IPA -v- Paint Cleaner- Experimenters Wanted

[Lowejackson]

Last week I was reading a response where someone said that IPA would remove old wax and clean up the paint. So, in the interest of trying this out with a quick and dirty experiment I washed a panel with ONR and then sprayed some IPA over a section to clean it. Next I applied paint cleaner with a make-up pad remover to see if anything would be visible on the pad. There was some dirt, not a lot but enough to make me think IPA is not a perfect cleaner.

As this was just a quick experiment, I did not tape off the area to make sure the IPA had covered the section and I was not finding dirt on a unwiped part of the paint. I need some help to try and repeat the quick experiment. I have run out of IPA so I cannot do this myself but I would be very interested if anyone can do a quick repeat of what I tried

[Setec Astronomy]

Maybe I'm wrong but I thought the "protocol" was using IPA after polishing to remove polishing oils, or say, if you were cleaning trim, after an APC wash, to remove other residues.

It seems clear from the recent spate of threads that coatings have made the issue of prep even more important than it already was. It is not uncommon in industrial cleaning to use multiple cleaning steps, each designed to remove a particular family of soils, or in some cases to remove residue of a cleaner used in an earlier step.

As I mentioned in another thread, detergent cleaners like APC's have the advantage of emulsifying the soil for removal, while solvents may dissolve the soil, it is easier to redeposit it when using a solvent.

[CEE DOG]

IPA will remove most polishing oils but not all. It certainly will not remove wax completely and won't remove bonded contaminants either.

The first step is to remove the contimants with a product designed for the type of contaminants your dealing with. Organic, iron, etc... Clay helps also.

Then you polish and then you decide what to use to remove polishing oils. If your sealing or waxing as an lsp then a paint cleaner that's compatible or IPA will work ok and in some cases a paint cleaner might work exceptionally well when designed to work with a particular sealant.

With a coating IPA will not work to remove all polishing oils. A paint cleaner leaves oils of it's own in droves usually. You need something that removes oil completely and doesn't have any kind of oil of it's own that it's leaving on the surface. Many prep products are orange oil based so right there I'm not using that for a coating.... Little word oil is right in the name.

The big difference here is if you lose 10-30% durability of a wax or sealant its not the same as losing 40%-95% of a coating durability.

Even 10% loss of coating durability is a much bigger time frame than 10% loss of a wax durability... And rest assured leaving any oil on the surface is going to cost you far far far more than 10% of a coatings durability.

[dougaross]

IPA will remove most polishing oils but not all. It certainly will not remove wax completely and won't remove bonded contaminants either.

The first step is to remove the contimants with a product designed for the type of contaminants your dealing with. Organic, iron, etc... Clay helps also.

Then you polish and then you decide what to use to remove polishing oils. If your sealing or waxing as an lsp then a paint cleaner that's compatible or IPA will work ok and in some cases a paint cleaner might work exceptionally well when designed to work with a particular sealant.

With a coating IPA will not work to remove all polishing oils. A paint cleaner leaves oils of it's own in droves usually. You need something that removes oil completely and doesn't have any kind of oil of it's own that it's leaving on the surface. Many prep products are orange oil based so right there I'm not using that for a coating.... Little word oil is right in the name.

The big difference here is if you lose 10-30% durability of a wax or sealant its not the same as losing 40%-95% of a coating durability.

Even 10% loss of coating durability is a much bigger time frame than 10% loss of a wax durability... And rest assured leaving any oil on the surface is going to cost you far far far more than 10% of a coatings durability.

So what do you use for coatings like OC

[CEE DOG]

I recommend Eraser after polishing for any coating job

[Lowejackson]

I think what I was initially reacting to was an increase in threads why say IPA will remove old wax or will clean a surface. I can fully understand using something like a weak IPA after a APC to prep for a wax or sealant but there does seem (to me) to be a move towards viewing IPA as a APC which does not make sense to me.

My simple experiment was really just to see how effective a IPA solution would be after washing the paint. Compared to a paint cleaner, it was not able to remove all the visible dirt.

I was experimenting with IPA and ONR to try and reduce the evaporation of all the liquid and offer some lubrication whilst the panel was wiped. Unfortunately I ran out of IPA so that particular experiment will need to wait for a while. Maybe Optimum will release their own version of a IPA wipe shortly

[Bunky]

I did some experiments by using Griot's Pre-Wax Cleaner, IPA mixture, and nothing and have not seen any observable difference in durability using sealants like WG DPS, Power Lock, and BFWD.

[Lowejackson]

I did some experiments by using Griot's Pre-Wax Cleaner, IPA mixture, and nothing and have not seen any observable difference in durability using sealants like WG DPS, Power Lock, and BFWD.

Thank you for trying