Teaser: International Coating Battle

Will these new paint coatings finally kill the wax market once and for all?
Will these coatings actualize the 'never wax your car again' statement?

STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT! Coating test tentative date is mid-August.


The International Coating Battle will soon....begin.... Read more!

Announcement: Mini Forum is up!

http://groups.google.com/group/wetshine

G'day mates! I just set up a mini-forum using Google groups. Anyone can join, no approval or activation is required. It acts as a discussion board for anyone who would like to post a question regarding detailing in general.

I would try my best to attend to them as soon as possible. Everyone is encouraged to post, whether you are a beginner, a seasoned enthusiast or even doing this for a living!

However, it is quite limited in the sense that no images can be posted and viewed on the forum, it's mainly text. So don't expect it to be a full-fledged forum when you can view flash animations, embed youtube videos and paste images directly. Also, the posts will remain pretty much permanent, with no 'edit' or 'delete' button. So think and read twice before posting.

Even so, I'm looking forward to build a warm friendly community.

Hope to see you there! Cheers.

http://groups.google.com/group/wetshine

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Water Beading – What’s the big deal???

So we all know that a waxed surface beads water. If water just lays flat on your paintwork, then it’s time to wax the surface.



But why will a waxed surface bead water in the first place?

Is it naturally occurring because ingredients in the waxes alter the surface energy(low-energy=hydrophobic) and turns it from being hydrophilic to hydrophobic?

Are the ingredients protecting the paintwork(silicones,carnauba, etc.) causing the beading?

Or there are ingredients in the wax dedicated to causing the water to bead?

I try to answer these questions from the perspective of a layman hobbyist detailer. I was curious and searched my university’s journal database on readings about contact angles, wettability, surface protection, etc.

Read on as I try to unravel a detailer's fascination with water beading!


I’m a business undergraduate and was very bad at chemistry in high school(I was having Form 4 & 5 chemistry tuition during my Pre-U days to help me catch up, yes, I was THAT BAD), but I was able to decipher the alien language in some readings that I went through that do suggest that hydrophobicity is related to surface protection.

Firstly, let me define what is wettability and contact angle.

Wikipedia: Wetting is the ability of a liquid to maintain contact with a solid surface, resulting from intermolecular interactions when the two are brought together. The degree of wetting (wettability) is determined by a force balance between adhesive and cohesive forces.

Don’t worry, I don’t understand what it means either. What I do know is, water will lay flat on a surface with high wettability, sticking to the topic of this post, an unwaxed surface has high wettability. Conversely, a waxed surface has low wettability as water will tend to bead up and slide off the paint.

The contact angle on the other hand is the angle at which a liquid/vapor interface meets a solid surface. The contact angle is specific for any given system and is determined by the interactions across the three interfaces. Most often the concept is illustrated with a small liquid droplet resting on a flat horizontal solid surface(Wikipedia).

In the image above, θC is the contact angle. Therefore, if the droplet of water has a high contact angle(more than 90 degrees) on the paint, it is said that the paint is hydrophobic.

There are also instruments to measure contact angle, as seen in the video below.

I then try to measure my own contact angle of a water droplet using a photograph and a digital screen protractor. Although it is very crude, it does give me a quantitative value.

The surface in the photograph is a foam applicator that is supplied with Carmate SIV Wheel Coat, as seen in this post.

It may be highly inaccurate, but again, it gives me a rough comparative figure.

So, how does a hydrophobic surface benefit the auto detailing industry? If a wax makes the paint more hydrophobic than the other, does it mean the latter does not protect as well?

This is a question that requires more research. I can’t really find the direct relation between hydrophobicity and surface protection but waxes, sealants and coatings usually cause the surface to be hydrophobic.

For what it’s worth, Emelyanenko(2007) reviewed that low-energy anti-bacterial coatings (that render the surface to be hydrophobic) showed a good resistance to biofouling for a broad set of bacteria cultures.

In addition, Jia and Ling(2005) found in their experiment that steel coated with a hydrophobic polysiloxane coating reduces soil adhesion to the surface. They also commented that soil animals’ skins possess a strong hydrophobic character, therefore, soil animals such as earthworms can freely move in soil and it does not adhere to their skin.

Metals, metal oxides, and inorganic materials are all high surface energy materials and possess hydrophilic character. Conversely, all organic materials are low surface energy materials and have an excellent hydrophobic nature.


