I started using their windscreen wipes and didn’t like it, I emailed Harry and asked if the windscreen product is different to ng1010 and all he would say is the vision protect product was the one that went through the testing and not ng1010, I still think they are they same product just packaged and marketed as automotive specific.i found my windscreen fogs up at any sign of humidity which is annoying as I have to turn the air on on to get rid of it, was going to add windscreens to what I do but feel that there would be too many call backs on it where as doing showers and balustrades and pool fences is a real money maker, so much so it’s all I’m doing now, a pool fence takes me about 3 hours to do and I charge $1300 depending on size, I can knock a shower out in 20 mins and charge $180 makes cleaning windows harder for me as so much more work involved for less money so I really push the glass coatings
I’ve got a few tests on the go, coated a glass splash back in my kitchen and seeing how it holds up to cooking grease and fat splatter etc and works really well, especially with bacon grease, it just wipes clean off with a micro fibre,have also coated a piece of glass which I have only coated half of it so I can see for myself how it reacts outside with rain and water spots etc which is my way of testing just how good it is for pool fence glass and if ng1010 will work better on glass than their vision protect,I don’t really want to try straight on the car incase it also fogs up like showers do
Hey Glen, as Marc Tanner says WE are the scientists! I totally love your tests. The outside spot test will help much! If the NG1010 works best on windshields then use that. Remember to deep clean/polish/phobic to phylic first. I can ask also about the chemistry but as I have explained to John M the most important thing is does it work? And we will determine that. Not a lab in Germany. Keep us informed! And I want to thank the Lambrinides for this Forum.
I forgot but fogging can be a problem with any hydrophobic sealant. Always forms on the warmer side. So a car with the AC on. A home with a good central air system (even with IG Units). It will form on the outside on hot humid days where the coating has been applied. I have had this happen. So just beware in the hot zones. If you are fighting bad spotting and glass corrosion it will be a far lesser problem!
Henry - Thanks for the links - and all the information you provide. Years ago before the internet became a thing I used to read the window cleaner magazine to learn about cleaning glass. Pretty sure many of the articles that I found interesting &helpful were written by yourself. So I wanted to thank you for that as well. Back when I first started out with a bucket & squeegee I had no idea how technical and scientific cleaning glass can be. You helped educate myself in that regard and I’m sure many more that haven’t had the chance to thank you for sharing what you’ve learned. So Thanks for all your hard work and sharing. You’ve done a lot to help myself and I’m sure many others over the years. Hopefully I can do the same at some point.
As far as testing goes - seems to me we’d want to decide on a method to test different surface coatings to gauge how the products perform. Optical clarity could be something that’s measured for degradation. When testing fasteners you’re looking for corrosion- they are subjected to conditions that accelerate corrosion. Seems the same concept could be used for glass only with different standards of observation of degradation. Screws are tested in enclosed cabinets to insure conditions of accelerated corrosion are the equal. Doesn’t seem like it’d be too hard to set up a way to test glass in a similar fashion. What to test for and how to gauge the results to establish a standard would be what would be needed to start comparing products and their effectiveness. Optical clarity obviously would be something to test. But seems there should be other considerations as well. So the question would be what would you test for and how do you rate one product over another? What changes could be measured over time in an accelerated corrosive environment? How do you measure the changes so you can determine the results? Everything would have to be consistent and non biased.
Not sure how or who came up with the salt spray test for fasteners, but it is a standard now. Perhaps, in the years to come, we could do the same for glass. Set a standard.
Thanks so very much for your kind kind words of thanks and encouragement!
What you suggest about testing is one of the best ideas I have heard in a long time. I would love it if we could work together on this. It would have to be easily implemented in the field. So we should find some testing devices.
The IWCA Glass Committee has just gone through a change and is focused on products. Which I think is more practical. Although have not signed up again. I have a big mouth!
Nice to talk to another old timer. So many things are happening now. Lets get on the phone sometime soon and talk about your idea.
