Water beads magnifying the sun/burning holes in the CC???

sftempest66 said:
(My guess is that they would not be powerful enough to provide enough concentration of the sunlight onto one point to actually hurt something, and that the beads would probably evaporate before any harm could be done...)
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Good guess. The temperature of the droplet of water actually begins to cool as the evaporation process gets underway. So it is difficult to figure that any burning will take place as the water drops in temperature.
 
sftempest66... What lsp do you like to apply to your white stang?? I just used DG 105 on my Stang and was very pleased with it. Just wandering what products you like to use to make the white shine.
 
DieselMDX said:
lol I am waiting for accumulators post :-)
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Eh, I don't have anything to add to this one...I've never had any problems with the sunlight-through-beads thing and I've always figured it was ad-copy hype. But then the sun isn't all that intense up here in Ohio.



On the acid-rain/etc. issue, while sheeting might offer some benefits, the LSPs that bead are at least on there protecting the surface to some extent, which is a lot better than not protecting the finish at all. But IMO, those benefits are pretty much just theoretical unless you're in an area where acid rain/fallout is a big problem. But what's theoretical for me might be *practical* for somebody who's in another area.



But OTOH, I have some nasty etching on the roof of my wife's A8 from when it sat for a long time with some (presumably acidic) bad water on it. The etching's still there after some aggressive rotary work, and I'm not about to take off any more clear trying to remove it. Would the damage had been less severe with a sheeting LSP? Maybe..probably :nixweiss But I'm not gonna quit using #16 over the issue.
 
mirrorfinishman said:
Good guess. The temperature of the droplet of water actually begins to cool as the evaporation process gets underway. So it is difficult to figure that any burning will take place as the water drops in temperature.
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Actually, this is not correct. The water droplet vaporizes because it has increased kinetic energy from the heat/sun outside. When it gains enough heat energy from the environment, the molecules seperate into a gas form and leave a nice waterspot on your car because the minerals in the water droplet are solid.



Think of it this way. When you get out of the shower you feel cold because the water droplets on your skin are absorbing the heat energy from your skin and breaking free of the liquid state and entering the gas. Its an endorthermic process. Same happens with your car, but nowhere near the extent of actually damaging anything.
 
Water itself also doesnt relect light in the same way that glass does. I would think the angle of the sun and the angle of the water reflecting would be too much to get a good angle of light to get a beam that could burn anything.
 
Picus said:
One time I was outside during a sun shower and my dog disintegrated. True story.
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Let me make sure I have this right--it's the *combination* of the acid rain and the sunshine that do this? So if I let my dog out when it's sunny or raining, he will be ok, just not together?
 
Setec Astronomy said:
Let me make sure I have this right--it's the *combination* of the acid rain and the sunshine that do this? So if I let my dog out when it's sunny or raining, he will be ok, just not together?
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Just make sure you don't wax your dog and he'll be fine. It's the beading.
 
Haha wow! I definately didn't expect this many responses and I'm pretty sure we can call this myth busted! Thanks for your replies guys, I was pretty much thinking the same thing as most of you guys!
 
Pat Goss disagrees:



Pat Goss: Ask The Expert



Remember back in grade school when you were taught about optics and how a magnifying glass could be used to ignite a piece of paper? The paper burned because the magnifying glass concentrated the sun’s rays creating intense heat beneath it. Drops of water have that same ability, they act like tiny magnifying glasses. We now have our paint-lethal potion.



Sun passes through the water droplets and is concentrated on the paint beneath. The high temperature generated by this focused sunlight softens the paint’s surface. It also evaporates the water causing the drops to shrink, intensifying the contamination below each droplet. This leaves highly concentrated chemicals etched and baked into the paint surface. You have, “Acid Rain� damaged paint!
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My opinion is, I'd be more worried about mineral deposits eating away at the paint than a few minutes of sun magnification.
 
sftempest66 said:
"You have to be careful when using a polish that makes the water bead up like pictured above. Make sure the sun doesn't shine on it when the beads are present because it could burn tiny holes into the paint...."
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A grain of truth, well stretched to make the claim.



As another pointed out, the angle of refraction makes it impossible to concentrate the light beam under the water droplet.



BUT... it is possible to concentrate the light beam *across* the painted surface, having the concentrated beam striking the painted surface *adjacent* to the water droplet.



Take the near urban legent notion of light through a raindrop causing a fire in leaves or other combustables, and you get the notion of burning your cars paint by light through waterdrops on the hood.



Having spent a considerable amount of time as a kid trying to start fires with magnifying glasses, I'd have to say its frustratingly difficult to do even with a good large one. A water drop will concentrate a much smaller quantity of energy, with even lower heat content and temperature. Play with rain drops some time and see if you can even feel it on your finger tip.



So while I would consider this myth busted, it is in the relm of extremely rare possibilities for someone, somewhere, to have gotten a single speck of paint burn from a raindrop.
 
IMHO, one could take a stroll through a junk yard - my neighbor calls his parts bin, and see cars from as far back as a 1963 Ford Falcon, surely after all these years of rain and sun, these relics of my youth would be little more than automotive swiss cheese. But, I'm happy to report, no apparent micro holes from beading - and yes, even after all these years, I still saw water beading on a few places on these old timers. I want to add, you could build a dozen new cars from the steel in an old one.
 
Maybe an experiment could solve this myth: We could trap an ant under a big nice water bead, place the setup in the sun, and watch to see if the ant is burnt. Only problem could be that the ant might drown before being burnt... :think:



I actually have a car that has micro pitting all over the hood, though I don't think it's caused by the water-bead-sun-magnifying-burning-effect, but it's still weird how this could have happened.
 
Oh my.... Just so you know the micro pitting is a direct result of USSFMPT

US special forces micro pitting teams jabbing you hood with little tiny needles.



I've got it on film, I'd show you but then i would put you in danger.....
 
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