What helps waxes and sealants cure?

G

Grabby

New member
I'm a bit confused with what factors help waxes and sealants cure.



Some people say heat while some people say cold. So with that, I'll divide it into two categories.



What helps sealants like Klasse, Zaino, 3M, etc cure? Heat or cold?



What helps carnauba waxes P21s, Collonite, etc cure? Heat or cold?



What other factors help them cure?



Thanks in advance



Grabby :thx
 
I've never heard of cold making any curing process happen quicker/better :think:



IME warmth facilitates these processes, but I dunno if it does it to any *huge* extent other than making them flash off/dry faster (as opposed to actually *curing*/becoming stable). In a cold shop, LSPs can take forever to dry, and I assume they also take a lot longer to cure/become stable too.



Heat has been used for speeding up the curing of sealants with some success. When products like UPP and BF first came out, people were having issues with it not drying fast enough and smearig upon removal. The standard fix was to pull the vehicle into the sun to warm it up a little.
 
A nice dry area with low humidity will allow the LSP to cure, or dry properly IMO. If I wanted to top something after buffing off the first coat of LSP I waited about 30 mins and went straight to adding a 2nd coat with no streaking issues.
 
I always thought it was time, relative to temperature. I think of it like silicone sealant (caulk)... it may dry to the touch in an hour, but takes 24 hours to cure. Clearly the sealant on our rides isn't quite like a bead of caulk, but I think the analogy may hold water (that's funny if you look for it).
 
Accumulator said:
I've never heard of cold making any curing process happen quicker/better :think:
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Old School way to make the waxes of the day i.e. Simoniz and Blue Coral "set." One would run cold water over the finish after applying.
 
citizen arcane said:
Old School way to make the waxes of the day i.e. Simoniz and Blue Coral "set." One would run cold water over the finish after applying.
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But wasn't that due to an incorrect notion that car wax was like parafin and had to be cooled to harden?
 
I never really knew the mind set behind it. I just remember my dad using TW compounds, Simonizing the cars using old socks and buffing w/ red rags he had in a basket :) then spraying w/ the water hose. Not to take this post off topic but I also remember them adding a dollop of kerosene to the wash water also. Wish he were still around so's we could talk about old times. Me - I started taking better care of my cars around Nu Finish, Rain Dance and Glass Wax days.
 
OK, not to bring us into Chem101 land, but here we go:



WARNING: TECHNICAL SCIENCE CONTENT



waxes and sealants form a protective barrier by forming a cross-linked system. Waxes tend to link less than sealants (thus why they don't last as long) and tend to form more vertical bonds (thus why waxes seem "deeper" than sealants usually, because they literally are) while sealants tend tend to form more flat links (think sheet of paper). OK, so, how do these links form? Essentially once you remove the solvent the polymers begin to crystalize and form these cross-links. In order to spread/apply a wax or sealant you need sufficient solvent to make it spreadable, only once that solvent is removed will your wax/sealant truly stick.



Essentially, what I'm saying here is what makes waxes and sealants cure is the evaporation of the solvent. Logically then, the best way to decrease cure time is to increase the rate of solvent evaporation, namely by increasing the temperature and decreasing humidity.



END SCIENCE CONTENT



sorry if that was a little more in depth than you were looking for.... figured I might as well put all those chem/pharmaceutics classes to use.
 
Prometheus said:
OK, not to bring us into Chem101 land, but here we go:



Essentially, what I'm saying here is what makes waxes and sealants cure is the evaporation of the solvent. Logically then, the best way to decrease cure time is to increase the rate of solvent evaporation, namely by increasing the temperature and decreasing humidity.
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OR, given a wide range of uncontrolable ambient temperatures and humidity levels - TIME for evaporation/curing... which is why you read so often in here about how much more shine there is 24 hrs. later.
 
citizen arcane said:
I never really knew the mind set behind it. I just remember my dad using TW compounds, Simonizing the cars using old socks and buffing w/ red rags he had in a basket :) then spraying w/ the water hose. Not to take this post off topic but I also remember them adding a dollop of kerosene to the wash water also. Wish he were still around so's we could talk about old times. Me - I started taking better care of my cars around Nu Finish, Rain Dance and Glass Wax days.
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These were the days.
 
