Nipissing · Callander, Corbeil, Trout Lake and the Highway 11 corridor
North Bay, Ontario.
A long sand-and-salt winter, Trans-Canada truck traffic through the middle of town and a lake full of gelcoat. Permanent paint protection for cars, trucks and boats, from a certified ICON Rocklear shop serving North Bay.
As featured in
The specification
RK / ON-13Film thickness
Built in a single application, not a stack of layers.
63microns
Tensile strength
Measured against a ceramic coating under laboratory conditions.
75x
Independent testing
Third-party ASTM methods across adhesion, impact, abrasion, salt spray and UV.
12ASTM tests
Automotive warranty
Written coverage on painted exterior surfaces. Marine gelcoat runs 7 years.
15years
Re-application
One install, then you drive it. One inspection at 18 months keeps the coverage active.
Oneapplication
Applied by certified installers only · Est. 2016
This far north the winter is longer, and it is sand as much as brine.
Salt stops working properly once the road drops below roughly minus twelve, and Nipissing spends long stretches of the winter in the minus ten to minus twenty band. When it is that cold the crews put sand down for grip instead. So a vehicle here does not get the southern Ontario winter of more or less pure brine. It gets brine at the edges of the season and a steady abrasive through the middle of it, over a longer season.
The other thing is what shares the road. Highway 11 and Highway 17 meet in North Bay and run together through town, which routes Trans-Canada freight and logging traffic through the same few kilometres everyone else uses daily. Follow a loaded truck on a sanded highway and the spray coming back at you is carrying grit. ICON Rocklear bonds to the factory paint in one application and takes that scouring in place of the clear coat.
- 63 microns bonded to the factory paint, in one application
- Abrasion, salt spray and UV among 12 independent ASTM tests
- 15 years on automotive paint, 7 years on gelcoat off Lake Nipissing
- One install and one inspection at 18 months, with no yearly re-coats
Longer winter. Same fifteen years.
BEADED GELCOAT · HULL ON TRAILER
How it compares
SPEC / CMP-01| Attribute | ICON Rocklear | Ceramic coating | Paint protection film | Wax or sealant |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Film thickness | 63 microns | 1 to 3 microns | 150 to 200 microns | Under 1 micron |
| Application | One pass over existing paint | Correct the paint first, then coat | Cut and fitted panel by panel | Applied by hand |
| Repairability | Corrected or re-coated on the panel | Removed, then reapplied | Damaged film is replaced | Reapplied |
| Scheduled service | One inspection within 18 months | Annual inspection to hold coverage | Replacement at end of life | Every few months |
| Warranty | 15 years automotive, 7 years marine gelcoat | 6 months to lifetime | 5 to 10 years typical | None |
Ceramic coating
- Film thickness
- 1 to 3 microns
- Application
- Correct the paint first, then coat
- Repairability
- Removed, then reapplied
- Scheduled service
- Annual inspection to hold coverage
- Warranty
- 6 months to lifetime
Paint protection film
- Film thickness
- 150 to 200 microns
- Application
- Cut and fitted panel by panel
- Repairability
- Damaged film is replaced
- Scheduled service
- Replacement at end of life
- Warranty
- 5 to 10 years typical
Wax or sealant
- Film thickness
- Under 1 micron
- Application
- Applied by hand
- Repairability
- Reapplied
- Scheduled service
- Every few months
- Warranty
- None
ICON Rocklear figures are from independent ASTM testing. Other columns are typical industry ranges.
North Bay, road by road.
Sand season, and why it runs longer up here
Sand does not dissolve and rinse away the way brine does. It sits in the slush, gets thrown up behind the wheels and works at the lower panels and the rockers every time the road is wet.
ICON Rocklear puts a hard, closed 63-micron surface over the factory paint, so the grinding is taken by the coating rather than by the clear coat underneath it. Salt spray is one of the twelve independent ASTM methods behind the product, and because the coating bonds to the paint rather than resting on top of it, there is nothing to buy again in the spring.
Highway 11, Highway 17 and the trucks
Two Trans-Canada routes meet here, so long-haul and logging traffic runs through North Bay rather than around it. In winter that means grit-loaded spray off a loaded trailer. In summer it means tar and oil film tracked onto the surface and baked on.
Be straight about what that means. A flying stone is impact damage, and no coating on the market, this one included, is warranted against a chip. What ICON Rocklear is built for is everything else those roads do: the grit, the film, the tar and the scouring that dulls a clear coat. Where a panel does take a serious scratch, it is corrected or re-coated in place.
Lake Nipissing, and the boats that come off it
Nipissing is big, shallow and busy from ice-out to the fall, and a hull working water like that takes sun on the topsides and a waterline that never quite comes clean. Gelcoat chalks under UV the way paint does, only faster.
ICON Rocklear carries 7 years on marine gelcoat alongside the 15 years on automotive paint, fresh water or salt, so the boat, the trailer and the tow vehicle are one booking at one shop. It was tested to ASTM D4587 with no change in appearance after 4,000 hours of UV and condensation.
Cottage roads, and getting to the bay
Most of the driving that matters here leaves the pavement at some point. Lake and cottage access roads are gravel or seasonal surface, loose in the dry and greasy in the wet. The shop serves North Bay, Callander, Corbeil, the Trout Lake side and the Highway 11 corridor either way out of town.
Distance is the honest part. Until now the nearest certified bay to anyone up here was roughly three hundred kilometres south, down Highway 11 at Bradford, a full day out of your week for a one-day job. North Bay is the first ICON Rocklear territory north of the Golden Horseshoe, so the coating is a local booking now rather than a trip.
The rest of the Ontario network
NETWORK / ONNorth Bay is one of thirteen certified Ontario shops and the first one north of the Golden Horseshoe. Every shop in the network runs the same product, the same training and the same warranty.
Book your North Bay installation.
Tell us the vehicle, or the boat, and whether you are in town, out toward the lake or along Highway 11. The certified shop serving North Bay takes it from there.
Installation starts at $1,799 Final price depends on vehicle size and paint condition
Book an installation