where did you get the clear spray bottles?
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where did you get the clear spray bottles?
Congrats on your FB feature Kevin!!! Well deserved.
Thank you for the incredibly well thought out, executed, and documented write up!
Looking forward to seeing the updates!
Subscribed
Non-essential update.
Cleaned the hood with the 1:128 dilution of McKee`s N914. This stuff let the MF just glide across the entire panel except where the taping marks were - not entirely surprised.
N914 on Panel A/Product A
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...bdb4d2b43e.jpg
On Panel B/Product B
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...f49559c7de.jpg
On Panel C/Product C
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...bc1e919960.jpg
Freshly cleaned!
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...9bebcc88da.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...104a0c3875.jpg
There`s a single water spot (Panel A) that didn`t come out with N914. Normally I would try a little Gyeon Spot remover and then move up to CarPro spotless, but I didn`t want to affect the coating.
Here is my 2 week update. I have opinions about which is leading the race.
Conditions
Over the past two weeks, the car has seen rainy weather and has traveled on interstate highways. I would say that it got less than its usual use and abuse since we were out of town for a few days and it sat in the garage. I cleaned the hood a total of 2 times with N914 using the waterless dilution and heavily saturated the hood each time.
My wife parked under a tree Friday evening and I didn`t discover these goodies until this afternoon when I did the test.
http://i1332.photobucket.com/albums/...psefonfb6d.jpg
There was one on each side of the hood, and the outcome was the same on both sides. I used the technique to clean bird bombs as described by Mike Phillips.
http://i1332.photobucket.com/albums/...pskpgkeklc.jpg
http://i1332.photobucket.com/albums/...psyqxu8zg1.jpg
So, whatever is protecting Panel A and Panel C (Panel B was not affected by any bird bombs) did a fine job. I did not see any etching at all after about 18 hours of massive bird bombs sitting on the hood.
Cleaning
Today I cleaned it with a heavy saturation of N914 using the waterless dilution before performing the test. There wasn`t much beading when applying the N914, but I don`t consider that a good test of a LSP`s ability to bead water. N914 did a fine job of grabbing the grime and dirt off the hood, and it certainly was no skin off my back to wipe the hood dry afterwards. The panels felt uniformly smooth and slick. I used Shine and Buff towels to do the cleaning and Eagle Edgeless towels to do the buffing. Looks great across the board.
http://i1332.photobucket.com/albums/...psvaqrov2p.jpg
Beading Test
Here are the pictures of the beading. The first picture is the beading immediately after the application of the silica spray, and the second picture is the beading of the same panel today (2 weeks).
Panel A
http://i1332.photobucket.com/albums/...pshzmgajr4.jpg
http://i1332.photobucket.com/albums/...psvrkfpdto.jpg
Panel B
http://i1332.photobucket.com/albums/...pstj15jzur.jpg
http://i1332.photobucket.com/albums/...psv3gwb6df.jpg
Panel C
http://i1332.photobucket.com/albums/...pspurtrx2f.jpg
http://i1332.photobucket.com/albums/...pseapovsht.jpg
My opinions: all three panels demonstrate decreased performance. Hard to tell, but A and B look similar. C definitely is more disorganized and amorphous.
Sheeting Tests
Judge for yourself.
http://youtu.be/M531EzfKYmw
http://youtu.be/Z3kplCQPFUA
Conclusions
All panels are slick and reveal that mirror shine, and I think it looks particularly good for a light metallic paint. In terms of wetting ability, all three panels show decreased performance in their ability to bead water. The water droplets are more disorganized, show less contact angle and are more amorphous in appearance. The sheeting is slower in my opinion; however, the materials still do a fine job of getting the water off the hood. Products A and C seemed to protect the clearcoat from those bird bombs, so I feel great about that. Nevertheless, I am getting a feeling that one or all of these products is going to tank somewhere around weeks 4-6. My next report will be 2 weeks from now, and that will be the 1 month mark from the product applications.
I hope you get more than 4-6 weeks out of them. I`ve gotten up to 12 weeks with Hydro2. My Hydro2 was not beading like new but you could see it was still protecting the paint.
I guess that`s the challenge in trying to tell when a product has failed. I`m going to call a product a failure when the clear coat looks similar to or the same as it did before the application of the product. There`s probably a long taper of protection as the product fades, albeit less robust.
(Sent via my mobile device...)
Again thanks for the updates and your time, really getting curious now that you throwing poop into the game :)
Kevin
An outstanding review that combines, thought, persistence of testing for you and us who read it and coupled with a scientific touch of a blind test of products that confirms your commitment of true tester and review of a non-biased report to us, thank you for the effort and your hard work.
Thanks for the awesome detailed review. Great pictures also. a lot of great info here.