Thanks for the inputs guys.



But what about the spit shine technique where cold water/qd is required? How come it's useful for layering when it seems that it's counter productive to helping waxes/sealants cure?
 
I'm not 100% sure, but I know waxes and sealants begin to form those cross-links while still in solution (ie before all the solvent evaporates). I would assume that by adding extra solvent (in the form of water or QD) you are allowing more time for these initial cross-links to form. This creates larger subunits which are less likely to "slide" off of the previous layers of wax/sealant than the individual polymer monomers would be. Like I said, this is just my theory, it could be total crap, but it makes sense in my head....
 
Grabby said:
But what about the spit shine technique where cold water/qd is required? How come it's useful for layering when it seems that it's counter productive to helping waxes/sealants cure?
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Note that spitshining only applies to layering waxes which don't necessarily layer all that well, some would say *at all*, *without* the spitshining.



What the spitshining does is minimize the ability of the "new application" to effect a solvent action on the "old application". Heat and the solvents in the new could affect the hold, the "spit" makes that less likely. It keeps things from getting too warm and adds lubricity so the mechanical action of applying the new wax doesn't disrupt the old stuff. And the spit dilutes the carrying agents/solvents so they aren't as potent when contacting the old stuff.



Or at least that's my layman's understanding of how it works :think:



Hey, Prometheus, seems like I hadn't seen you around for a while :wavey
 
Accumulator said:
Note that spitshining only applies to layering waxes which don't necessarily layer all that well, some would say *at all*, *without* the spitshining.



What the spitshining does is minimize the ability of the "new application" to effect a solvent action on the "old application". Heat and the solvents in the new could affect the hold, the "spit" makes that less likely. It keeps things from getting too warm and adds lubricity so the mechanical action of applying the new wax doesn't disrupt the old stuff. And the spit dilutes the carrying agents/solvents so they aren't as potent when contacting the old stuff.



Or at least that's my layman's understanding of how it works :think:



Hey, Prometheus, seems like I hadn't seen you around for a while :wavey
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The only other explanation I can come up with is that the extra solvent (QD or water) re-solvates the existing layer of wax allowing it to bond with the new wax that is being applied. Again, just a half-a$$ guess though.



thanks Accumulator. Yeah, I've been kind of absent for awhile, Grad school kind of takes up all of my time September-early May. Thank goodness for summer break!
 
Prometheus said:
..[perhaps].. the extra solvent (QD or water) re-solvates the existing layer of wax..
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But it'd have to do it to a pretty limited extent or it'd do the "like removes like" thing, resulting in the "waxes don't layer" phenomenon :think:



... I've been kind of absent for awhile, Grad school kind of takes up all of my time September-early May...
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Glad you're prioritizing the Grad School :xyxthumbs
 
Water (and QDs as they are up to 97% water) won't re-solvate the bonded, hardened wax layer, as it is the most important role of wax in nature as well. That's why spit shining works. However, if you use a cleaning QD with bits of alcohol, or other solvents in it, you may reliquify the existing coat to a more significant extent that you'd like.
 
Dry heat.



Carnauba wax "out gassing" has been a recent topic. I do see the need for silicones and other agents to dry post carnauba application, but cant define what causes them to evaporate other than dry heat indoors to avoid dust settling on the finish.
 
Accumulator said:


But it'd have to do it to a pretty limited extent or it'd do the "like removes like" thing, resulting in the "waxes don't layer" phenomenon :think:
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Yeah, it would have to be to a very limited extent, but I would have to think it would occur to some extent regardless... I don't know, I'm just taking a stab at it...



I'll Have to make friends with a polymer chemist...
 
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