Sal Zaino on Carnauba wax

[Junebug]

Well, this last page has been good, I agree with Scott and Tort and the points they made. I happen to have had good and bad exeriences with Zaino and after I finish up my stock of it - I'll move on to something else. I do like NXT 2.0 for my regular - mini detail every 2 month customers. It's easy on - easy off and looks great. I just got the Megs 21 2.0 version and can't wait to try it. And I will get some of that CMW that Scott uses - must be good!

 

[TortoiseAWD]

I agree with Scott and Tort . . .

Man, I need more caffeine. My name IRL is also "Scott", so I looked at that and did something of a double-take (pun intended).



My thought process was something like, "Wait, someone's agreeing with both of me? That *never* happens!"



Tort

 

[BigJimZ28]

"Wait, someone's agreeing with both of me? That *never* happens!"



Tort

this place is always good for a laugh

 

[MoreBoostPlease]

Scott, your climate/environment must be ideal for sealants and waxes. I get nowhere near the durability of Zaino or 26/Nuba Moose you do. I get a about 2-3 months from Z2. Like you, I see no added benefit beyond 2-3 coats at a time.



Either that or we subjectively differ on durability assessments.

Michigan weather must be especially rough on lsp's. Over here in PA, even with the winter/snow/salt/etc., Zaino lasts much longer than 2-3 months. One of my daily drivers was last treated to Z2/Z5 in early November(almost 5 months now). Water is still beading like crazy, dirt washes off with ease, and it still looks great.

 

[wannafbody]

Ok, guys let's keep this debate healthy!



Wow, this thread brings back some memories, this topic was exhausted time and time again about 7 yrs ago on this forum. We had testing, testing, and more testing and I thought we all pretty much came to the same conclusion!



Anyhow, here are a few cut and pastes from the past of my take on carnubas from back in the day......they have their place in detailing, but they have a few drawbacks compared to the latest polymer technology.



UV protection......A carnuba offers little to no UV light protection. For indoor showcars or garaged weekenders this may be ok, but for outdoor daily drivers this simply won't cut it. Remember plants need UV light to live, if carnuba filtered UV light, the tree it comes from would cease to exsist.......



As far as adding UV inhibitors, In carnuba waxes, I believe that the oils (usually silicone in most products) in the product make it difficult to add the UV inhibitors. This was written about briefly by David in one of his car care articles.



"......The only true negative property of silicone is the difficulty of adding UV protection..............."



Carnuba Properties............Carnuba is hard and brittle in it's pure state. It is often melted and added into a companies formulation. Typical carnuba type waxes, only contain about 5-10% carnuba by volume. Any more than that, and it gets very difficult to work with (take zymol that needs to be applied with your hands so the heat melts the product to make it spread easier). It also does not add any more protection after a certain amount. When you see PURE CARNUBA, it means that the part of the wax that is carnuba is 100% pure. Every carnuba product must contain other waxes because carnuba in itself will not bead water! Polyethylene wax is popular, and most contain pariffin wax for water beading properties. Take a candle, for instance, that is pariffin wax. It is not clear, and neither is carnuba. Now picture shaving a very thin slice off. This can represent what is actually going on your car. Can you see through the slice? yes..... Is it 100% clear....no. This is what "tints" the color of your car. Older carnubas like KIT wax were notorious for creating a yellowing effect on white cars due to the type of carnuba they used.





Silicone Oil.......Carnuba is a dull wax, and exhibits no real shine. What are you seeing is an oil in the mixture, usually dimethyl silicone oil. This is the cheap, greasy, oil, that shines like crazy and is in some detailing products. It is a fact that using this type of oil on your paint can be very difficult to remove as it finds it way and leaches into cracks and voids. If it is not removed completely when repainting a panel, "fisheyes" can form in the paint. This is confirmed in an article out of Professional Carwashing & Detailing Magazine. Oct 2000 issue - Caring For Today's Automobile Finishes. "....Detailers should polish with non-silicone, body-shape-safe products. Silicone causes fish eyes. Occasionally, vehicles are polished and then need paint repairs within a very short period of time. If silicone-based products were used and were not cleaned off properly, they can cause fish eyes in the paint finish...."



Durability issues..........polymer sealants are thin film plastics that are flexible and can flex with your car's paint and expand and contract thermally with the steel panels as well. Wax on the other hand, is hard and brittle. This will not cause the paint to crack, but is one of the reasons why carnuba is not durable. Its inability to contract and expand (flex) thermally with the car causes the system to break down, voids to form, and oils to leech out. These oils evaporate off the surface of the car or are washed of with carwash or rain. The same thing happens at elevated temperatures. At around 150-180 degrees, carnuba wax starts to soften and melt. The oils rise to the surface of the wax and are quickly and easily washed away. On a hot summer day, the surface of a dark car can easily reach 150 + degrees.



