Dressings with heat gun?

[TimG]

Hi all, I was wondering why some detailers use a heat gun (or similar apparatus) when applying dressings to plastics trims and tires. Whats the purpose of doing so? Increase soak in rate of the chems to the plastics? Avoiding splatter from dressed tyres?

Appreciate the advise.

Tim

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Dressings with heat gun?

Hi Tim,

Can't say we hear a lot of talk about this technique? Maybe it's something more isolated to you region? (Borneo - Mount Kinabalu)


Most the time when the Heat Gun is being talked about on the forums is when someone is using it to remove adhesive residue or vinyl stickers.

A guess would be heating the plastic up which will act to expand the plastic for better product penetration? (Don't know, just a guess. One of the issues surrounding applying dressings to plastic trim is that plastic isn't real absorbent to start with so dressings tend to be topical and this results in people becoming let down when a dressing doesn't last for long extended periods of time or when excess dressing on the surface runs off in the rain. The problem comes back to the fact that plastic just isn't very absorbent so everything is pretty much topical.

Lets see if someone else chimes in with any insight?

[TimG]

Re: Dressings with heat gun?

Hi Mike,

I actually saw this technique online. If I'm not mistaken it was on either MOL or DW. I just remembered a guy was using a heat gun when applying dressings to tyres and trims. Might be it was cold during the detail. Hmm...

Anyone else came across this?

Tim

[TimG]

Re: Dressings with heat gun?

BINGO!

After 2 hours of searching, I managed to get find where is saw it.

Here some pictures courtest of L200Steve- DW






In this case, the guy was using a hairdryer

Need more research. I gonna try this method and see the benefits of doing so.

Tim

[Jeepster04]

Re: Dressings with heat gun?

I would think that warm rubber with absorb the dressing better but Im just guessing. I know if the product itself is nice and warm it goes on better.

[TimG]

Re: Dressings with heat gun?

I would think that warm rubber with absorb the dressing better but Im just guessing. I know if the product itself is nice and warm it goes on better.

Yep. I had the same thoughts. Well, gonna give it a go once I can distance myself with office work.

Thanks

Tim

[angeloabbattista]

Re: Dressings with heat gun?

Please update with your results. I'm intrigued about this and am interested with any durability issues.
Cheers.

[TimG]

Re: Dressings with heat gun?

Yeah, I had a go at it yesterday. Tested on a Toyota Unser's sidemirror. The current condition was really bad;rubber turned pale grey.


What I did was to apply ASD then heat the surface then dress again (i think its supposed to be 'heat-apply dressing-heat'..lol) .


Outcome, it was more like matte/satin black instead of being somewhat shiny.

When the car left my place it was already raining heavily..

Before


After



Sorry the owner didnt gave me much picts. These were the only closeups.

Not sure whether theres any durability though. I tried it as I didnt want the dressing to simply be washed away. I'll try to do more testing in these coming days.

Tim

[TimG]

Re: Dressings with heat gun?

Sorry picture quite dark. I'll try to get the owner to give me another pict under diff lighting condition.

Tim

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Dressings with heat gun?

Position the car so that you're not pointing the camera towards the outside sunlight.

As for testing, a better way would be to test a dressing in two places to the same surface or component, that is use the heat gun to heat up the plastic and then apply a dressing to have of the component.

Now let the component cool down and apply the same dressing to the other half.

Now test, that is now sit back and watch for a difference in results.

You need a control in order to check your results.

[ZoranC]

Re: Dressings with heat gun?

After 2 hours of searching, I managed to get find where is saw it.

Here some pictures courtest of L200Steve- DW

Why not just PM that guy and ask him?

P.S. How do we know hairdryer was on 'hot' and not 'cold' setting?

[TimG]

Re: Dressings with heat gun?

Hi Zoran, Yep I tried to PM him but somethings wrong with my ID in DW. I'll find ways to get around.

Hi Mike, yep your advise is what I had in mind now (sometimes during details my mind wonders on office work...sigh).

But anyhow, I really like All Season Dressing and it really does a very good job. I tried all sorts of dressings but this one is a keeper.

Cheers,

Tim

[gbackus]

Re: Dressings with heat gun?

Are you sure he was not redying the trim pieces? A lot of companies offer latex acrylic emulsion based dyes(AI, Trimonex, SEM, and a few others) to permanent repair trim and using the heat gun to cure is an alternative to letting the dye set/cure for a specific period of time.