So they say coatings need bare paint to bond to ...

dpk20x

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I'm here to challenge that notion.

Had some free time on my hands this weekend so I decided to throw a little experiment together. Game plan was to do a quick polish with Prima Amigo followed by a coat of Pinnacle Black Label Surface Coating.

Now why would I do this you may ask. Well for starters I really love Prima Amigo. This stuff is stupid easy to use. How stupid easy? So stupid easy even I can use it ... and I'm pretty dumb :laughing:

Also I'm not going to take the time or effort to do a full out correction with a New England winter fast approaching. My car is gonna take a beating. I have no garage and its a daily driver. Soon its gonna look like this. And I don't care how careful you are brushing off you car and washing it .. you're gonna get some marring.



So I thought it would be cool to see if I would be able to lock in the glaze of Amigo with the PBL. Today all I worked on was the fenders and the hood. I was unsure how well these two products would work together so I opted to only work on a few panels.

I had some bad marring on the passenger fender that was really looking bad. My poor Jeep has been in and out of the mechanic's garage practically all summer. Now he does good work and he's honest and cheap .. but he really beats the heck out of my paint. Not the best pictures but hopefully you get the idea





So after a few quick passes with Amigo on a Meguiars yellow soft buff pad the fender was looking much better. Not 100% but pretty good. Mind you I'm not going for perfection and I do all my work outside so its hard to see the progress I'm making.







So after I polished the fenders and hood I wiped off the Amigo. Man this stuff wipes off easy and looks good :dblthumb2: Time for the moment of truth. Drum roll please ..

I applied the PBL with a gold cobra Jr. A couple of sprays to prime the towel then a couple sprays directly on the paint. Went on fairly easy. I got a few high spots as you may be able to see here but they were easily wiped off.



One thing I was worried about was the possibility of the solvents in the coating removing the glaze. However I don't think that was an issue at all. The paint looks good to me. I pulled it out in the sun and I didn't notice any weird ghosting or streaking or anything out of the ordinary. I know my iphone camera isn't the best but here's a few sun shots.







So now the real question is how long this combo is gonna last me. I'm hoping it will hold up until next spring but it may only last a few weeks. Time will tell I guess. I have no plans to top the coating with anything else. Just plan on normal washes with UWW+ used as a drying aid. I'll keep ya'll updated :xyxthumbs:
 
For an objective test, please do not use UWW+ or anything else that provides additional protection

At least half of the hood would be a good demo of your theory
 
Hmmm I was thinking UWW+ because it left behind a minimal amount of protection.

I do have a waverider jr WW towel that hasn't seen much use. Guess I can just use that to dry my car. You know in the name of science and all
 
Re: So they say coatings need bare paint to bond to...

I'm here to challenge that notion.
You know in the name of science and all
•Good Luck with your challenge of this particular
Coating manufacturer's directions/(notions).

•May your combo-experimentation prove to not negatively affect this Coating's stated durability (up to 3 years)...and be known as a repeatable-process, as well.


Bob
 
Can you show a picture of that same fender that Amigo filled in after applying the coating ? Are the defects still filled in ? (or is amigo actually correcting those defects ?)

I feel that PBL is a similar product to Garry Deans Infinite Diamond Shield coating. Garry has a video of him saying you can apply his coating on top of polymer sealants and other LSP's while it still being effective. This really makes me question what constitutes these spray on coatings. I do know if you apply Opti-coat or Gtech and CQ on top of oily products you run into serious hazing and white streaking issues.
 
The thing is those are just called coatings, they couldn't be in a spray bottle and not harden or go bad if they were the silica coatings, that's why they come on a package that will not allow air to come in contact with the coating,

Those IMO are more like a sealant maybe a long lasting one but a sealant as we know them.

Everyone is topping this with polymers and additional layers very few are gonna challenge the "up to" durability claims.

Then if it doesn't last they will tell you it's the prep or lack of it. Or you applied too little, wiped too soon, see where this is going. Lol. It's never the product in there testing it easily lasted and was perfect for x amount of time.
 
On a side note it looks like you did a good job with the amigo on your jeep
 
Re: So they say coatings need bare paint to bond to...


•Good Luck with your challenge of this particular
Coating manufacturer's directions/(notions).

•May your combo-experimentation prove to not negatively affect this Coating's stated durability (up to 3 years)...and be known as a repeatable-process, as well.


Bob

Thanks Bob. As I said I would be happy if the PBL lasted through the winter for me.

The PBL surface coating has a lot going for it. It looks good. It's easy to apply and it's extremely slick. Oh and it's pretty cheap as far as coatings go. I think they claim the 8 oz bottle can coat up to 25 vehicles. So if this test is a total failure I have no problem properly prepping the vehicle and reapplying come spring time.

Now as far as PBL's reported 3 year durability .. I think that may be a little generous. I have a hard time believing this would outlast something like CQuartz UK. But its only been on the market for about a year. So maybe 2 years from now somebody can come forward with proof of the 3 year durability claims.
 
Can you show a picture of that same fender that Amigo filled in after applying the coating ? Are the defects still filled in ? (or is amigo actually correcting those defects ?)