I can go on and on, but this was a quick summary I put together from the countless discussions I have had in the past about this very topic.

Thanks for a post that clairfies why carnauba isn't the Magic Bullet. In my environment Zaino lasts the longest (roughly 5 months) and Duragloss and Collinite are a bit less durable but respectable performers.

 

[imported_Detailing Technology]

Scottwax - Call me a purist or a T-Bag, and I am pro-nothing in this arena, but I think oils and silicones are ways of cheating to a finish. They eventually wash away. I feel that I didn’t correct all of the swirls /ect if I filled them with oil and silicone like Vanilla Moose does, its very forgiving. I know most people won’t pay for a 100% paint correction and these products offer a good solution in the price range. The products have a definite purpose. This is a discussion between the production guys that need to make a living and the hobbyists that do this for fun.



Polishing the surface to perfection is the only way I see any results that I am happy to sell my clients. Adding something over paint to make it shine or have gloss doesn’t work for me. People can buy this at the local car wash for $150. Post-spray booth, I think paint has its best appearance after final polishing and an IPA wipe down. This is how the factory intended the car to look. Wax does change the appearance, some like it. Zaino does change the appearance, some like it.



The only thing I hate about carnauba waxes is the greasy after-surface. In the Northeast in the spring, my black cars look like they need a shave from all of the pollen that gets stuck on the surface. I can’t imagine how my customers feel. I now only apply carnauba wax if they request, I have Swissvax Concourso and Mystery, among many others, and find them to be OUTRAGEOUSLY greasy. I had my black Jeep at the train station for 6 hours on Monday, I came out and had to go home and wash the car. It’s not yet spring and it wasn’t under a tree, it was just a dust magnate. It looked like a shiny greased pig, which some people love.





To address the original post, the guy did a 1' x 1' section of a swilred up black car by hand. It seems he was expecting some wipe on/wipe off total swirl removal. Really, thats no test. Let's look at the quarter outside in direct sun, 14 days after a wash or two. Then talk about the virtues of wax and sealants....

 

[Deanski]

The only thing I hate about carnauba waxes is the greasy after-surface. In the Northeast in the spring, my black cars look like they need a shave from all of the pollen that gets stuck on the surface. I can’t imagine how my customers feel. I now only apply carnauba wax if they request, I have Swissvax Concourso and Mystery, among many others, and find them to be OUTRAGEOUSLY greasy. I had my black Jeep at the train station for 6 hours on Monday, I came out and had to go home and wash the car. It’s not yet spring and it wasn’t under a tree, it was just a dust magnate. It looked like a shiny greased pig, which some people love.

This is EXACTLY what I say all along as to the effect of wax when warmed up and the added effect of pollen from trees which in our area turn a car into a green mess.



There's no doubt that people like waxes and that's all well and good. It's when the negative aspects of it come to light, discussed, then everyone is in denial who use wax often. We all know that some waxes look better than others and most of us know why. It's the denial part that gets me. How long it lasts, if it attracts dust/pollen/dirt, etc etc...



That said, the whole debate of an old 7 year statement by Sal or whomever discusses the drawbacks to wax vs a sealant is just as I stated before, just a waste of time.



Todays technology is moving to a whole new aspect in paint protection and specific looks. This is where we need to focus our attention on and stop looking back at the past.



More and more companies are going "nano" and using more longer lasting products that sooner or later wax may slowly fade into the past as 8 tracks have. There will be those that want that nostalgic look, and that's fine.



For me, I'd rather drive my car than spend countless hours trying to obtain the perfect look only to repeat it shortly thereafter I drove the car for only a week. Cars are meant to be driven. :woot2:



I spend less time on the finish now and more time driving since going to a sealant. I don't know about you, but I'd rather drive than polish, wax etc all weekend.



So can we move this thread into the 8-track days and start looking at something a bit more up to date?



Thanks



Deanski

 

[Scottwax]

Scottwax - Call me a purist or a T-Bag, and I am pro-nothing in this arena, but I think oils and silicones are ways of cheating to a finish. They eventually wash away. I feel that I didn’t correct all of the swirls /ect if I filled them with oil and silicone like Vanilla Moose does, its very forgiving. I know most people won’t pay for a 100% paint correction and these products offer a good solution in the price range. The products have a definite purpose. This is a discussion between the production guys that need to make a living and the hobbyists that do this for fun.

