Ceramic Coating Experiment! Am I just wasting time and money?

[DMiglio]

Tony, as you’ve noted, water or moisture can effect bonding of sealants in their cure time, and seems coatings can be a bit more vulnerable than them during this time, so that has me a bit worried. Based on what I saw with water behavior from the dew this morning and how clean the car still looks has me hoping all is well so far though!

That was partly the reason I tried the Mckees coating, there’s a lot of product there and quite economical at its price point. If it fails way short of the mark I wouldn’t blame the product one bit and would gladly reapply it again! I tried taking a picture of what I used, being a black bottle wasn’t able to really capture it, but it almost looks like a new bottle to be honest.

I’m excited to see where the test goes and fingers crossed the coating bonded well enough to fail the first day of Spring and not middle of winter

[DMiglio]

I think this is a GREAT experiment and I'm looking forward to seeing how well the coating hold up without doing any of the normal paint correction work.


I'm writing copy for something similar for Dr. Beasley's Formula 1201 Ceramic Paint Coating for My Classic Car which reaches the masses.

Same here Mike, really hoping it can hold up well enough through winter, which at that point I might call it a success and polish the vehicle.

I’d be interested to hear about that 1201, that’s the one that applies to a wet vehicle, correct?

[DMiglio]

Ok, thread update!!

I took some pictures yesterday about an hour after we received some rain. The car had gotten light drizzles of rain a day or two prior and having dew on it every morning allowed for some accumulation of dust to settle and dry to the surface. I haven’t touched the car since Monday evening.

These first two are from the rear roof area



These two are from the hood



As you can see less than stellar beading from a coating, the beads are quite large and don’t have similar shape either. After driving the car later in the day though, the water did clear itself nicely leaving the car pretty dry overall. Later on in the day we had some heavy rains come through and the beading did look much better than what I had seen earlier in the day, maybe from “self-cleaning” effect. Had the rain removed the dust from days prior due to dew and light drizzle allowing for a cleaner surface promoting better beads?

[DMiglio]

Further updates(hope double posting isn’t a problem?)!

This morning I went out quite early so the pics are dark, I did enhance them and brightened them though.

Later afternoon yesterday and overnight we received storms and a lot of rain!! I was excited to see the car this morning after that so grabbed pics first thing! The beading looks much better, similar to what I saw late afternoon after driving through the storms yesterday.

These are from the hood



These are from the roof



Improved beading but still not great, certainly not what I’d expect from a coating.

Idk if the application process didn’t work well due to the prep(or lack of without a thorough decon or polishing step) which was a waterless wash and heavy wipe down with paint prep product or if it’s due to the amount of moisture and dew that came through overnight(this was my biggest concern and what I think is to blame).

I will continue to update, planning to do n914 rinseless/waterless today inbetween the storms we’ve had just to really clean things up. Really tempted to start adding toppers though as the beading is less than stellar and something like Gyeon Cure or Carpro Reload or Merlin’s Elixer would knock these blobby beads out of the park!!

[DMiglio]

Been about a week since I last updated, I will try to grab pictures at some point. So I haven’t washed the car in almost 2 weeks since coating was applied. We’ve been getting storms almost daily in Illinois so I’ve been able to monitor the sheeting and beading at least. It always seems a little underwhelming at first but after a drive it all comes back, tighter and more symmetrical beads that just run the moment the car moves. It also seems to be cleaner than normal especially with all the rain we’ve had lately. I’m remaining optimistic that it’s bonded well enough and with proper maintenance it’ll hold up through winter.

[SWETM]

Missed your updates a week ago. But awesome to hear it works for you. Will be interesting to hear how you experience the coating after the first wash. Maybe it's how the car you have it on and the angles of the panels you took pictures on or if it's dirty. It seems like sheeting is not so good when the car stands still. That useally coatings is very good at when the water accumulates to get the beads to be big enough they roll off more than the looks on the pictures. And when you wash your car and it feels easier to do is also a benefit that would be interesting to hear how you experience that from the first wash.

