I feel like a little boy asking his daddy why the sky is blue, but if I understood how wax or sealant bonds to the car’s paint I might be able to make more sense out of such frequent Autopia topics as layering, polymer crosslinking, or the infamous Dawn wash. This would help me determine if some of my detailing steps make sense, or if sometimes I am just being silly.
Having asked the question, I will take a stab at an answer and ask for comments if you agree or disagree. I am of the impression that paint is pretty hard stuff, so no matter how much you polish it, including burnishing it to a satiny finish with FP, the surface still has microscopic hills, valleys, pores and fissures, maybe even crags, caves and arroyos, all invisible to the naked eye. This would look like rough terrain indeed to a wax molecule. The paste wax or liquid sealant fills in these surface gaps. Thus, when it dries/cures/hardens the wax layer is locked into the paint with a mechanical bond. This also seems to make sense optically. With the gaps filled in, the sun’s rays are presented with a smoother surface which means more uniform reflection with less scatter and, I would suppose, a better shine.
This sounds reasonable to me, but if true, it raises some trickier questions:
1. If the gaps are filled with wax, what does the second layer of wax bond to, and how does it do it? Maybe the gaps didn’t get totally filled, and the second coat just fills in some more. Or maybe there is some kind of a chemical bond formed between the fresh wax and the cured wax below, but that seems unlikely. On the other hand, new wax must be able to stick to old wax somehow. Otherwise, how could you get a wax buildup? Is it possible that heat generated from applying the second coat softens the base layer enough so that they can somehow chemically merge?
2. I presume that SMR’s or shine enhancing polishes not only fill in the swirls and fine scratches with oils, but also the microscopic gaps, thus enhancing the shine. But with the gaps already filled, how can the wax or sealant bond to the paint? Maybe the answer, at least for carnauba, is that it does not have to bond all that well to the paint or wax layer below because environmental assaults, evaporation and washing will wear it down before bonding becomes an issue. Maybe. The situation may be different for long-term sealants. Sal Zaino wants you to get rid of all those waxes and oils, and Klasse does the job for you with AIO. So maybe these guys last long enough that adequate bonding becomes important. But then…
3. How does Poorboy’s EX do it? The label says it will last six to nine months, and we are not required to prepare the paint with prepsol or a Dawn wash. Not everybody reports that kind of durability for EX, but I do. After six months over Meguiar’s #9 Swirl Remover on a horizontal hood panel, the EX is still going strong.
4. Does crosslinking in polymer-based sealants contribute to bonding to the paint or sealant layer below? I would guess not. From a cursory web search, Zaino and Platinum UPP admit to being polymer-based with crosslinking, but EX and 1Z Glanz Wax don’t mention it, and Klasse claims not to be a polymer product. Neither Zaino nor UPP actually say that the sealant is bonded to the paint or previous sealant coat by crosslinking. Rather, the polymers in the fresh layer crosslink with each other as part of the curing process.
5. The last and ultimate question, which all of this has been leading up to: What does the 43rd layer of Z2 bond to, and how in the world does it do it?
Having asked the question, I will take a stab at an answer and ask for comments if you agree or disagree. I am of the impression that paint is pretty hard stuff, so no matter how much you polish it, including burnishing it to a satiny finish with FP, the surface still has microscopic hills, valleys, pores and fissures, maybe even crags, caves and arroyos, all invisible to the naked eye. This would look like rough terrain indeed to a wax molecule. The paste wax or liquid sealant fills in these surface gaps. Thus, when it dries/cures/hardens the wax layer is locked into the paint with a mechanical bond. This also seems to make sense optically. With the gaps filled in, the sun’s rays are presented with a smoother surface which means more uniform reflection with less scatter and, I would suppose, a better shine.
This sounds reasonable to me, but if true, it raises some trickier questions:
1. If the gaps are filled with wax, what does the second layer of wax bond to, and how does it do it? Maybe the gaps didn’t get totally filled, and the second coat just fills in some more. Or maybe there is some kind of a chemical bond formed between the fresh wax and the cured wax below, but that seems unlikely. On the other hand, new wax must be able to stick to old wax somehow. Otherwise, how could you get a wax buildup? Is it possible that heat generated from applying the second coat softens the base layer enough so that they can somehow chemically merge?
2. I presume that SMR’s or shine enhancing polishes not only fill in the swirls and fine scratches with oils, but also the microscopic gaps, thus enhancing the shine. But with the gaps already filled, how can the wax or sealant bond to the paint? Maybe the answer, at least for carnauba, is that it does not have to bond all that well to the paint or wax layer below because environmental assaults, evaporation and washing will wear it down before bonding becomes an issue. Maybe. The situation may be different for long-term sealants. Sal Zaino wants you to get rid of all those waxes and oils, and Klasse does the job for you with AIO. So maybe these guys last long enough that adequate bonding becomes important. But then…
3. How does Poorboy’s EX do it? The label says it will last six to nine months, and we are not required to prepare the paint with prepsol or a Dawn wash. Not everybody reports that kind of durability for EX, but I do. After six months over Meguiar’s #9 Swirl Remover on a horizontal hood panel, the EX is still going strong.
4. Does crosslinking in polymer-based sealants contribute to bonding to the paint or sealant layer below? I would guess not. From a cursory web search, Zaino and Platinum UPP admit to being polymer-based with crosslinking, but EX and 1Z Glanz Wax don’t mention it, and Klasse claims not to be a polymer product. Neither Zaino nor UPP actually say that the sealant is bonded to the paint or previous sealant coat by crosslinking. Rather, the polymers in the fresh layer crosslink with each other as part of the curing process.
5. The last and ultimate question, which all of this has been leading up to: What does the 43rd layer of Z2 bond to, and how in the world does it do it?
