Silly Teflon idea
Turbo Mini Forums

last night after a few beers I was talking to the bread knife about the car I am building and more specifically about the colour. I already have a metallic grey studio 2 and a metallic grey Saab 95 so it might be nice to carry on a theme. However my mind went a bit silly and I thought that Teflon is a dark metallic grey colour. So I was thinking:

1. Can a car body be sprayed (coated?) in Teflon? I know it is bonded on so it would be a pain and I would guess expensive.
2. If it can be sprayed on would it give any aerodynamic advantage over a normal paint finish?

I appreciate that this is a silly idea, but it I am quite interested in the principal, if not the practicalities of it.

In the light of day it does seem even sillier than it did last night...

Ben

http://www.twin-turbo.co.uk
http://www.hillclimbandsprint.co.uk/default.asp

A man without a project is like a like a woman without a shopping list.

Would stop you needing to wash the crap off it thats for sure.

I think the cost would make it a non starter, good idea though. My father in law is convinced white is the best colour for boats as it allows faster progress through the water :) Might be true.

I am in a similar dilema, our other cars are black, would be nice to maintain the "fleet" but I cant be arsed prepping for black on my Mini.

Check out the (slow) progress at.......
http://www.turbominis.co.uk/dn89mini

Dear Cecil:

Everyone is familiar with Teflon, that nonstick surface no self-respecting housewife can do without. If'n it works so well slippin' and slidin' yer flapjacks, how do they get it to stick to the pan in the first place? --Richard Lavine, via the Internet

Dear Richard:

Smart-aleck radio hosts think this one is sooo funny. Obviously they don't remember the first Teflon pans in the 1960s, which required special non-scratchy cooking utensils, lest you scrape the Teflon off. Fact is, the reaction when Teflon was invented pretty much consisted of, "Whoa, Teflon, the nonstick miracle! So tell us, genius, how do we make it stick to the pan?"

Teflon, known to science as polytetrafluoroethylene, is a pain to work with because it's nonsticky in all directions, the pan side (the bottom) as well as the food side (the top). Teflon is a fluorinated polymer, a polymer being a passel of identical building-block molecules linked together to make a long chain--the stuff of most plastics. Fluorine, due to certain electrochemical properties you'll thank me for not explaining now, bonds so tightly with the carbon in Teflon that it's virtually impossible for other substances, e.g., scrambled egg crud, to get a chemical-type grip or, for that matter, for Teflon to get a grip on anything else. In addition, the finished Teflon surface is extremely smooth, giving said egg crud little chance to get a mechanical-type grip.

So how do they get Teflon to stick to the pan? First they sandblast the pan to create a lot of microscratches on its surface. Then they spray on a coat of Teflon primer. This primer, like most primers, is thin, enabling it to flow into the the micro-scratches. The primed surface is then baked at high heat, causing the Teflon to solidify and get a reasonably secure mechanical grip. Next you spray on a finish coat and bake that. (The Teflon finish coat will stick to the Teflon primer coat just fine.) Works a lot better than the early Teflon pans, but you can still ruin Teflon cookware by subjecting it to extremely high heat. This causes the bonds between some of the carbon atoms to break, giving other undesirable stuff a chance to bond thereto and making the Teflon look like Jeff Goldblum in the last reel of The Fly.

Scientists continue to search for something better, and recent reports suggest they may have succeeded. Dow Chemical researcher Donald Schmidt has come up with another fluorinated polymer that can be used like paint and cured with moderate (as opposed to high) heat. Even better, you wind up with a coating that's nonsticky on only one side, presumably the outside. The only drawback: Schmidt's coating won't withstand heat. That doesn't matter if you're trying to make, say, graffiti-proof wall tile, but don't look for Schmidtlon-coated frying pans anytime soon.

courtesy fo googole

turbo 16v k-series 11.9@118.9 :)

Denis O'Brien.

Right then where do I order a pot of Schmidt's coating

I do wonderif it slippier than paint in air. I also wonder if it heavier than paint?

http://www.twin-turbo.co.uk
http://www.hillclimbandsprint.co.uk/default.asp

A man without a project is like a like a woman without a shopping list.

already been used on a car:

An American chemicals company has developed a nonstick coating based on molecules akin to soap. The material is the first which can be sprayed or brushed on like water-based paints and could be used to combat graffiti.

Coatings such as Teflon need high temperatures to apply them or solvents which attack paints and plastics. Other coatings require hazardous organic solvents, says Donald Schmidt, a scientist at Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan, who developed the new material.

The water-soluble molecules include reactive ionic and fluoroalkyl groups which give them soap-like properties. In soap the molecules would attach themselves to dirt but Dow's molecules attach themselves to most common surfaces. A second water-soluble compound in the solution reacts with the first when dried or heated, forming the hard nonstick coating.

Schmidt was to describe the compounds this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco, but Dow would not provide details or copies of patents in time for the deadline.

The company tested the coatings by applying them to car bumpers where they 'shed insects, soil and road tar dramatically better than conventional automobile paints'. The coatings showed 'good stability' in sunlight and neither permanent marker inks nor spray paints based on organic solvents stick to them. Thus the coatings might repel graffiti.

I imagien it wont be long untill this becomes a commercial off-the-shelf product!

turbo 16v k-series 11.9@118.9 :)

Denis O'Brien.

Cool.

http://www.twin-turbo.co.uk
http://www.hillclimbandsprint.co.uk/default.asp

A man without a project is like a like a woman without a shopping list.

Yeah over here you can already get it. Cost me $300 to get a new car coated. nothing sticks to it.

So not such a silly idea then.

http://www.twin-turbo.co.uk
http://www.hillclimbandsprint.co.uk/default.asp

A man without a project is like a like a woman without a shopping list.

but less resistant?


Moz

and when its really hot you could cook on the bonnet