I still find that glazes have much more filling capability than any carnauba I've used. Honestly, if I want a use a filling LSP, NXT2 is the way to go.



I'd love it if all my customers wanted full correction but most of the cars I do are daily drivers. With one customer, I have completely given up bothering to correct his paint. I wash a couple of his vehicles every two weeks (he has three) and the off weeks, he pays $5 for an express wash at a tunnel wash. :hairpull One trip through, and whatever cleans the back end of his cars leaves horizontal scratches all over the trunk/tailgate. Waste of my time and his money to do anything other than throw on a wax every three months. He is totaly oblivious to the damage those "money saving" $5 car washes are doing.

The only thing I hate about carnauba waxes is the greasy after-surface. In the Northeast in the spring, my black cars look like they need a shave from all of the pollen that gets stuck on the surface.

My main carnauba is Clearkote's Carnauba Moose which seems less oily than Souveran, Natty's, etc. Whether I use a sealant or a carnauba on my own car or customer's car during pollen season doesn't seem to matter, the cars are going to get covered in pollen if they are outside.

To address the original post, the guy did a 1' x 1' section of a swilred up black car by hand. It seems he was expecting some wipe on/wipe off total swirl removal. Really, thats no test. Let's look at the quarter outside in direct sun, 14 days after a wash or two. Then talk about the virtues of wax and sealants....

Let's toss in a bird bomb or two while we are at it...I'll put my money on the carnauba!



It really doesn't matter to me what other people use, I just think that some intentionally put out misinformation about carnaubas for their own benefit or agenda and I feel the need to correct it using my own long experience.



FWIW, I do use a lot of sealants too-Opti-Seal, Werkstatt, Wolfgang and Zaino. I just prefer the look of carnaubas.

 

[Mikeyc]

I spend less time on the finish now and more time driving since going to a sealant. I don't know about you, but I'd rather drive than polish, wax etc all weekend.

For me, I'd almost rather clean my car than drive it. I really enjoy washing it weekly and waxing it once a month. Polishing a few times a year is lovely too. I find the whole process quite enjoyable. It's one of my hobbies after all. If I didn't find the whole thing enjoyable then I certainly wouldn't be here reading about it.



Also, the few times I've used a sealant on my car there was so much static on the surface that I had even more pollen sticking to the paint.

 

[RCBuddha]

Also, *as long as the customer knows what's being done*, if Mr./Mrs. Average Customer is just gonna mar the paint up again, how often can you keep correcting it? If the customer washes/etc. properly, OK, no problem. But everybody I know who pays for details promptly treats the vehicle badly (carwashes, etc.) and if they had 0.10 mil polished off every few months they'd be out of clear in no time (and they'd be POed about it). Better that their vehicles "just look good" until they need detailed again, whereupon they once again look good for another few months. I felt this way back when I did cars for family and friends; they were happy and I never had to worry about running out of clear. They knew how I was approaching things and nobody thought there was any "cheating" involved.



I agree about not "cheating" by hiding defects that people think are really gone, but IMO there are times when it's not cheating, but rather just doing the right thing.

+1



10charac

 

[Scottwax]

Also, the few times I've used a sealant on my car there was so much static on the surface that I had even more pollen sticking to the paint.

Wolfgang is the worst when it comes to that. Cool temperatures and low humidity means having to ground yourself after putting it on the plastic bumpers before you touch metal again. :nervous2:

 

[gmblack3]

Also, *as long as the customer knows what's being done*, if Mr./Mrs. Average Customer is just gonna mar the paint up again, how often can you keep correcting it? If the customer washes/etc. properly, OK, no problem. But everybody I know who pays for details promptly treats the vehicle badly (carwashes, etc.) and if they had 0.10 mil polished off every few months they'd be out of clear in no time (and they'd be POed about it). Better that their vehicles "just look good" until they need detailed again, whereupon they once again look good for another few months. I felt this way back when I did cars for family and friends; they were happy and I never had to worry about running out of clear. They knew how I was approaching things and nobody thought there was any "cheating" involved.



I agree about not "cheating" by hiding defects that people think are really gone, but IMO there are times when it's not cheating, but rather just doing the right thing.

IMO it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to do enough damage to a car in 2-3 months from washing to warrant removing 0.1mil of CC.



Accumulator, how many cars have you compounded and removed more then 0.1mil of CC or more importantly how many have you compounded that needed more then 0.1 of CC removed?



From my experience it takes a lot of compounding with aggressive black wool and something like strada 1000 compound to remove this amount of CC. On the black lexus I did it took 3-4 passes with M105/yellow wool and then 2 passes of black wool/strada 1000 at 1800rpm to remove 0.1mil of CC. Now the strada 1000 has a good amount of polishing oils in it and it takes a while to break it down. So on a 2x2' section of the trunk, I am running at 1800 for at least 2 mins, maybe longer.



