First, before I show any pictures, I bought a random “graphene” so called ceramic finish off of aliexpress. The bottle that I got is labeled “Adam’s”, which is suspiciously similar to other bottles of the same thing with nothing on the label. So you have to decide reading this if you think I got the real thing and it’s just a private branded version of a $15-$20 finish that you can just order yourself, or if you think this is fake. if you believe that, and you’ve been stained by influencers to tooting your horn about “ceramic coatings”, then all you need is unfinished steel that will rust and you can do the same test.
I suspect this is the same, but have no proof and don’t know who “Adam” is. If “Adam” purchases products from China and resells them, then you get what you get. If “Adam” actually developed something and they are selling it on the side directly, then that’s kind of rude, but not the point here.
What’s in these finishes based on the SDS is a refractory resin, which I read some about. These are resins that are set to cure at normal temperatures, vs those that might need to be baked, and they will handle relatively high temperatures, but relative is doing a lot of work. What I gather is they will tolerate several hundred degrees, but if you’re thinking of refractory bricks or refractory linings in kilns, nothing close to that.
I have gone off several times on forums about people like the Wood Whisperer posting affiliate links to products, coming out and talking about how they didn’t stop rust on a cast iron table in storage (not in the rain, in storage) and that you should buy them anyway. I suspect the second video is just a shot at harvesting more affiliate commissions and that the woodworking hobby has come to this “you should buy this” instead of you should be inspired to make things….that bugs me. George Wilson kind of laid the burden on me that I could make things that look a little nicer. I thought he was wrong, but his view of that accelerated me and really turned what is a burden to a joy – feeling like you could figure things out or make them well, or at least challenge trying to do it. This is missing from the hobby as the algorithms and influencers go – it’s a chance to stay a beginner for 20 years and go to a lot of classes and marketing.
If you love that, fine, but it’s not the message for a maker. The message for a maker is generally you want to make something, you can figure it out, but the core of being a maker (and it’s OK not to be a great one relative to greats! but you can be better vs. you yesterday), is you have to find something you really want to make badly enough to make it well, and then find out what well means. Well usually means function, look and feel of some sort. But looks are important, and feel is important if it can be discerned and function if function is important. These are the joys of making, not trying to buy something that’s sold because the margin is large.
So, I am delighted…
…to show you how well a fairly healthy rubbed in coat of ceramic finish does to protect metal from standing water. 
OK, so tell me again why you want to put this on other finishes? You can see the dullness here around the finish, and you can tell I scratched off prior rust. This is 26c3 flat stock. How does a “ceramic” finish allow water right through to the metal? And to be frank, this is spectacular rust, but this is a difficult test to pass as it turns out.
Both Carnauba and Shellac tests are now running and the water has not yet evaporated -and they’re already rusty. I’ve had pretty good luck with oils, waxes and shellac from vapor or humidity related rust. So this piece of bar once done here will get stowed near the door where temp and humidity change quickly, and we’ll see if any one of the three Carnauba, Shellac or “Ceramic” areas fares better.
What do I see when putting water on these areas in general? Initially, the “Ceramic” finish does feel like nanosilica (yes, I got a bag of nanosilica to put in other finishes to see if it can do anything alone – short answer, nothing useful), even though it may not be a finish with nanosilica in it the same as I have it loose here. The water beads impressively, but eventually, it breaches that.
We already know that shellac and carnauba are not waterproof. How badly the “ceramic” finish did here is a surprise and it begs the question – why would you use this as a “protective” layer? There are plenty of finishes that are actually waterproof that if you really needed to protect a finish, you could thin them and apply them very thinly and abrade them off – or just wax them later if you don’t want to.
I’ll test one of my varnishes with this, too – but in a really really thin layer. I don’t personally feel like this (varnish) is a great idea for a metal protecting moisture barrier because it isn’t going to be removed easily, but what is “ceramic finish” going to do for your furniture – allow the water through under a sweating glass and then hold it in?
I get what this does for car finishes – you don’t need something waterproof on a car finish and you might really delight in the beading and uniformity of the surface, even though it’s actually slightly dull. Compared to worn and abused car paint, it probably looks very glossy in sunlight.
I didn’t start to coat metal here to set out to embarrass this nonsense about “ceramic” finishes that are supposedly super hard but expressed in pencil lead hardness scale, I wanted to apply it to other finished wood like with shellac on and see just how protective it was and how scratch resistant it was. The first attempt at this deglossed which immediately triggered the desire to see if the degloss was superficial on wood or if it was a significant breach like this.
You can make varnish, and if you don’t want to, the entire coatings industry for furniture and housewares is full of durable finishes that are actually waterproof. if you don’t want them on the surface, you can thin them to death and allow them to soak into wood so they are resident in it rather than on it.
Ask your “friendly” influencers to run this same test, and if they show no rust, then do it yourself, because if they show no rust, they’re probably cheating the test perhaps by putting it on top of a waterproof finish. I’m fairly sure at this point if I apply my own varnish, and put this on top of it, there would be no rust. Except we now know, it’s the varnish doing the work, not the “ceramic finish”.
Of Making by Hand with Wood and Steel 