Creating Standards

Greg Nichols

Greg Nichols

New member
The time I've been a member of this forum I've learned a lot from many of you, and some have taught me to hold my tongue:) .



I find that we throw out terms and opinions without a clear standard of that terms definition. Is there a thread that has already discussed common terms or ideas we use? Can we minimize or eliminate the subjective nature of ideas and quantify them more?



Such as, but not limited too;



Beading: How does one determine beading, or the quality of beading. Is that a factor of the LSP or just good polishing



Durability: How does one determine when durability is fading, completely gone?



Slickness: If your hand does not catch when you drag it across the paint? A MF slides off a slightly vertical panel?



Absorbency: Soaks up 2 cups of water, leaves no fluid behind when dragged across the panel.



Gloss: You can buy expensive meters for this one and the next, but how else can we measure this?



Reflective: Same as above.





I know we'll get a ton of opinions, but can we create a working definition of them that we and the general population can understand and measure some what?



If there are other terms we need to add what are they?



A pleading from the beginning...................please avoid deviations of this topic as we try and work this out.



Cheers,

GREG



ps. Maybe I'm off the mark and the MODS can delete this post??
 
I think this is an excellent idea, but incredibly difficult to do at the same time if you take into account all the potential variables.
 
I don't think we can totally eliminate all the variables.



If I told you my wax has excellent beading, do you have a working idea of what I'm talking about?
 
Beading: LSP only works to its full potential if applied to a clean surface, so I say both. Some products a "formulated' to sheet water off body panels.



Durability: less beading/ Keep clean and use QD after washes helps with durability.



Slickness: You will know slick when you feel slick IMO.



Gloss: Hard to say, I try to achieve "depth" with my exterior paint work. Everyone is different.



Reflective: Anyone can see if the DOI is kick *** or awful, but could fall on the paint job itself(orange peel) which we all know requires different steps.
 
Good idea, now if we can just come up with something. If nothing else it can make for an interesting discussion.



A few sorta-random thoughts that come readily to mind:



Beading- How big/small are the beads. But I've seen both big and small beads immediately after application of a given LSP. How spherical. To me, that last one is a biggie...beads that are like round balls that *barely* flatten where they contact the panel are what impress *me*.



Slickness- Gee, how *do* you determine what is "slick" vs. what isn't :nixweiss I know it when I feel it, but that's just *so* subjective.



Somewhere in-between those two- How readily do the beads roll off the surface; beads that readily roll off always impress me more than beads that cling to a panel.



But somebody who values sheeting would sure have a different take on all this talk of beading!



I can have problems differentiating between "glossy" and "reflective" :think:



Durability, to *me*, is how long a characteristic of value remains undiminished from the given baseline. The various characteristics that people might value (beading, slickness, reflectivity, etc.) are numerous, and herein lies a scad of potential problems related to subjectivity. But just referring to "a change that's not for the better" sounds mighty vague.
 
I can't see a standard for such things because I will view/interpret things different than the guy standing next to me.



For instance: I would MUCH rather have a product that sheets water off of the paint as opposed to beading. This creates another dilema.....sheeting vs beading, which is better? I feel that a product that allows water to flow away from my paint is better than one that keeps & beads it on my paint. Who is right? I think I am, you think you are. So who is correct? Or, my beading looks better than yours......, again who is right? No way for a standard here.
 
This is a topic that is worth a sticky-note! Definitely worth a discussion, although, I don't know how far we can go, and *where* we can go with this. Pictures are going to become very handy, very soon I think. Especially when answering questions like glossy, and reflective. Sometimes I also have problems differentiating between glossy and wet... but reflective is like z-5 on a vertical panel of a black car... just miror-like finish!
 
Accumulator said:
Durability, to *me*, is how long a characteristic of value remains undiminished from the given baseline. The various characteristics that people might value (beading, slickness, reflectivity, etc.) are numerous, and herein lies a scad of potential problems related to subjectivity. But just referring to "a change that's not for the better" sounds mighty vague.
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Very well said :2thumbs:



Pretty much sums the whole durability thing up for me.



Reflectivity/gloss/wetness/whatever will always be subjective.
 
autobahnshine said:
This is a topic that is worth a sticky-note! Definitely worth a discussion, although, I don't know how far we can go, and *where* we can go with this. Pictures are going to become very handy, very soon I think. Especially when answering questions like glossy, and reflective. Sometimes I also have problems differentiating between glossy and wet... but reflective is like z-5 on a vertical panel of a black car... just miror-like finish!
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I agree, there are plenty of beading pics in the C&B section and some good videos of sheeting like with Zaino on You tube. Also to be a better bead would mean the actual beed is as close to a sphere as possible. I took a class on how the phenomenon works.



As for reflection I think the best I have seen is a test a guy did on here (Ill have to look for the thread again). He went around the car with different LSP, put a tape measurer perpendicular to the panel and took a pic. IMO whatever LSP was used that could see the farthest dimension had the most reflection. I was stunned at the difference in some of the LSP.



Slickness-When you try to lay a MF towel on your hood and it slides off everytime, always bothers me lol. Or just rub the back of you hand lightly against the paint. You can tell the difference between a slick surface and one that is dirty.
 
I'm an aerospace engineer and I deal with standards and specifications almost every day. The first thing that a good standard does, before any mention of testing methods, is it describes the test coupon that will be used. For example, to measure the tensile strength of a material, a sample of the material must be made that is a certain size and shape. So before we can measure any of the properties of interest, first we would have to decide on a single test specimen. But since we all have different cars of different shapes with different paints that have varying degrees of surface unevenness, comparing one product result to another on different cars adds confusion to the mix. On the other hand, I think we could agree that the properties mentioned in the parent post can be quantified fairly well when someone does a side-by-side product comparison on their own car which would remove some of the variables from the equation.



