Clay Bar

[JBT]

Now ... I definitely have swirls/spiderwebs, does clay get rid of this? or does a quality wax?

None of these will remove swirls 1red5. You'll need a swirl remover at least but clay the car first. You may need to use a random orbital buffer with swirl remover to get rid of them. Have a look through that link to Autopia that I posted earlier in this thread.

[Ajay]

i use Mothers Gold Clay Bar System.. comes with the quick detailer (spray) and then the clay.. very very effective..
http://www.waxit.com.au/proddetail.asp? ... 7240&cat=3
and the smell is awesome too

for a quick detail also use the Carnauba wax.. (some of you may have seen me doing this quick detail from BigDog's video from the sydney dodgy day)

TIP: cut the clay bar is half and wrap one part in cling wrap.. you dont need the whole bar and this keeps one part perfect so when your other part dies you can start over.. eventually all the impurities in the paint are all through the clay

i ABSOLUTELTY love the clay bar and it does make a massive difference..

[Jimmy]

I grabbed the Meguires Clay Bar kit today to see what all the fuss is about. Will be using it first thing tomoz.

[TieNN89]

make sure you wax the car afterwards

[nick viner]

I have been looking at all the claying messages and am confused.
Wax it looks like the goods.
Got the clay bit but what do I go with to follow up.
I have two cars to do. First off, I bought a dark blue peugeot which had low kms. but lots of Sydney fallout on the paint. This was before I ever knew about clay and I buffed it with a wool buff. I has bad swirl marks now in the sun.
Second car is an mx5 titanium with very good paint.I want to clay this too so as to start a good polish scheme.
I have used meguiars carnubia on both but will start again. Do I use prepsol to strip the wax already on the cars? and how do I remove the swirls on the pug.
I have a four litre bottle of clear cut and access to a proper polisher with foam and lambswool heads.
Is there a better polish to use as the meguiars seems to be a dust magnet.
Any advice would be good Cheers Nick

[philz]

You don't need to use prepsol to remove wax, you can use dishwashing detergent.

Once that is done, wash the car, claybar, polish, wax

To PROPERLY removed swirls.

You will need to use two compounds of polish, an abrasive cut, a fine cut, and specific pads on an RO.
Also it depends on how deep the swirls are as well.

You won't be able to remove swirl marks properly by hand.

edit: forgot to add wash the car after detergent

[nick viner]

Thanks Philz

[Benny]

Another thing that clay bars are good for, is to clean up your windscreen.

You can just use soapy water instead of Quick Detailer.
Put some slightly soapy water on the screen then use rub the clay bar all over it to remove some of those hard to remove marks of the glass like overspray, hard bugs and pollutants.

Does a great job.

If you wash your car and then gently rub the windscreen, and you can feel little gritty bits stuck to the glass, try using the clay bar to remove these gritty bits and it will come up as smooth as a baby's you-know-what.

[philz]

Good idea Benny, Ive been actively using a claybar on the car's paintwork, but forgot about the windscreen.

I'm gonna go do it now

[Juffa]

Just one of warning for the uninitiated.

A fellow Vic Club member and previous member of this forum was using a clay bar on his pristine 5. The clay bar picked up some grit and he had not rotated the bar as often as he should have. Long story short, he had to have the car re-sprayed.....the scrathes were down to the metal in a few places.

I have used a clay bar on my 5 a couple of times. Follow the instructions, keep the surface contacting the car clean and you will be fine.

J

[feel_ixx]

Clay sorta works by sticking to all this dirt and tar that gets set onto your car, its not a protectant but a cleanser. Normal washing with a bucket + soap + sponge will get 90% of the dirties off, but the micro dirt and other things that are stuck on hard can only be removed with a clay bar. I tried this liquid clay bar thing I bought from Repco, but I would have to say the solid ones are a lot better. After you clay bar the car, it should feel very smooth, then thats when you wax it to ensure that your car is protected in future. I dont think you need to clay bar your car everytime you wash it but once in a while is good for your paint.

*edit* oh wow I just realised there was a second page to this thread. Well I just wasted 5 minutes of my life.

[Wivvix]

I've used the meguiars clay-bar detailing kit. It's excellent for getting rid of tree sap and orange peel. It does take a while though, and your arm will probably be dead by the end of it, but at least your paint will look excellent