In the summertime, bass bite best up top on the edges of the day.
Spotting fine details on your fish finder, GPS chart plotter or radar calls for the best screen visibility possible. The newest high-resolution monochrome and sunlight-visible color displays are capable of incredible detail, as long as you can see them! These screens can collect a coating of road grime while trailering, including abrasive dust from dirt roads and areas of road construction. Wiping this stuff off with a dry rag is just like hitting the screen with sand paper.
On the water, screen visibility typically suffers from sweaty finger prints, sunscreen smears and water spots. The right microfiber cleaning cloth makes it easy to safely remove all these annoyances before they contribute to permanent damage.
Microfiber cleaning cloths have long been popular for cleaning glasses, binoculars and camera lenses. A gentle swipe or two across a lens has removed many an accidental finger print and sweaty sunscreen smear for me.
Swobbit Products, an Indiana company, has taken this textile high technology a step further and introduced microfiber cloths designed to clean the protective polymer lenses over LCD screens. The cloths work so well that Lowrance Electronics currently ships most units to dealers with a microfiber cleaning cloth supplied by Swobbit Products in the box.
These lint-free cloths feel like suede and can clean the screens, housings and key pads of your important electronics with gentle effectiveness. No chemical cleaning agents are needed’ just dampen the cloth with water and wipe the surface to be cleaned using gentle finger pressure.
Oily finger prints and sunscreen smears could be removed with a dry microfiber cloth, but always dampening the cloth before using it eliminates the chance of dry-sanding your screen with grit that you might not notice.
The Swobbit cloth uses millions of star-shaped fibers 1/100 the size of a human hair that gently lift and remove dirt and grime without any smearing or streaking. The cloths also include soft terry pile to safely polish the cleaned surfaces.
Microfiber cloths clean by snagging and holding dirt, and they load up quickly so they must be cleaned often. Lowrance customer service recommends rinsing the cloths after each day on the water and including them in the weekly laundry. Rinsing gets out most if the loose dirt, but it takes soap and water to remove oily residue.
For more information on Swobbit microfiber cloths, call (561) 596-2085 or visit www.swobbit.com.
If it’s too late and damage has already been done, Meguiar’s, a California company, offers three products that can help.
Meguiar’s PLASTX is a gel that quickly restores optical clarity to both rigid and flexible clear plastics. It removes light oxidation, chemical degradation, stains and light surface scratches.
Meguiar’s Mirror Glaze No. 17 clear plastic cleaner uses a non-abrasive formula to remove fine, hairline scratches and light scuffs from nearly all types of clear plastic including boat windshields and the transparent side curtains for most canvas tops. It even rounds the edges of scratches that are too deep to remove making them less visible.
Meguiar’s Mirror Glaze Clear Plastic Polish No. 10 can help prevent damage to new clear plastic surfaces and prevent future damage to those you have just repaired. It provides a static-free coating that repels dust and keeps many kinds of potentially damaging crud from sticking to the plastic in the first place.
For more information on these products, call (800) 347-5700 or visit www.meguiars.com.
