Do these pics show a wax that is still protecting?

X

xtahoex

New member
what I want to know is whether yall think this shows protection or not, and how can you tell. I'll say it looks pretty good to me. To prevent any biased opinions I'll hold of on saying what it is and how old till there are a few responses. Thanks a lot.



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one way to tell that your still protected is by what is knowas beading (its the only nor is it a sure fire way) its when the water makes small dot like thing, like in your pictures. You can tell when the beading goes away, you will have large random pools. that paint defenlty looks like its protected well fro now
 
It does look like you still have protection. I use (IMHO) the size of the beads as a indicator. The smaller (tighter) the beads the better the protection.
 
Yup, the beading is quite nice. On the top, the beading is a bit messy, but towards the bottom, the beads are round, spherical, and tight. I'm going to take a guess that you've had that wax on for 1-2 months? It's a complete guess, I don't even know what products you used :)



BTW, nice pictures.
 
like others have said... you still have protection... and very nice beading haha



sorry to steal the thread, but it's kinda the same topic...





i'm in the process of detailing my car... i have finished polishing out the scratches, etc

i have also finished up polishing out the marring that the previous/more abrasive polish left on most of the panels

roof and trunk are done, sealed and waxed...

leaving some parts, like hood, doors and a fender to still be polished with a finer polish and then sealed wax...

the question i have is this... the other day, it rained on my car... the beading was almost exactly the same on my hood and roof....

considering that roof got a fine polish, klasse, P21S, and hood got meg's #4, which is pretty abrasive and looks like crap under light now,

how in the world does it bead so well on the hood???



there's no way there's old wax/sealant on there since i washed the car a few times, clayed the hood, polished a few times...

i'm just curious as to why this is happening ??
 
Looks just like the hood of my father-in-laws truck. Same colors, same profile, same water beading.



His truck is a 2002 that has never been waxed or even washed. There is absolutely no protection on the paint what so ever.



Beading water does not mean you've got paint protection. It just means the surface is hydrophobic.
 
Measuring protection is no exact science. Many will argue both sides as to whether to use beading as a measure, I say "yes". Other than beading, I try to use slickness as well.





Typically, carnauba waxes will have much larger/tighter beading patterns, like showed above, whereas sealants will look a little more natural (like when new paint beads). I use the slickness measure a little more when measuring the durability of a sealant.





In any event, after a wash (important to remove surface contaminants), if you see the beading very random, large, and sloppy (for the lack of a better term), it is time to refresh.
 
ok, now I am thouroughly confused as I have gotten answers that are complete opposites I guess I'll have to use Seans suggestion and test the slickness, now to let yall know what wax this is. I applied a coat of NXT past at the very beginning of July and this is what you are seeing now, so it is about 3 1/2 months old. I have washed probably once every two weeks using GC, and used a QD twice, most recently about two weeks ago. For those of you who say your NXT lasted only a few weeks, did you use the slickness test or did you look at beading? If you judged by slickness and determined there was none did it still bead like this when you thought it was gone? Thanks. Just trying to learn, not saying anybody is right or wrong. Thanks for all the help.



P.S. I've discovered recently that just spraying the car down with a hand-held pressure washer and just water, no soap, and then following with the spot free rinse leaves the car looking practically perfect. All the dirt and dust just seems to rinse right off.
 
Oh no!



In another thread there was quite the debate over NXT losing it's beading fairly quickly and there were some NXT defenders that swore NXT was designed to sheet NOT bead.

Now those sure look like beads of water on your car to me!!!



Having said that, wouldn't we expect NXT (or any LSP) to last 3 months?

It's 6 months and more that is a real challenge, especially out in the weather (garage queens don't count).
 
foxtrapper said:
...same water beading.



His truck is a 2002 that has never been waxed or even washed. There is absolutely no protection on the paint what so ever.
Click to expand...



How can this be? My experience and gut feel would suggest no washing in 4 years would result in a layer of grime on the paint which in no way, shape or form would bead.
 
abbeysdad said:
In another thread there was quite the debate over NXT losing it's beading fairly quickly and there were some NXT defenders that swore NXT was designed to sheet NOT bead.

Now those sure look like beads of water on your car to me!!!
Click to expand...



Well, then, based on Foxtrapper's remarks and yours, the beading clearly indicates the LSP is gone!



The beading-to-sheeting observation has also been applied to M21. IIRC the bottom line in that, <ahem> discussion was that type of sheeting was actually a beading phenomenon...where the beads collect and roll off the car in a sheet. It would still be my assertion that the more irregularly shaped the beads become, the less protection you have...and that the beads collecting together has more to do with the irregular shapes allowing the beads to touch together and combine, creating a larger bead which can't stay on the surface and sheets off.



While I'm slipping into my flame suit, I'll just mention that I was never able to find the explanation attributed to Ketch as to why sealants change from beading to sheeting and how that means they are still there. Sorry, maybe I'm just an old wax guy who thinks that if it ain't beadin', it ain't there. Somehow, Zaino seems to keep beading forever, unless it's just really not there anymore as Foxtrapper states. Think how chagrined I'll be if the one car that I use Z on (my mother's, since I don't get to work on it that often), which got 3 layers of ZFX'd Z2-Pro a year ago, and only a few Z8 touchups since, on which the other day I noticed was just starting to get irregularly shaped beads on the mirrors (which are painted plastic...that's a whole other discussion) while still having nice round beads on the rest of the car, actually has no protection at all!
 
Gotta love it, the Google ads at the bottom of the page are for car products, except for the one from the beaded jewelry company..."beading patterns and kits"...LOL!
 
Setec Astronomy said:
Gotta love it, the Google ads at the bottom of the page are for car products, except for the one from the beaded jewelry company..."beading patterns and kits"...LOL!
Click to expand...



What are you talking about? :nixweiss
 
Maybe your firewall is blocking it (mine isn't... :think: ), but for the last week or so (see related thread by DavidB) there have been targeted Google ads on the Autopia pages. These are targeted to keywords just like that ads at Google (that appear at the top or right side and look like search results) when you do a search. So since one of the keywords here is "beading", we got some jewelry ads along with the wax ads...
 
ok, Since I felt as though the beads meant the paint was protected and so did some others, while others felt that it wasn't a great way to judge protection, I decided to do a test. This morning I went out and stripped all wax from the drivers side portion of my hood using 50/50 IPA mix. I cleaned it twice, sprayed it with water, and took these pictures.



This shows the whole hood I think you can clearly see the diference in the right side which I stripped this morning.

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Protected Side

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Stripped Side

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Close up of the protected side

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Close up of the stripped side, same area of hood as above just opposite side

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So I think this shows that the NXT was still protecting (at least to some degree) after 3 1/2 months, what do yall think?
 
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