Air Nautique went 15 years on the OEM vinyl without a single pink spot...

-Charles

[charlesml3]

OK gang, it's been over a week now since I treated the pinking. I cannot find any areas I treated that have even the slightest amount of pink left. I actually have to refer back to the "before" photos to know exactly where to look.

I'll keep a very close eye on it over the next few weeks to see if any treated areas come back.

-Charles

[charlesml3]

And for one last update.... the pinking never came back. This is the only thing I ever found to take pink spots off of vinyl, and I tried a bunch of them.

-Charles

[SoCal G-Man]

Thank you for posting this. A friend asked me about this on Thanksgiving and I forgot about it until I read this. (Good wine that day with the Turkey!) I'm sure he will appreciate you sharing your results. Thanks!

[srock]

I wonder if it has any impact on the longevity of the vinyl

[charlesml3]

The price on this has come down some. Shipped it's about $65.00 now.

[Scottalator]

On a side note... I am the primary inventor of Pink Away (see our patent at USPTO). I am very proud of the product and happy to answer questions. I'm not involved in day to day operation of the company nor do I have input on pricing etc. But if you have questions about pinking or the product let me know.

Regarding composition and pricing -- Pink Away uses a moderately expensive oxidizer that is not easy to buy, the most expensive part is getting it to mix with the carrier solution, a type of organic solvent. Lastly, the active oxidizer cannot be shipped in a metal container and the carrier can't be shipped in most plastics. Glass isn't an option. So the applicator is very expensive. Made of a plastic called Acetyl (Delrin tm), and Teflon, plus seals coated in PTFE (another teflon). I custom designed it myself.

The pricing of pink away has dropped considerably, but still pricey. However, we changed the formula a little and the product doesn't evaporate nearly as quickly, and the shelf life is very long in an unopened applicator. Applicators that have been opened will evaporate fairly quickly, (days) but with the cap on and wrapped tightly in tape it shouldn't evaporate very fast.

As sales volumed increase we can get a break on manufacturing cost with contract manufactures which can drop the price to buyers dramatically. But even now it's a lot cheaper than replacing the vinyl, IMHO. Sales are fairly flat, pandemic and cases of pinking have dropped as the bacteria seems to have good and bad years, no idea why.

Happily it's little cheaper now to buy because we streamlined small batch manufacturing.

It's kinda fun tell the story how I created it. Here... I was recovering from a brain tumor (I'm fine, it wasn't cancer, meds got rid of it), so I couldn't work. Money was getting tight. I had a beautiful sports boat. I didn't use it much, so I decided to sell it, and catch up on house payments etc. But just my luck it had pinking, which is unusual in my area. I tried a lot of products, nothing worked. My buddies at various boat supply stores said I had to replace the fabric. I was broke, so that wasn't an option. All they knew was that I could not get rid of the stains. I tried for months to sell the boat, no one would buy it at a fair price due to pinking.

I contacted lot's of people in the industry, all said the same thing. Later on a vinyl manufacture that supported Brunswick boats said that tens of millions of dollars and 40 years of trying didn't result in finding a fix.

I am good at solving problems, but knew almost nothing about chemicals. My brother is a biochemist, he said it was impossible.

But I did careful research, compared this issue with food and medical industry -- and came up with an idea. I managed to find small samples of the chems. I mixed it up and applied to the stains, put out in the sun. The next day my wife said, wow the stains are gone!

We sold the boat the next week. I filed a provisional patent. I started making the stuff in very small batches myself and selling it on line. Suddenly tons of boat manufactures, cushion manufactures and vinyl fabric manufacturers contacted me. So things started to move a little. But I didn't know how it worked. I found a couple of biz partners and we went about improving how it worked. After weeks and weeks of testing. It turned out that Cyan colored light is what activated the solution. There's a little cyan light in sunlight. Without it the product doesn't work. So I invented a lighting device that puts 200W of cyan light (about 20w optical energy). The stains disappeared in 15 minutes! But the lights are very expensive. We managed to improve the formula to it would get rid of stains in a matter of hours in sunlight. The product stays inside the fabric for a few days, so the stains continue to fade even if there isn't much sunlight. We did sell a bunch of lights to large boat manufactures and they saved tons of money. But for the most part the chemical product by itself works well. We were granted 3 patents.

The way it works... the bacteria creates a pink colored oily byproduct that is soluble in vinyl. The bacteria is under the vinyl, so eventually pink shows up at the other side surface. The pink color is all the way through the layers of the vinyl.

When you apply the product to the stain, it soaks in because the carrier solution we use is also soluble in vinyl. And it turns out that the oxidizer is soluble in the carrier! So the carrier delivers the oxidizer entirely through the vinyl. The composition of the pink-oil-based-stain molecule consists of an extra carbon atom that becomes reactive then exposed to Cyan light. It reacts with oxidizer and gasses out of vinyl as tiny amounts of CO2.

This opened a new area of chemistry called "photo oxidation". (light activated oxidation). Once the extra carbon atom is removed from the lipid based stain, then the stain no longer produces an emission of pink color. It shifted to the infrared. The human eye cannot see IR light. So the stain is still in the vinyl, but you cannot see it.

Since the vinyl is still saturated it cannot accept more pink oil from the bacteria. And the oxidizer in the solution is a disinfectant and kills the bacteria anyway. So the stains don't seem to return. So far over 5 years of testing, I have not seen a case of reoccurrence.

Cool stuff. The pink oil might have very interesting uses in the medical, food and fuel industries, and I'm starting to look into that. If ya wanna talk about that send me a message. I love chatting with other inventors.

Anyway, you could in theory make the anti-pinking stuff yourself. But it's tricky and the raw chemicals can cause fire, skin burns and can be explosive during mixing, a tiny amount of water makes it super safe. It's perfectly safe when mixed. It will even put out fires. But I don't recommend you make it.

I hope you enjoyed my story. No it hasn't made me rich, in fact no profit thus far at all, we make it pretty much at cost, because people need it and we love boats. Not sure how much longer we can do this. But for now limited quantities are available a year. Although I am NOT involved in the biz side, I'm an engineer and work on inventing a variety of products across multiple industries. I don't make much money, but I have a lot of fun making stuff to help people.

Questions? Let them fly!

[SilentSeven]

Hey...cool stuff, thanks for posting on the board. Super interesting. I've seen your product but have not (fortunately for me) needed it. Here's few questions I have.

1/ Does the product in any way "damage" the vinyl as part of the remediation process? That is, are there secondary effects that might reduce the life of remediated area?

2/ Just as an observation (no data to support), it seems that newer or maybe better grade vinyl is less susceptible to pinking? Is this accurate? Have there been product improvements that reduce the likelihood of pinking or are there grades of vinyl that are resist this condition by design?

3/ Half baked association here....sorry if this sounds crazy. The hardening of vinyl over time is a real problem and there seems to be no product to reverse the damage. You can of course limit damage over time with UV control, etc. Does the 'vinyl soluble carrier solution' offer a means 'transport' replacement softeners into vinyl in a way that might reverse hardened vinyl?