[southpaw]

Ok, washed my car yesterday due to 3 weeks worth of crap built up on it making it look crap. Firstly, I noticed that some dried rain/crap had left marks on the bonnet, most of which came off with a dam good polish. However once I got round the back of my car, I noticed there are lots of little dots of white paint on the rear of my car To say I was pissed off would be an understatement!

I washed and polished the painty bit but it did nothing, although apparently if I get a clay bar I can get rid of the paint? So I'm planning to clear out my garage this weekend, wash my car then put my car in the garage (heated by a couple of little fan heaters ), clay bar the whole car, polish and wax it, and also hopefully apply some Scratch X to get rid of some swirl marks. Thing is, I haven't ever done this before - I've polished and waxed a very expensive E Type (took two days ) but never clay barred.

So can someone give me a link to a reliable website or something that will give me instructions on how to do everything and what order to do them in? And which products are best - Megs #16 wax I know, but I can't find any on ebay or the Halfords website?!? Any particular shampoo's and polishes, and which clay bar should I get (if there are different types?)? And any idea of how long this will take to do the whole car?

Thanks

[Midnight Blue]

Try www.meguiars.com

[southpaw]

*Spens comes leaping and bounding to the computer*

Thats what I'm hoping

[eldoodarino]

do you know what sort of paint is on it...??

that will make a huge difference.... should be easy enough if it's emulsion....

Chris

[Clawz]

*Spens comes leaping and bounding to the computer*

Whehe, i guess he's got this entire forum tracked and attached to a big red warning light in his living room.

Assuming you use megiuars products, they've got a great website and forum, lots of useful tips on there.

Claying is not difficult, it's easy!:
* Divide the clay bar in 3 parts with a scissor, and make a pancake out of one of the parts. Store the rest.
* Lay the pancake in the middle of your fingers (2nd joint from the top of your fingers is the best, otherwise your fingers will be pointing in every direction except straight forward after a while )
* Spray a bit of quick detailer on a part of the car, 10x10 inch is more than enough, and a bit on the clay in your hand to get started. Then start rubbing the clay gently over the car (Rub the car for pete's sake! ), making sure you've got the paint lubricated with quick detailer. Forgetting this isn't bad for your paint, but annoying nevertheless: You'll leave clay-skidmarks on the paint, which need to be removed (easy; more quickdetailer and claying, but annoying still).
* Continue until the paint is like glass (you can feel it with the clay, it'll move smoothly over the paint), and move on to the next part.
* Once the clay starts looking dirty, fold the edges inward and make a pancake again, exposing clean clay on the outside. I did the entire car with this 1/3rd of the clay bar. If you drop the clay on the ground, check the clay for dirt, and cut away a layer that's dirty. You don't want to have sand in the clay!

Thats it, took me 2 to 3 hours to clay the entire car. The bonnet and front bumper eat away your clay due to the stonechips, so do those last.

ScratchX is awesome for swirls, i found a bunch of them on the flank of my Puma. The respray guys that did the back bumper and wheel arch probably wiped it down; it had loaaaads of tiny parallel swirls down the entire non-resprayed part of the panel.
A bit of ScratchX and 15 minutes later it was all gone. Huray!

This post has been edited by Clawz: 27 November 2006 - 09:54 PM

[southpaw]

do you know what sort of paint is on it...??

that will make a huge difference.... should be easy enough if it's emulsion....

Chris

I think it is emulsion - it was being mixed in a large tub type thing, and I'm guessing you wouldn't need that much gloss, so I can only assume it is emulsion. I'll be talking to the neighbours tomorrow night about this...

[southpaw]

Right then, I have:
Scratch X
Megs Stage 2 Polish
Megs stage 3 Carnauba wax (only wax Halfruads had! Still better than nothing)
Pack of Halfrauds polishing cloths
Megs Clay Quik detailing

Got everything back, opened the Quik detailing box only to find that someone has nicked the clay bar from it
Back to Halfrauds then!

[spenspuma]

Hi Southpaw...

Sorry to hear of your paintwork troubles


You got yourself some decent kit there so you should be fine with what youve got..(when youve picked your Clay bar that is....thieving scrotes arent they!!!)