I tried to find readings that directly relate wettability to automotive clear coats, there were little results and the ones which I wasn't sure was relevant had to be purchased at about USD34 per article.

It is then well established and well known that waxed paintwork will bead water.

This fact is so well known that contact angle has become a marketing tool.

I remembered my trip to Autobacs in Singapore, where they stocked many Japanese products that were not available in Malaysia.

It was interesting to see that on the packaging of almost every Japanese wax/sealant, it had a picture of water beading or a graph showing the contact angle of water over a period of time.

The graph would then point out that the contact angle of their product remains relatively large where as their competitor’s water contact angle would fall dramatically after the first few months.

There was one product which caught my eye. The back of it had beads of water with a fire trail blazing behind them, emphasizing the great speed that water will slide off the paint, LOL.

Compare this with car care products from western countries such as U.S.A and U.K., namely, Meguiar’s and Autoglym. They emphasize greatly on shine and protection their wax will give, and little to no emphasis on water beading at all. (Until recently where Meguiar's implemented their Hydrophobic Polymer Technology in products like NXT 2.0, M21 2.0 Ultimate Quik Detailer and Ultimate Quik Wax)

This can indicate two things. Either the western countries know that hydrophobicity does not benefit the paint in terms of increased protection, or the Japanese, so advanced in their technology, have already found out that hydrophobicity is positively related to surface protection.

Here's why I think water beading is a great marketing tool.

Besides looking at the water beads, how else could you tell the surface is being protected?

Two ways I can think of, is claying and polishing two different panels and comparing the amount of contaminants accumulated on the clay and applicator. The clay and applicator that shows less contaminants indicates that the wax/sealant/coating being used offers better protection(Wax A in image below).

Now let’s put yourself into the shoes of the salesman trying to sell a car wax. You go to your customer and demonstrate your product, the old burning lighter fluid on the hood trick is old snake oil and doesn’t work anymore.

NOTE: There is NO intention to defame the product demonstrator in the video above!

And you cannot do a clay and polish test since you just applied the product, the only other visual way to assess the performance of the product is hydrophobicity.

If the sealant you are trying to sell pushes water away much faster, create much taller water beads, you will probably close the sale straight away.

Other visual indicators such as gloss and wetness is hard to evaluate quantitatively. Slickness is only comparable for a short period of time since most of the oils are washed away after a few car washes and rain.

Hence, using water beading/contact angle as a visual indicator of product performance makes sense. Using it as a marketing tool makes even greater sense!

I hope you are still following me and see what I’m trying to show you. Your normal traditional wax will turn the surface hydrophobic, companies then use this clue to better market their products by creating more hydrophobic waxes. However,

Is greater hydrophobicity related to greater surface protection?

THAT IS THE QUESTION!

I wish I was a scientist right now and could do an experiment and give you an answer. Until then, water beading and contact angles would continue being the main selling point of car waxes, sealants and coatings all over the world(refer to Zaino Store).

This is unbeneficial to the society because some companies may exploit this by creating products that are very hydrophobic, but offers little to no protection to the paintwork. I realized this when I did my Soft99 Fusso Coat vs Meguiar’s M21 Synthetic Sealant years ago.

The cost is low and the process is easy in making a surface hydrophobic. There are products out there such as car shampoos that actually creates water repellency. There are spray products that can be sprayed on and the surface will bead water.

But will they actually protect the surface? Possibly, but I assume only to a certain degree. Creating a low surface energy(hydrophobic) is the primary function of those products, actually protecting the paintwork is only secondary(my own assumption).

Let’s look at another example, Aquartz, a new hydrophillic quartz coating from the U.K, which originates from Korea.

Forummer JJ_ from Detailing World posted a review comparing Collinite 476S, G|Techniq C1 and Aquartz. He also posted a video on water behavior on the three different areas of the bonnet.

(Left: Collinite 476s Middle: G|Techniq C1 Right: Aquartz)

As you can clearly see in the video above, a high performance quartz coating such as Aquartz does not bead water at all, it has the characteristics of high wettability.

Would you equate this to poor surface protection?

Probably not, due to the hardness of the coating and resistance to environmental attacks. If you compare that surface to an unwaxed surface, I would assume they would look visually similar in terms of water behavior. This is hard to tell and different methods have to be executed to demonstrate the protective capabilities of a quartz coating such as Aquartz.

Caledonia from Detailing World has shown this as seen in his thread, where he heated some high pH chemicals on areas untreated and treated to Aquartz. The treated areas showed resistance to chemical etching and clearly shows strong protective qualities.

