Once you have dried the areas you have worked on, the clear coat on them will be hazy due to the scratches from the sandpaper. Next up is using a clay bar on the car to remove all those contaminants or stubborn particles that have lodged themselves in the clear coat of the paint. Prepare a spray bottle with a mixture of water and car shampoo. The idea is to create a slippery surface for the clay bar to avoid creating friction and burning through the clear coat.

If you drive a regular car like the rest of us, you’re probably winging your ceramic coating yourself – and that where the problems start. It is possible to DIY a ceramic coating – but few people have the skills and equipment required to do it to its full effectiveness.

At a low contact angle, say 30 degrees, a water droplet appears as a small wide pool. A droplet with a contact angle of 30 degrees mostly touches, or wets, the surface.

You can sometimes avoid parking under trees where birds roost and drop what birds drop. And while driving those bugs hitting your car are beyond your control. Ceramic coatings protect against the physical and chemical assaults of nature. It is applied to the car’s exterior and provides an extra layer of protection to your car against harmful UV rays, minor scratches, fading, dirt, chemical, and any other physical abrasions.

How to Apply Ceramic Coating on Glass

Bare minimum, you’ll want to use a surface preparation solution to remove anything that will get in between the paint and the ceramic coating. A product such as Mother’s CMX Surface Prep is great for removing unwanted surface contaminants. If you wanna go all the way, you’ll want to take a machine polisher to the surface to get it all smooth and glossy. Surface preparation varies depending on how new/well you’ve taken care of your paint. This is arguably the most important step, as a ceramic coating on a poor finish will only seal in the imperfections.

ceramic coating VS traditional waxing or sealants

Once the surface is clean and free of contaminants and imperfections, use isopropyl alcohol to remove any remaining oil or polish residue. Apply the alcohol to a microfiber towel and wipe the surface in a circular motion. If surface contamination builds up enough it becomes the vehicle’s surface. Eventually, contaminated vehicle panels adopt the surface energy (hydrophobic) properties of this outermost contamination layer. A surface completely covered by topical contamination no longer beads or sheets water.

We prefer a clean microfiber towel over anything to keep contaminants from spreading across your car. Wash your wheels last to prevent any damage to your paint’s ceramic coat. Better yet, use different buckets for your car’s body and wheels. Maintaining a clean wash mitt or microfiber cloth is critical to reducing swirl marks from dirt and other damage.

A professional ceramic coating takes a few days to cure, so washing immediately after applying it can undo your detailer’s hard work. Give your ceramic coating at least seven days to harden before washing. Over time, excessive UV exposure will damage your ceramic coating. Before that, however, it will raise the surface energy of the coating as it beats down, eroding your coating’s hydrophobic ability to dispel water. Professional nano-ceramic coatings achieve a 9H rating on the pencil scale, indicating the highest level of hardness and protection. This should not be confused with the Mohs scale, which puts a 9H just below diamond-level hardness. Ceramic coatings seem easy to apply, so a lot of consumers try DIY options when they’re first starting out.

After all the high spots are addressed, the rest of the process is the same as polishing an uncoated vehicle. Remember to use lots of clay bar lubricant to keep the surface wet at all times while claying. Use light pressure and fold your clay over frequently to expose a fresh surface. Using a clay bar without a clay bar is like shaving without shaving cream. After rinsing, even if it looks like the car is perfectly clean, there’s going to be a number of particles still lodged in the surfaces and pores of the paint. Read more about Keramikversiegelung mit Garantie here. We’re talking about mineral deposits, salts, iron dust, leftover grease and grime, tar, etc. There’s all kinds of contamination picked up from the surrounding environment.

Gather all the proper stuff you need and get on with the cleaning. Make sure that you do this with care – you definitely don’t want to have any problems on the surface of your car just because you scrubbed with the wrong washing substance.