Okay, as has been said earlier, claying is a doddle......but you can do more damage than good IF you dont do it correctly....there are 3 main pointers i would give to using clay:-

1) If your claying in cold weather then make sure you warm the clay bar up first by kneeding it in your palms...as it needs to be a little bit soft to do what its designed to
2) make sure you use plenty of the quick detailer spray as a clay lube-if you dont, then you might end up marring the paintwork and leaving yourself an even bigger problem.
3) Always fold the clay bar INWARDS in half when youve covered each panel, this way youll always end up with a clean side....(PS..NEVER use a clay bar thats been dropped on the floor, youll scratch your paintwork like mad)


You mentioned ScratchX, this product is very very good but only really for doing small areas as you really do need to work it into the paintwork to get rid of fine scratches....If you think your going to be able to do the whole car in a day then....good luck to you!!...youll have arms like Arnie by the time youve finished!!....If i were you i would only do the very worst areas of swirls you have OR buy yourself a Porter Cable and take the strain out of the workload!!

For getting rid of the paint spots i would have said your best bet would have been to buy Meguiars Deep Crystal Stage 1 (Paint cleaner) this would be perfect for that job.

Shampoo??...i personally use Megs NXT SHampoo, but to be honest ANY half decent make of car shampoo should do....its really what waxes and polishes you use that will give you your nice glossy finish.

Megs DC2 (the one you purchased) is quite a good polish...you wont go far wrong with that one

WAX....In my experience choosing what wax you buy is predominantly down to what colour your car is...you mentioned Megs #16, but unless your Puma is Black or Red then i wouldnt use it...if you use #16 on Silver it 'may' dull the metallic flake (it did on my Grey Thunder anyway!!)......The best ALL ROUND wax if ever used is called CHEMICAL GUYS XXX WAX...its just so easy to use-easy on/off and gives amazing results...its only £13 too!!!...ive tried £40 waxes and this compares admirably...The DC3 youve purchased should do fine though.

There you go then, just my 2 penneths worth!!!........i can now go and drink me cup of tea!!

[southpaw]

Thanks Spens Better late than never Only joking!

I'll hopefully be working in warm conditions - closed garage with 2 fan heaters going might kind of keep me a bit warm... I don't plan on doing the whole car with the Scratch X, just the front end (bonnet, front bumper and front wings), and the rear bumper as well. Then I'll polish and wax the whole car...assuming my arms don't fall off...

Halfords didn't have any DC1 or I would have got some (sodding useless store! ) and I'd have preferred Megs #16 (my cars black metallic, can't get my avatar to upload properly atm though!) but again, DC3 was the only thing Halfords had in (huge store as well, and of course the staff knew the square root of sod all...). I couldn't even find any on eBay last night...

Thanks for the help Went back to Halfords and got a clay bar by the way

One more quick question for anyone that knows - my back bumper has a very bad paint finish, I think its either got a very thin layer or no lacquer on it, and the orange peel is awful (dodgy repair job I reckon ) so might a clay bar/polish/wax make this look any better or might it make it worse? I'll go easy on the area anyway, but need to check if I should avoid it totally?

You guys are great

This post has been edited by southpaw: 28 November 2006 - 08:15 PM

[spenspuma]

I wouldnt clay your rear bumper where the orange peeling is...you may end up taking some of the paint off if its cracked!!

[southpaw]

The paint isn't actually cracked, just looks very dull , especially when compared to the shiny arch next to it.

[southpaw]

Spens, one more quick question. Do I Scratch X then clay, or clay then Scratch X?

Have you thought about writing guides on this and having them adding them to the knowledge base so you don't have to keep repeating yourself? I had to ask as most of the previous posts on this kind of thing are missing at the moment.

Oh, and I'm going to speak to my neighbour tonight, might have the rear bumper resprayed (at their/their decorators cost!) as I'm not happy with claying it. It needs to be reprayed anyway, I just can't afford it atm

Thanks for all the help so far

[spenspuma]

Spens, one more quick question. Do I Scratch X then clay, or clay then Scratch X?

Personally i would clay first, then ScratchX.

Have you thought about writing guides on this and having them adding them to the knowledge base so you don't have to keep repeating yourself?

Im certainly no expert, im sure there are others out there more knowledgable on the subject of car cleaning than me. Most of my knowledge comes from trial and error of purchasing vast amounts of detailing products to try and get the 'perfect shine'....And after spending a good few hundred pounds in the past 18 months ive finally found what combination works best for my car colour.


Let us know how you get on with your claying/polishing/waxing.....and dont forget to post some pics