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Puting Sealant over Polish
Posted by Bud Abraham
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Puting Sealant over Polish October 21, 2003 11:00PM |
Registered: 17 years ago Posts: 3,550 |
<HTML>A few days ago someone asked me about whether it was necessary to clean the surface of a paint finish after polishing and before putting on the sealant.
Doing a little research here is what I have come up with and hope it helps you all.
Most sealant formulations are oil-in-water emulsions which means that they are simply, "water soluble." For example, our DIAMOND PLUS is a stable disperson of water in another immiscible liquid, like silicone oil (plus some other ingredients).
If you apply a polish that contains silicone to a paint surface and then ask whether the sealant will properly adhere to the surface, you have to consider what materials are actually left on the surface after the polishing step and how they interact with the sealant being applied.
In general, after polishing you could have any combination of silicone; wax; oil and surfactant left on the surface, depending on what was in the polish formula.
The volatiles, water, solvent, and abrasives would be gone. Therefore what is left on the surface is essentially not water soluble.
Then you apply a water soluble emulsion (sealant) to the surface and you naturally would expect an incompatibility and problems.
However, because the water soluble emulsion contains surfactant and the amount of oil-soluble materials left on the surface would be very small, some oil soluble substances would be emulsified (mixed into) into the sealant via the surfactant, but just to a point.
If you throw enought oil into water emulsion it will either appear to mix in readily at first and the separate out, or not be miscible at all.
Another thing that will affect the entire process is the mechanical forces involved in applying the sealant to the oil laden surface. The force of application alone is probably enough to temporarily blend or disperse the two materials together and our end result would be the equivalent to applying your sealant product the addition of residual oils found on the surface. This may or may not affect the end performance of the sealant, though in most cases it would probably not be detrimental, so not to worry, getting back to the original question.
Some sealants contain specialty polymers that are not compatible with oil and/or silicone and will not adhere properly to a pre-polished surface. Those types of products usually require a clean surface and many are used in a kit that contains a prep solution
This is technical but in order to get an answer you must fully understand the chemistry of a product.
If you don't want the technical data then buy products from a reputable company that you can believe and do what they tell you to do.
Regards
bud Abraham</HTML>
buda
Doing a little research here is what I have come up with and hope it helps you all.
Most sealant formulations are oil-in-water emulsions which means that they are simply, "water soluble." For example, our DIAMOND PLUS is a stable disperson of water in another immiscible liquid, like silicone oil (plus some other ingredients).
If you apply a polish that contains silicone to a paint surface and then ask whether the sealant will properly adhere to the surface, you have to consider what materials are actually left on the surface after the polishing step and how they interact with the sealant being applied.
In general, after polishing you could have any combination of silicone; wax; oil and surfactant left on the surface, depending on what was in the polish formula.
The volatiles, water, solvent, and abrasives would be gone. Therefore what is left on the surface is essentially not water soluble.
Then you apply a water soluble emulsion (sealant) to the surface and you naturally would expect an incompatibility and problems.
However, because the water soluble emulsion contains surfactant and the amount of oil-soluble materials left on the surface would be very small, some oil soluble substances would be emulsified (mixed into) into the sealant via the surfactant, but just to a point.
If you throw enought oil into water emulsion it will either appear to mix in readily at first and the separate out, or not be miscible at all.
Another thing that will affect the entire process is the mechanical forces involved in applying the sealant to the oil laden surface. The force of application alone is probably enough to temporarily blend or disperse the two materials together and our end result would be the equivalent to applying your sealant product the addition of residual oils found on the surface. This may or may not affect the end performance of the sealant, though in most cases it would probably not be detrimental, so not to worry, getting back to the original question.
Some sealants contain specialty polymers that are not compatible with oil and/or silicone and will not adhere properly to a pre-polished surface. Those types of products usually require a clean surface and many are used in a kit that contains a prep solution
This is technical but in order to get an answer you must fully understand the chemistry of a product.
If you don't want the technical data then buy products from a reputable company that you can believe and do what they tell you to do.
Regards
bud Abraham</HTML>
buda
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Re: Puting Sealant over Polish October 22, 2003 12:55PM |
Registered: 17 years ago Posts: 98 |
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Re: Puting Sealant over Polish October 22, 2003 06:15PM |
Registered: 17 years ago Posts: 74 |
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Re: Puting Sealant over Polish October 24, 2003 12:16AM |
Registered: 17 years ago Posts: 73 |
<HTML>I asked my chemical suplier that question about 2 months ago. He asured me that it isnt that big of an issue. I really dont think he knew any more about that than me cuz after all he is just a salesman. lol I have had best results when putting a sealant on top of products that dont contain silicon or wax using a buffer. (DA/orbital) and best results by applying sealant to the paint after washing off as much residue as possible before hand. Thanks for the info.</HTML>
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