Silver,
You certainly know more about chemistry than I do. I'll take your word for what 'Rain-X' is chemically. But it 'works' like a wax. You put it on, it cures, and you polish off the residue, leaving behind the coating that fills the pores in the glass, making it slick so that the water will run off. They even tell you to use water on it if you are having trouble removing the left over residue. It is made for glass, and if you don't get that residue off, it doesn't work there either.
No offense intended, you obviously have some expertise with this type of thing, but folks need to know this:
Rain-X does not work as a fly floatant, regardless of the chemicals it contains. I've tested it on several different types of floating flies, and it didn't work as well, or even close to as well, as 'untreated' flies.
For those confused by all this, please just test it yourself if you are wondering about it. I wanted to use it, I'm cheap and it was an easy substitute for the 'fly shop' stuff..'if' it worked. But, I'm not about to put something on my flies, especially spun deer hair bugs that take quite a bit of time to tie, without being 'sure'.
Here's what I did to 'test' it:
I tied some identical flies (I did this with three types of dry flies, a stimulator, an adams, and an elk hair caddis, and two types of spun deer hair bass bugs, a popper and a frog type).
I broke the flies into three groups. Each 'group' held three each of each fly. An untreated control, one set with Silicone Water Guard, and one set with 'Rain-X'. I treated the flies by emersing them in the liquid and then setting them on paper towels to dry. I let them dry for three days.
I put the flies on the surface film of a bowl of distilled water. Everytime I walked past the bowl, I pushed each of the flies under water. (If you don't 'wet' them, the test isn't accurate since your flies do get wet while you fish them-just about everytime you pick them up to cast and even some times when you cast them back out)
NONE of the flies treated with Rain-X floated for more than a few hours. The standard trout flies, especially the Adams, sank after only a couple of 'wettings'. The untreated flies eventually sank, the stimulator lasted the longest, several days in fact (but it did sink into the surface film quickly and it was obvious that the bouyancy of the hair wing was keeping it afloat). The permanently waterproofed flies treated with Silicone Water Guard NEVER sank.
The results with the bass bugs was even more pronounced. The Rain-X treated bugs sank after only one 'wetting', while the untreated bugs took hours to sink. The bugs treated with Silicone Water Guard stayed afloat until the water in the bowl evaporated (I did the bass bugs last, so I wanted t osee how long they would float...).
So, regardless of what it is, it is not a fly floatant and I strongly recommend that no one use it as such.
Again, I advise all who doubt this to just do the test yourself. I'ts pretty easy to do.
I'm really cheap about stuff like this. If Rain-X worked, I'd use it. But it doesn't.
Buddy
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