Great testing and looking forward to see the thoughts and your experience with your testing in the longrun.

/ Tony

[DMiglio]

Tony,

Thanks for your input, we’ve been getting rain pretty regularly here and I’m usually not able to clean the car when the weather clears. I had a chance Monday afternoon, but alas a last minute call from a client came up. I’m looking forward to getting a wash in just to see if it’s any different to clean during the wash and especially afterward. This will most likely be a waterless wash or pre treat waterless and rinseless bucket wash.

I’m less than impressed by the water behavior to be honest. I have used many spray and rinse products in the past(HyrdoBlue, WetCoat, Hydro2) and the beading and sheeting I had experienced with those and their respective toppers(Merlin’s elixer, Cure, Reload) left me quite pleased. I will say the self cleaning aspect does seem to be there from the heavier rains and even while driving where I don’t have a large buildup of water spotting or film. The sheeting effect is quite noticeable then, as the water seems to bead together and roll off.

[acuRAS82]

Thanks for the continued updates!

[DMiglio]

Ok, I know it’s been a while, I’m not the best at these, although I lurk a lot and post somewhat often, I haven’t updated this thread it 2 weeks. So this will be a long rundown of the past 2 weeks and where I’m at now with everything.

On 10/5 I gave the car a waterless wash with ONR(I know not the n914 I had planned, but it was mixed and ready to go and didn’t want to dump it out) and dried with no drying aid just to see how it felt. The ONR seemed to have a slow sheeting look to it like the coating was “rejecting” it. As I went to dry to my surprise it was extremely “tacky” feeling and not slick at all. Idk how to explain it other than how the paint feels when you wash a car that you know hasn’t had any LSP applied in years and is just beat. It wasn’t anywhere near that, but trying to give an example of the tacky feeling, the paint dried fine though unlike a completely dead LSP where the water just seems to stay on the panel as you dry.

Not happy with how it felt I decided to split the car in half, leaving the roof with no topper and using a 50/50 mix of Mckees Trademark Spray Wax and their 10-Minute Sealant as a drying aid over the rest of the car. This was a pleasure to work with and really enhanced the paint. I didn’t want to do it, I know Tony(SWETM) was looking to see how far it could go without any toppers, but I just couldn’t help myself at that point.

From then til today(10/18) we had a couple rain showers and one big one. The roof still was showing that something was still there, but it was looking “lazy” with large non-symmetrical beads through out, sheeting was ok, but seeing the areas that were topped up was like looking at a failing LSP and a fresh one. At that point I decided to call it quits on the experiment. Today I took it over to the coin-op(apartment life), gave it a full decon(APC wash,iron decon and claybar), washed and rinse and then put M37 HydroBlue and dried with Sonax BSD.

Few things I’ll take away from this:
1)because of my very minimal prep, I have no way of knowing if the coating bonded well and the morning dew killed it off prematurely or if it never bonded well to begin with.
2)I wish I could’ve tried to apply the coating with a thorough prep(tar/iron decon, clay and IPA prep spray) but no polish to see if it would take well to that.
3)As somebody who does mobile work, a coating might not be the best thing to give the customer if they too park outside and may be susceptible to dew.
4)More than likely this failed due to my lousy prep first and foremost as it’s totally against Mckees37 Coating instructions and all others that I’m aware of.

Thanks for taking the time to look over this thread and read it. Sorry if I didn’t give much updates but it’s only been a month and in that time I didn’t have much to show or give. From the get go it didn’t seem like it was going to turn out well, but figured I’d give it a go as I was interested(and deep down hoping) in seeing if this could be a viable option to quickly apply a coating. If it was able to bond well enough, even if it failed early, but could give coating protection in the 6 month window of most sealants, I would’ve been pleased! Oh well on to the next!!

[PaulMys]

I really liked this thread. I read every word.

Great experiment and info!