Disclaimer: Kids do not try this at home without a PTG and plenty of rotary experience.

 

[gmblack3]

Also, the few times I've used a sealant on my car there was so much static on the surface that I had even more pollen sticking to the paint.

I would think the static is from excessive rubbing of the paint, which may be caused by improper application of the sealant. Too much sealant=excessive rubbing to get the sealant off. :nixweiss

 

[wannafbody]

I still find that glazes have much more filling capability than any carnauba I've used. Honestly, if I want a use a filling LSP, NXT2 is the way to go.



I'd love it if all my customers wanted full correction but most of the cars I do are daily drivers. With one customer, I have completely given up bothering to correct his paint. I wash a couple of his vehicles every two weeks (he has three) and the off weeks, he pays $5 for an express wash at a tunnel wash. :hairpull One trip through, and whatever cleans the back end of his cars leaves horizontal scratches all over the trunk/tailgate. Waste of my time and his money to do anything other than throw on a wax every three months. He is totaly oblivious to the damage those "money saving" $5 car washes are doing.







My main carnauba is Clearkote's Carnauba Moose which seems less oily than Souveran, Natty's, etc. Whether I use a sealant or a carnauba on my own car or customer's car during pollen season doesn't seem to matter, the cars are going to get covered in pollen if they are outside.







Let's toss in a bird bomb or two while we are at it...I'll put my money on the carnauba!



It really doesn't matter to me what other people use, I just think that some intentionally put out misinformation about carnaubas for their own benefit or agenda and I feel the need to correct it using my own long experience.



FWIW, I do use a lot of sealants too-Opti-Seal, Werkstatt, Wolfgang and Zaino. I just prefer the look of carnaubas.

I'm going to agree with Scott. When detailing for a living sometimes you have to deal with less than perfect vehicles. NXT2 is probably a good choice for that type of situation. Better to take the job than to lose the business. Save the high end products for high end vehicles.

 

[Deanski]

I get static from the MF towels if the car is not grounded.



There was a thread on this long ago as to static on finishes. A practice I've done long ago when prep for paint in a booth. MF's have a nasty habbit of gaining static at times. However, there are times when you want the static for dust/pollen capture when QD'ing the finish. It pulls whatever dust/pollen to the MF like magic without rubbing.



Another problem with some 996 and early 997 Porsches was the static discharge damaging the HID lamp systems as well when using a MF towel by the headlights.



No matter, sealants still make it easy for me to remove dust or pollen. I still have all kinds of Zymol waxes, Souveran, Nattys etc but seldome use them anymore except for owners requesting wax. SOme of these Zymol waxes are great looking, but so damn oily from all the exotic oils that seem to float off when in hot sun, giving a very wet glistening look. I also do not apply by hand rub technique, but use pads warmed up in an old toaster oven for this.



Besides, last time I was hand rubbing Vintage on a car, one of my friends I haven't seen in a long time stopped by and wondered what why I was "rubbing one off" on the car? :chuckle: Smart a$$, but he's right. After I went to the warm pads, it seems to go better anyway and have better control and less waste.



As more and more sealants hit the market, and more people start trying different ways of applications, or other experiments to make these sealants look more and more like a wax.



One such thing that has peaked some interest is the use of this "wet glaze" under a sealant or over it etc. If a glaze allows a sealant to cure and last long enough with adding depth I'm all for it. It's just a matter of time before more sealants become closer and closer to a deep wax look.



Remember when some of the early sealants looks so plastic looking? No depth at all? I have a commercial one that I used in the past for one Benz owner who loves that look. Just can't get this stuff anymore. It was made by a company in NJ called Styles and came only in gallon tin cans. It was clear, smelled terrible and just looked as if you wrapped a finish in plastic.



I've not "played" with NXT 2.0 as I see no need being a consumer line product, but yet to also try the new Meguiars sealant in the Mirror Glaze line. Not sure how well this new Megs sealant is.



back to static: Never had this problem with DF towels or good old coton towels.



Deanski

 

[Todd@RUPES]

I'm going to agree with Scott. When detailing for a living sometimes you have to deal with less than perfect vehicles. NXT2 is probably a good choice for that type of situation. Better to take the job than to lose the business. Save the high end products for high end vehicles.

Or to rephrase, the high end products for those who love those cars enough to care. The name badge doesn't matter, IMO.

