is it truely a clay bar or some kind of brand...and does it just add shine?

i mean is a wax not good enough for a good shine?

 

Clay bar is just like a sticky clay which preps your car smooth before you apply any wax or polish. Search for mother's clay on google and you can see this product.

 

Clay bar does wonders for removing grit and grime and leaving a very smooth surface on which to apply the wax of your choice.

 

Must one really wax ?
What I mean is can I just clay-bar & maybe just polish with some kinda spray polish and not wax ?
does that do any good ?

lazy sob here

 

If it suits you. Clay bar is used to get all contaimination like fine dirst, sap, rail dust etc. off the pait. You are prepairing the paint for closing with some protectant like wax of some coating above clear coat. If you just want to polish you can do that too. There are some systems of waxing which just uses polish that conventional wax.

 

Try the "Wash and Wax" forum. There's more information there that you can use.

 

try www.autopia.org

 

Good answers. Moving to Wash and wax.

 

~One man’s opinion / observations~

1. Wash 2. Detailer’s clay 3. Pre-wax paint cleaner, 4. Polish, sealant and/or wax -a wash concentrate washes away the loose dirt particles from the paint surface, detailer’s clay removes embedded (below surface) pollution, paint cleaners contain a solvent for cleaning surface dirt, tar and road grime; polish will remove surface imperfections (scratches, surface marring) and provide the paint with necessary oils and a polymer and/or wax is used to protect the paint.

~Hope this helps~

Knowledge unshared is experience wasted
justadumbarchitect / so I question everything/ Jon

 

can't it's been down for days.....try www.detailcity.com it is another detailer/enthusiast based forun.

With regards to the "do I need to clay?" question......run the back of your fingers across your paint... if you hear a light almost hissing noise while you run your fingers across the paint, then there is a bunch of tiny particles, like mentioned above, from tree sap to berry stains to rail dust..

With a clean freshly clayed paint surface your fingers sliding across the paint will not make a sound.. the difference is like night and day....if your paint doesn't feel as smooth as glass (perfectly smooth) you will be able to clay the surface to achieve that smooth clean surface..


By the way, a great article on claying is loacted : www.bettercarcare.com but considering they (bettercarcare) is the same company as autopia as well as a couple of the industry's other companies..... it wouldn't shock me to know that if one is down than all of them are down.

 

For some serious car enthusiasts who give extra attention to their paint finish, claying IS essential. I know a lot of people who have never clayed their car but religiously give it a coat or two of wax a year.

Claying is relatively new to the typical car owner who wants that extra care in making sure they put wax on top of a clean and prepared surface as opposed to a just washed car. It was a "secret" of professional auto detailers for years.

The old school of putting "shine" on the car has gone a long way over the last few years. I can remember not even ten years ago that professional products (different levels of abrasive cleaners and polishes, glazes and sealants) cannot be readily obtained unless you have contacts who work in the detailing field. If you just want to stick to the waxing routine then just stick to the cleaner waxes. Good ones like Meguiar's Carnauba Cleaner Wax or the Zymol Cleaner Wax are some of these. They are "combination" products that has very minor abrasives that cleans the surface then polishes and waxes it at the same process. They are also best done by hand.

The way I see it, determine first which level of care you want (and are willing) to provide you car. Some people simply can't find the time of allocating half or even most of the day working on the car's paint surface alone. Apply the cleaner waxes or hire a detailer to do the job for you. For me, it's ups the satisfaction meter a few notches when I see the results of hours of claying, polishing (sealing) and then waxing the car to look much better than when you first drove it off the lot.

 

Theres also a sticky with several addendums from experienced members....

 

Autopia, bettercarcare and meguire'sonline all share the same server (so when one is inoperable, they all are) This latest problem with the sever is due to flooding in the San Diego area.

 

Will the clay bar help remove swirl marks??

 

Not a chance !

 

What will help with the swirl marks?

 

You need to polish to get the swirl marks out properly, or use a product that fills in the swirl marks and hides them.

 

Well i guess it kind of depends on the severity of the matter. Something OTC you could start with would be Megs #9. Also 3M Swirl MArk Remover would be another product. Do you own a PC or is this done by hand ? Try using a cotton applicator as oppossed to microfiber, the cotton has a little more bite.....Remove with microfiber though!

 

Not necessarily. Swirl marks are very small crevices or depressions on the clearcoat or the surface part of the paint that reflect light at different angles. It shows "spiderwebs" because there are literally thousands of them going all over the place.

Polishing alone won't remove swirl marks and a professional swirl removal products, perhaps done right with the proper equipment MAY remove swirls depending, as exceld said, on the severity of them.
The way I understood it, the clearcoat or the paint surface need to be evened-out to the deepest level of the deepest scratch in order to produce a smooth finish and eliminate the marks. Polishing, as the term implies, introduces lost oils and lubricants to the restored finish to enhance it's gloss. If the wrong product/ equipment is used, the situation may be worsened and more swirl marks are introduced.

Removing and filling/hiding swirls are two different things. The latter being "cosmetic" as the swirls come back (or become visible again) once the product wears off. NXT, I believe is one such product. The former being rehabilitative to the damaged or neglected finish and much more lasting.

 

That's exactly what I meant by saying to polish - that entire process is often referred to as polishing, sorry if I didn't make that clear. However, polishing also involves the use of abrasive elements to wear down the clearcoat or paint surface to the level of the deepest scratch, and involves more than oils and lubricants. Although polishing sounds intimidating, there are many tools (such as a PC) and products out there where a novice can safely do a pretty good job of eliminating nearly all swirls on their own without fear of damaging the finish more.