I feel that PBL is a similar product to Garry Deans Infinite Diamond Shield coating. Garry has a video of him saying you can apply his coating on top of polymer sealants and other LSP's while it still being effective. This really makes me question what constitutes these spray on coatings. I do know if you apply Opti-coat or Gtech and CQ on top of oily products you run into serious hazing and white streaking issues.



This is after the coating has been applied. I know this cause it was later in the day, a little hotter outside and I changed shirts.

If you look directly below the camera lens, towards the bottom of the fender, you may still be able to see some of the marring that the amigo was unable to remove. Now honestly I have no idea if Amigo corrected some of the damage or filled a lot in. I know they say Amigo has light abrasives in it. And I used a yellow Meguiar's pad which has a slight amount of cut to it as well. Now maybe if I used a more aggressive pad or made a few additional passes I could have cleared up all of that damage.

But here's the thing I love about Amigo. I buffed the entire fender out as one big panel. Spent maybe 3 minutes buffing it out. I broke the hood up into 5 big panels. So for the minimal time I invested the car looks great. And since Amigo is supposed to be a great prep for waxes and sealants I figured why not try throwing a coating on top.
 
The thing is those are just called coatings, they couldn't be in a spray bottle and not harden or go bad if they were the silica coatings, that's why they come on a package that will not allow air to come in contact with the coating,

Those IMO are more like a sealant maybe a long lasting one but a sealant as we know them.

Everyone is topping this with polymers and additional layers very few are gonna challenge the "up to" durability claims.

Then if it doesn't last they will tell you it's the prep or lack of it. Or you applied too little, wiped too soon, see where this is going. Lol. It's never the product in there testing it easily lasted and was perfect for x amount of time.

Exactly. I wouldn't try this test with something like CQuartz or Opti Coat.

Like I said earlier I had so much product left in the bottle I figured why not try something new. I love the way Amigo makes my paint look. So if I could find a product that can lock in the look for over 6 months I'd be pretty happy. Kind of like being able to have your cake and eat it too :hungry:
 
Well here we are 18 hours after application. Coating is still going strong :laughing:



 
Jeep looks nice

I am surprised the contact angle of the beads is not higher


You might consider adjusting your verbiage when discussing glazes:

"you may still be able to see some of the marring that the amigo was unable to remove. Now honestly I have no idea if Amigo corrected some of the damage or..."

A glaze fills defects, it does not "remove" or "correct" defects
 
Jeep looks nice

I am surprised the contact angle of the beads is not higher


You might consider adjusting your verbiage when discussing glazes:

"you may still be able to see some of the marring that the amigo was unable to remove. Now honestly I have no idea if Amigo corrected some of the damage or..."

A glaze fills defects, it does not "remove" or "correct" defects

contact angle of the beads is probably not as good as you've seen because he didn't go with a full correction.
 
contact angle of the beads is probably not as good as you've seen because he didn't go with a full correction.

I have not heard that expressed before


Would make an interesting test:

- Perfect Paint w/ coating

- Compounded only w/ coating

- Uncorrected with coating
 
contact angle of the beads is probably not as good as you've seen because he didn't go with a full correction.

I dont believe they are related. I can apply Sonax Polymer Net shield to any hacked up paint job and get the most uniform super tight ball bearing type beads I have ever seen.

I just dont think PBL paint and surface coatings produces super uniform beads. Believe it or not but Black Label Synergy produces the best beading in the lineup from my testing. Synergy is very impressive.
 
Jeep looks nice

I am surprised the contact angle of the beads is not higher


You might consider adjusting your verbiage when discussing glazes:

"you may still be able to see some of the marring that the amigo was unable to remove. Now honestly I have no idea if Amigo corrected some of the damage or..."

A glaze fills defects, it does not "remove" or "correct" defects

True. I guess if you want to get technical Amigo is a pre-wax cleaner. It has light abrasives with a glaze component to it.
 
I have not heard that expressed before


Would make an interesting test:

- Perfect Paint w/ coating

- Compounded only w/ coating

- Uncorrected with coating

the difference i'm talking about is the difference between a very flat and unform surface, and one that has a lot of small ething and scratches in it. it may not be true for every application, which is why i said probably, and not that it definitely was. different products with different properties may fill in defects better than others though too. no way to be sure as to why it isn't beading more or less unless someone gets in and does some real testing to find out what is making the difference.
 
the difference i'm talking about is the difference between a very flat and unform surface, and one that has a lot of small ething and scratches in it. it may not be true for every application, which is why i said probably, and not that it definitely was. different products with different properties may fill in defects better than others though too. no way to be sure as to why it isn't beading more or less unless someone gets in and does some real testing to find out what is making the difference.

Looking forward to seeing your testing on the theory above

It will be a thread worth reading
 
The beading should not really be a strong function of the surface not having been corrected fully. For the most part, the beading is down to the chemistry of the coating/sealant/wax, not anything to do with the underlying surface. In actual fact, microscopically rough surfaces will give the most significant beading - it is called the lotus effect.

The matter of cleanliness is to minimise the risk of problems. You can still get bonding but one cannot be certain, nor could one be certain that there would be other issues, whether it is spreading, coverage or whatever. So, sure you can apply without all the cleanliness and it may well work perfectly well, but it is impossible to test all possibilities with regards to what contamination is present so the results could not be guaranteed. That alone is why the manufacturers make the recommendations they do.
 
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