 

[Scottwax]

I'm going to agree with Scott. When detailing for a living sometimes you have to deal with less than perfect vehicles. NXT2 is probably a good choice for that type of situation. Better to take the job than to lose the business. Save the high end products for high end vehicles.

I'm going to have your post bronzed, we don't often see eye to eye. :chuckle:

 

[Accumulator]

..

Accumulator, how many cars have you compounded and removed more then 0.1mil of CC or more importantly how many have you compounded that needed more then 0.1 of CC removed?

Heh heh, with my constant fussing about this topic you must be pretty :think: about why I'm always so concerned about it!



Noting that I'm not a pro (and hence haven't done a tiny fraction of the cars that you have) and that I only recently got an ETG (which promptly went INOP ), the best I can do is offer some less-than-scientific examples from my personal cars:



The Jag's ss metallic lacquer has never been aggressively polished, but it has been polished many times over the last 20-some years. At this point additional polishing results in "blotchy-looking" damage to the paint. I've consulted with some experts and everyone has said the same thing- I've thinned the build film to where it simply cannot be corrected anymore Dunno how much I've taken off, but it's too much. With the original paint no longer available, I don't have any choice, I have to leave it imperfect or get it reshot (and I have no interest in having it "restored").



The Volvo (now my niece-in-law's car) had the original ss that'd never been polished when I got it, so I took the PC/Cyclo to it and went through to primer in quite a few spots (not just edges and corners) trying to remove not-that-bad marring :nixweiss



The MPV's ss black window frames are worn through (just barely) to primer in spots after three (!) mild corrections via PC/4" (with 3M PI-III MG 05937). Ditto for the uncleared area on the underside of the hood. I cut through the clear on its quarter panel using the PC/4"/PI-III RC 05933 when I tried to remove a pretty bad (as in, I figured it needed spotted-in anyhow) scratch- that one sure surprised me!



On the M3, I used the rotary/orange and yellow/H-T EC trying to remove ~75K of daily driver scratches. The ETG says I removed over 0.50 mil in some places, and you can even *see* that the clear is too thin (no depth, looks lighter-than-normal, and just weird- not a burn or anything, just not right). And I didn't even get all the marring out! I'll get better readings once the ETG is back from repairs but my "this won't be a problem" approach has resulted in a need for paintwork, no question about it. Now I'm afraid to resume work on it until I get the ETG back, better safe than sorry.



My last Caprice came from a guy who'd rotaried it to death, and it had a weird light/blotchy look that was *just* like the damaged area on the M3, I'd wondered why the car just didn't look right and I figure that was it.



I had my Yukon XL detailed by ebpcivicsi before he applied its PPF (Accumulatorette had it in Memphis anyhow and I needed it done quicker than I was gonna get to it). He used rotary/twisted wool/#85 (IIRC) for the major correction and he wasn't able to get it all that great before he decided he had to stop. He even warned me that I'd better not do more correction on a few areas. No ETG readings on it, but I'm willing to take his word for it (he sure seemed surprised at how deep the marring was and how many passes were required to get it halfway decent). I can get some readings some day after the ETG comes back.



I know, those are just a few cases, but, perhaps since I'm still living with some of them, they're enough to give me pause. Especially the M3 and the Yukon, which I was certain could be corrected with no problems.



Oh, and on the damage people can cause, I've seen many nail-catchers from a single wash! The local car washes did it to my dad's cars, and he did it himself a few times when he did typical DIY washes. Most of my friends' cars have such scratches all over them and they sure look wash-induced to me :nixweiss I agree that such terrible stuff *shouldn't* happen from a few washes, but when utter neophytes start doing this stuff, well, watch out! That's why I think it's so great that many of you pros are able to educate your clients :xyxthumbs

 

[imported_rydawg1]

That's why it is always a good thing to use a top quality compound that is up to it's correction standards. It actually rounds out deeper scratches and gives them the effect that they are not there. They can not be felt and the sun does not catch the sharp edges which makes them look bad. A perfect technique is required to get 100% even without taking off too much clear.



Using old compounds and having an uneven hand and applying too much pressure in certain spots is what causes paint failure. Working on SS paint is even trickier cause you need just the right uplift of pressure.



The worst enemy is the person behind the machine sometimes. Example: I can take liquid rocks in a bottle and work it into the paint for 5 minutes and ONLY remove a very minimal amount of clear while removing light to medium defects and rounding out the deeper ones in the clear. Then you can take a person with litttle knowledge and a PC and have them polish out the same fender and they do damage and take off tons of clear in the same amount of time.



It's all in the process and technique. Polishing perfectly even is an art.

 

[Alfisti]

^^Great post.^^