It is a very good write-up with strong data to boot, but it would be hard to fit all of that data on the back of a bottle of wax.

Which brings us back to why water beading and contact angle is used as a sensible marketing tool as well as a suggestive indicator of product performance.

See here for example.

All of this marketing makes us love waxes that create tall water beads.

To detailers, having your paintwork bead water taller than the car beside you is akin to a girl walking around with Jimmy Choo shoes next to a girl wearing shoes from Tesco.

However, there are also some who go against the notion of water beading.

When rain falls from the sky, the droplets of water catch and hold atmospheric pollutants on the way down. These dirty rain water droplets land on your car and as they evaporate away, they leave the pollutants and minerals behind, which could etch into your paintwork, forming horrible waterspots that make your car looks like it is going through puberty.

However, findings show that the greater the hydrophobicity of the surface, the greater the tilt angle. The tilt angle, also known as sliding or roll angle, is the angle in which the water droplets slide off the surface.

Source: Aegerter, Almeida, Soutar, Tadanaga, Yang and Watanabe(2008)

Hydrophobicity is positively related to tilt angle. So the taller the water beads(larger contact angle) are created, the easier it is for water to slide off the paint.

Then again, what if your car’s horizontal surface is perfectly flat, there’s no use no matter how hydrophobic the surface is, unless the tilt angle is 0, which means water will slide around on a flat surface, like it has a mind of it’s own.

So, hydrophobic or hydrophilic?

To me, I would choose the one that offers greater protection against environmental attacks such as acid rain, tree sap, bird droppings and traffic film. Which means having to test them over a period of time in natural exposures to find the holy grail of paint protectants.

It is not as easy as picking a product that says it is superhydrophobic. Because of this, I am still a cynic of hydrophobic=great protection.

Although I do admit that I would instantly buy a product if it claims that water will roll off from the paint from a small exhale through the nostril.

Additional Info:

Source: Aegerter, Almeida, Soutar, Tadanaga, Yang and Watanabe(2008)

The image above shows the film structure of the hydrophobic coating for Automotive Windows. According to Kamitani and Muromachi(2008) as cited in Aegerter, Almeida, Soutar, Tadanaga, Yang and Watanabe(2008), hydrophobicity is provided by a fluoroalkyl group arranged in good order on film surface. To obtain higher environmental stability and abrasion resistance, a silica under-layer should be applied on the glass surface.

This is just to suggest that hydrophobicity does not always relate positively with the protective qualities of the coating.

All this talk about water beading is making me itch to do my next test, coating test will come soon!

Stay tuned!!! Subscribe via e-mail to receive notifications of new posts.

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That's all folks, feel free to add your own thoughts on water beading or critique which areas that I am wrong in my post, I would appreciate it!

References:

Emelyanenko, A.M. (2008) Wettability of interface boundaries as an indicator of their properties and state. Protection of Metals, 44(5), 419-429.
DOI 10.1134/S0033173208050019

Jia, X., Ling, X.M. (2005) Reduction of soil resistance through the use of a composite coating. JCT Research, 2(8), 669-672.

Aegerter M.A., Almeida R., Soutar A., Tadanaga K., Yang H., Watanabe T. (2008) Coatings made by sol-gel and chemical nanotechnology. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol, 47, 203–236
DOI 10.1007/s10971-008-1761-9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_angle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetting

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=168666

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=170993&highlight=aquartz

http://www.markus-bader.de/MB-Ruler/index.htm

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Initial Impressions: Autoglym High Definition Wax

This wax costs RM453 here in Malaysia, a freaking expensive wax that lies in the price range of entry level waxes from boutique brands such as Swissvax and Zymol. Thankfully, managed to get it at a cheaper price, thanks to the help of mankarat, a forummer on Autoworld, who recently came back from the states. But seriously, RM450??! My dad would say, "You crazy?? I could eat 3 meals a day for a month!!". But he doesn't know that :P

Before:

After machine polish and HD wax:

The wax also does not behave like waxes in the cheaper price range(M16,M26,Pink Wax).
Read about my initial impressions on HD wax here! --->

Since giving my mum's car the full detail, I have to wash the car myself, and at times look very neglected due to my chronic procrastination. Thought this mini-detail would make it up to her for not doing anything for Mother's day.

The car has collected a fair amount of dust.

With water spotting on the bonnet as it is exposed to rain:

Under all the dust, dirt and grime however, you could see the paint is still pretty much swirl free, except for some light ticks scattered randomly over the paintwork.