I’d really enjoy getting involved with something like that but at the moment I don’t have the time or funds to commit to doing it unfortunately. Love to help conceptualize how it could be done though. My wife has had some health issues that take a lot of time at the moment, but actually one of the main reasons I’m getting back into glass work. Hopefully we’ll figure out how to deal with it all and I get some time to focus on getting established and doing things like setting up tests.
To establish a standard we’d probably want a consistent environment that can be measured so the only difference would be the product being tested. Then we’d need to set standards of measurement that can be consistent from product to product. May even want different glass from different manufacturers to test. Tempered as well. Each product could be being tested on multiple surfaces. A corrosion environment would have to be constructed to specific standards so the tests can be replicated. Most likely to have any credence it’d have to be a certified testing facility. The only variable being the product(s) in question. Otherwise the results could still be attributed to extraneous factors. If it can be done, then manufacturers just might pay to be certified so they can advertise that their products pass the rigorous testing of the GPITA (glass products independent testing association - or some such name). If anything, could certainly learn a lot.
Don’t think it’d be a field thing though. All hinges on the only variable being the product being tested so the testing facilities have to be reproducible and consistent. Checked on a regular basis and documented.
So then the next consideration would be how to measure the changes.
Totally love all of that! Especially G-PITA!! Yes. Lets work together on ideas. I am working with the Glass Committee on some very interesting stuff you will love. Lets start an email exchange. Take it a step at a time. Then I can make videos to document the process and post on my Channel. I do hope you have success with your Wife too.
I have used similar thinking when doing side by side tests to compare two different products in the field. Everything the same except the product. This can even be followed for multiple products. Like five sealants on the same window.
That’d be fine for field testing, if you have some windows where the customer doesn’t mind, commercial in a location that’s not a window that gets used maybe. Everything would still be subject to normal environmental corrosion though. So if a product claimed to last 5 years, you’d be checking it for 5 years potentially. The idea of creating an environment that accelerates the corrosion is so changes can be observed over a shorter duration of testing that could then be used to ascertain an expected duration under normal environmental conditions. A thousand hour screw would only be just under 42 days before showing signs of corrosion and no one would buy it if that’s how long it really lasted, but in the fastener business, a thousand hour screw is one off the top rated fasteners you can get. That thousand hours translates to years of protection from corrosion under normal conditions - even when used with acq lumber. Another way of looking at it, it only takes a little over a month to conclude a test that if it was done in the field under normal conditions could take years. … like how long a nano-coatings are supposed to last.
A salt spray mist is what they use to accelerate corrosion in fasteners. For glass it would seem that the water itself would need to be uniform, and yet not pure water. So if you started with water that tested at 0 ppm and then added specific minerals back to it somehow to a specific level then you’d be able to replicate the results in any location. Cycles of spraying re-mineralized water on banks of glass and drying seems like could be one way to speed up corrosion. Like a dishwasher that just keep running for days. Specific temperatures. Then have a way to gauge the results. Not sure what would be the best way to do that. Should be some sort of instrument to test optical clarity I’d imagine. Surely there are other ways to measure changes. Hydrophobic vs hydrophilic should be measured somehow.
Alternately, perhaps you have 30 -40 smaller 2" pieces that are all coated with the same product so that they are consistent - both sides. Start your test on the batch and after a certain time mark you remove one and run tests on it to see how well the mineral deposits come off. After another set period of time (daily?) you remove another and test it. So on until the end of the test you remove the piece that’s been in the test the longest that should show the most corrosion. Take a piece out, clean it a specific way, record the measurements. That could be one test. Another could be to subject the same piece to multiple cycles of mineral spray / drying / cleaning and seeing many cycles the coating lasts.
Wow! Totally fantastic suggestions. I think Nanovations has had some testing like this done on their NG 1010. Other coating/sealant companies have done the same. We should start to get this info out there. Would you mind if I were to republish some of what you have written here in my blog? I think the readers would find it totally fascinating!