I never meant to imply that polishing and hiding were the same thing, I said that one could either polish or hide the swirls, both of which require different products. Besides NXT, Zaino Z5 is another product that hides swirls. There are also many "polishes" out there that contain some abrasives as well as a combination of fillers and oils that also fill in swirls, so one must be aware of what a product contains and is intended to do in order to achieve the desired result.

 

Try autopia.org or www.bettercarcare.com

 

My apologies lokman, I never meant to state that you implied. Just got caught up with sticking to terminologies that I have picked up since getting serious with detailing.

There are so many products out there that confuse the regular consumer and lots of store shelf stuff, Cleaner waxes for instance, claim to "do it all". I have countless friends who I can swear have most brands of Cleaner waxes in their garage because they thought it would fix most of their problems but to no avail. One Cleaner wax that I tried that seemed to do a good job was Meg's Professional #6 Cleaner wax that looked like it "fixed" some of the minor swirls and left a good polish, more like what ColorX would do.

One suggestion that I may give is just to consult with a local detailer and get them to remove the swirls marks using their machine buffers and then apply the product they want on their cars after that.

 

Excercise extreme caution when taking it to the local detailer, specially if (And im sure he does) they use hi speed polishers. Its amazing, intentions are well, results are worse with some of these people. I have seen more than a fair amt of hack jobs on beautiful Escalades, Porsches, and Audis lately......Let me add another thing on swirls and removal/filling. There have been some good replies in this post, one thing overlooked i think is the fact that better than average results can be accomplished with a combination of different efforts and products. One does not need to level the surface to remove the effects of spiderwebs, you can probably get by easily with #80 and some good polymer protectant. This will remove the vertical eye catching, and light refracting edge. To eliminate the swirls, leveling is necessary, but you need to decide how far your willing to go to do this. I think there is a certain amt of *undesirables* that we can all live with, without compromising the reason why the clear coat is there in the first place. Protection. UV inhibitors. I prefer to remove the vertical edge and kind of fill with some glaze, and apply a beautiful layer or two of Polymer. Im not in car shows, it turns heads when its clean, and that whats important to me....I dont have a garage, my baby (both) are left outside to defend for themselves. Whichever is the cleanest gets braggin right to the covered carport. (Its actually a 4 car shared garage door-less garage). I just cant see leveling paint if its exposed to the elemants day in and day out.

 

~One man’s opinion / observations~

Clear coat has a thickness of 2-3Mils; the top half of this layer contains UV radiation protection. Removing more that 0.3 mil (0.0003") of clear coat will cause premature paint film failure.

As a point of reference a sheet of copy paper is 3.5Mil (0.0035") a surface scratch that will `catch' your fingernail is approximately 0.004" deep

~Hope this helps~

Knowledge unshared is experience wasted [each one / teach one]
justadumbarchitect / so I question everything/ JonM

 

My experience is that it's very difficult to measure just exactly how much clearcoat you're taking off when you polish, but once you break through the clearcoat to the paint, it's very noticeable. That said, I've heard of cars being polished numerous times without any adverse effects, so unless you polish the car every weekend with a machine or polish the *heck* out of a single spot (or the whole thing), I don't think you really have much to worry about.

 

With those being said, I think the prospective detailer should consider the consequences on his own car and the after effects of doing the wrong thing. This is with using a machine buffer (I think rotaries and aggressive compounds should be left to the pros as they have the tendency to actually burn off the clearcoat if done improperly). Scratch / swirl removal by hand only goes so far. Maybe it's possible (if space provides) to get your hands on some old car part like a hood or a trunk, then experiment from there before doing it to your own car. That way if things do go wrong, it's not so irreversible 9not on the car anyway).
I would like to think that somehow, after removing that top surface of clearcoat, the sealant applied would replace the UV protection that was diminished by the buffing.

As far as the local detailer thing, I too have seen some nice cars like BMWs and Porsches that has the obvious buffer swirls on them at a bad angle. This again would depend I guess on the reputable detailer as opposed to the fly by night ones. Think of the money to be made if these things can be rectified and leave the owner with a smile on his face.

 

Yeah, if you're going to use a rotary, you'd better know what you're doing. However, few beginners and even intermediate enthusiasts will ever touch a rotary, and the furthest they'll go with machine is a random orbital polisher, which has much less risk of burning through clearcoat or paint and is generally regarded as safe enough for a beginner to use.

 

I think the DA polisher like the PC 7424 can be used from beginner to professional while the rotaries like the Makita required that you do know your stuff. IMO it would be essential to have both if one decides to go down the road and do detailing professionally, together with a course of instruction on how to use it properly. The proper use of these machines coupled with good knowledge of proper pad use (much like proper club selection in golf) will result in successful results.

It's sad to know that there are many out there jumping on to the detailing field and not fully grasping the consequences should things go wrong.

Good thing is the great people in this here forum will prevent the daring beginner from going down down that road hastily.

 

Clay is not benign - it is very abrasive, but effective for certain situations. But IMO, it should never replace paint cleaning (polishing, glazing, etc.) Polishes not only replace oils and help fill swirls, but the benign polishing compounds (like clay, sea kelp, etc) produce a greater shihne each time you use them. I use a Porter Cable with 3M Imperial Machine Glaze.

Good article from the company i buy my supplies from - both the glaze and the 3M Paste Wax:
http://www.carcareonline.com/viewarticle.aspx?art=0

I have used clay 2 times on my TL:
a) it had embedded rail dust at delivery which I removed rather than have the dealer do it
b) I was painting some lawn furniture and the wind swirled, sending some white acrylic lacquer onto my Deep Green Pearl - but you need to know what you are doing with clay, and use a lot of it, to ensure no scratching. Use it when nothing else will work.