And that is with washing with a Lake Country Big Blue washing sponge and drying with a synthetic chamois.

The front bonnet is polished with Meguiar's #205 Ultra Finishing Polish on a Meguiar's Polishing Pad followed by a Lake Country Black Finishing Pad via rotary.
I was polishing under the hot sun(on black paintwork!), it stayed lubricated but had some areas where the polish baked onto the paint. Dried polish residue was easily removed with Isopropyl Alcohol diluted 1:1.

Ingrained dirt removed after polishing:

Although there was enough cut to remove the waterspots, it wasn't aggressive enough to remove some deeper scratches. I won't bother with those because maintaining a daily driver to be in perfect condition is just unpractical and will drive you mad sooner than you think!



The paint looks LSP ready from the sun shot above, but from a different angle, you could still see holograms.



So I followed up with Lime Prime on a Lake Country White CCS pad via ROB, which was also used on the rest of the car to clean and glaze the paintwork.

Now, may I present to you, its highness, its majesty, High Definition Wax!

This new pot had some excess oil on top, it will look matte after one use.



I didn't use the supplied applicator as I wanted to see how it feels like when applied with the Meguiar's foam applicator which I often use to apply paste waxes.

The applicator is put under running tap water(or use distilled water for the true OCD) and squeezed out repeatedly to get the every pores of the foam moist and damp.



Scooping out a small amount on to the pad and apply onto paintwork.










The two pictures above shows that it looks very oily and greasy but feels quite the opposite during application. Instead, it feels quite sticky and tacky when I'm trying to spread it over the paint. At times, my fingers start to get tired and have to use the palm of my hand. This is especially so when the applicator is less damp. So after waxing half the car, I would dampen my applicator again.

I was breaking the rule of not applying under a shade on a cool surface.

Under direct sunlight:

Now this is where my Meguiar's logic is challenged. Meguiar's teaches us on using the swipe test to judge whether a wax is ready to be buffed off or not.

If I applied any Meguiar's wax on a black bonnet under direct sunlight, it would have probably flashed off and dried in under a minute, or even after a few seconds!

The HD Wax however, stays oily for more than ten minutes on very hot paint.

I had to pull out my finger immediately after capturing the photo below:

Despite the hot temperature, the HD wax still stayed oily and the directions stated to leave it on for only 10 to 15 minutes. I then contacted my friend Jimmy from Golden Wax - Shine My Car detailing for advice as he is a frequent user of HD Wax. He says that it is oily during the removal of HD Wax and it is common and normal.

So I trusted him and walah! No streaks or patches. Thanks Jimmy!



Although I would also say that it could be paintwork dependent as the Lime Prime I used earlier did not produce and streaks or patches. On the times I've used it on my own car which is also black, it will tend to streak quite heavily. Will have to try HD wax on my own car to see.

So I proceeded and applied HD Wax over the whole car and buffed off after 10 minutes.

Removal wasn't the easiest. It was easy to break the wax film as it doesn't completely dry, but for the same reason, it is hard to pick up all of the wax residue. Even when you think you have picked it all up, look at it again under a light source and you'll probably see it requires more buffing.

Enjoy the pictures!

Before:

After M205 and HD Wax:

My final thoughts:
Every time you use something new or expensive(or something hyped), there is always this placebo effect that tells your eyes the results are actually better than it really is. I always try to keep this placebo effect in mind when doing a review, and it applies to this review as well, which isn't easy with a price tag of RM453(USD141).

Having said that, the paint looks dripping wet and reflections are deep and sharp. This could be attributable to M205 or Lime Prime, I do not know, what I do know is, it doesn't look bad! If you live in the U.S and have a Walmart near you selling this for USD35, grab it!

It rained 4 hours after application and this would kill any tight beading as waxes have not fully cured. The HD wax beads did appear less round on some areas but managed to stay tight throughout the whole panel that has been exposed.

Will give you guys a durability update when the time comes.

Thanks for looking! Any comments will be appreciated, both good and bad.

I probably won't be posting until July as I have one last final paper to prepare for and also gathering all the required resources to do a coating test(G'Z*x,G|T***niq,Aq**rtz,Pompo***zi,Op*i-Coat).

p.s. Again, HUGE thanks to mankarat for helping a few of us acquire the HD Wax at a bargain price. *bow*

Till then, cheerios! ^^V

Kenneth Tang a.k.a Fishbonezken

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