As far as addressing the properties mentioned, I would say that...



Beading and Slickness are related in my opinion. On vertical panels, surface imperfections cause water to cling to the surface in beads. So a perfectly smooth vertical panel should shed water completely within some amount of time. As far as horizontal panels go, I would say that the uniformity of the beads of water would be one of the more important qualities to consider besides the size/shape of individual drops. Durability could be related to the amount of time that it takes for a vertical panel to completely shed water or the amount of beads left on the panel after some time. And for horizontal panels, you could monitor the uniformity of the water beads over the entire panel. In both cases, the time it takes to shed water and the uniformity of the beading should change as the product ages. And I think the parent poster hit the mark with Absorbency. A known amount of water being removed from a surface would effectively describe one aspect of a system's performance. And Gloss and Reflectivity should be measured with whatever equipment exists, but Civicman made a good point about the tape measure trick. That would be a good way to measure those properties, though different color cars and different lighting would certainly affect the results.
 
RTexasF said:
I can't see a standard for such things because I will view/interpret things different than the guy standing next to me.



For instance: I would MUCH rather have a product that sheets water off of the paint as opposed to beading. This creates another dilema.....sheeting vs beading, which is better? I feel that a product that allows water to flow away from my paint is better than one that keeps & beads it on my paint. Who is right? I think I am, you think you are. So who is correct? Or, my beading looks better than yours......, again who is right? No way for a standard here.
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Thanks for your opinion! The reason for the standards is to reduce that we all view/interpret things differently from the guy standing next to you.



the purpose of this thread is NOT to start a "which is better" or a "vs" type discussion......



Once we have a working definition of what is good beading, then we can say which looks better and possible reason why.



thanks again for joining the discussion!



Cheers,

GREG
 
The beading variance will also be deterimined by "what" is beading on it. Some of us have to use well water, others city water, some of us are lucky enough to get filtered water, and a whole slew of other "waters" all of which have their own contaminants and properties. So small beads or large beads could very well be the nature of the water and filtrations system use more so than the product used.



To be able to set a standard you have to be able to control all the variables. not only do they all need controlled but they all need to be repeatable with the same results. Once that is achieved then you can say "this is the standard for this defination of beading" or whatever else your trying to set to.
 
I'm not try to set an industry standard here by controlling all the variables. Set a working definition or operational definition.



If we cannot come up atleast that, then how can we have a critical debate about which product has the "best slickness" "best durability" etc.
 
I'm confused by what is meant by "sheeting" as well. Do you me the water beads but quickly roles off the paint, or do you mean it lays flat and and doesn't bead at all? I never had a problem with waterspots on my first car, because I never waxed it. The water would just kind of sit there and evaporate evenly or run off.
 
Besides, aren't slickness and water beading caused by the same thing, surface tension. I know you can add oil, silicone, and other agents to increase the slickness or the feel, but those also act to increase water beading as well. So wouldn't an objective test be to till at body panel at a certain angle, displace a water dropplet the top, and measure the total time required for lets say, 80 percent of the water volume to make it do the bottom.



This would measure beading and slickness in with one standard. A product that claims to increase slickness, should require less time, which can then be measured.
 
TH0001 said:
I'm confused by what is meant by "sheeting" as well. Do you me the water beads but quickly roles off the paint, or do you mean it lays flat and and doesn't bead at all? I never had a problem with waterspots on my first car, because I never waxed it. The water would just kind of sit there and evaporate evenly or run off.
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In that case, you first car may have been one giant waterspot :laugh:
 
Also if these standards are going to be used to describe product/end results then you can't ignore the factors of manufactures paint. For example: GM paint is full of orange peel... while a higher end brand is not... this in turn impacts the final result so you're not always comparing apples to apples... then the color comes into play. What works well to create depth/shine on black may not do so on red.



Again, I think this is an excellent (and necessary) thing to tackle, but it has so many caveats to it that just defining the criteria is going to be HUGE.
 
Dylan



thanks for adding to it, yes paint quality will make a difference in gloss and reflective natures of the end result.



It may be that some of the terms we cannot full define.............

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So far people have been very good about being critical of the nature of this idea, however can we go further......



Maybe.......we all need to define the terms as we understand it........maybe we already have a common defined term???
 
Greg Nichols said:
I'm not try to set an industry standard here by controlling all the variables. Set a working definition or operational definition.



If we cannot come up atleast that, then how can we have a critical debate about which product has the "best slickness" "best durability" etc.
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A very solid point that has validity.....but,



Trying to get everyone on the same page standard wise using some criteria that can be compared to others that holds up with test results is not an easy endeavor my friend.......



Human eye's are not calibrated and some guys like blonde's and some prefer brunettes....



So........knowing that, I don't sweat the small stuff.....



To each his own, let's have fun with the options and the banter with new products as they come along.......:2thumbs:
 
I think a picture would suffice, and there's plenty of them out there.



For example, good beading should look something like this (show picture of beading).



It's all very subjective anyway. Even my own tastes change from time to time. Sometimes I get big fat jellybean sized beading behind my hood scoop, sometimes I get thousands of pinhead sized beads all over the car. I like both. Both are best, neither is worst.



I think what you're asking for is already done.
 
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