Nor is it Brain Science. It is a simple process of removing containment's from painted surfaces. Clay comes in what looks to be a bar of soap. It's ability to remove containment's depends on how course/abrasive/more PRO it is. On it's own, IT WILL NOT HARM YOUR PAINT. So you go to your local car kind of store, and buy the regular guy clay/lube and head home to tackle some smudge/slim/nasty. Take the clay bar, and tear off a corner, size of twice your thumb. Spray lube[provided] and start gentle rubbing the area of need. You will notice that the clay will not be blue/pink/white/red, but take on a dirty look. This is good, and not much else will clean this deep. Do a few swipes, and "KNEED" the clay, folding the grim/dirt in, and exposing new clay, and repeat until no new clay shows up. Tear off another corner, and keep going as needed, till the contaminant is gone. Here is the main difference between regular clay, and a PRO type. The PRO type will work faster, not better. So with the regular guy clay 50 strokes may be needed to remove a problem, the PRO takes 25. More or less. Yeah, lots of options, but there is no better"cleaner" of your paint. The Whole MINI So, your getting ready to do a full detail. Means cleaning/prepping paint/cleaning/washing wheels/cleaning/engine bay cleaning/prepping paint/prepping paint/ claying the whole surface of the car. This is the fun part Wash the car/dry. Spray either the lube provided, or a soapy mix of water/soap, work the clay bar in multiple directions. Use the short hairs on the back of your hand to feel how soft/smooth it gets. Or a baggy Mark
So what would be considered the regular clay, and what is the pro kind? Because I will buy anything that makes my work easier.
You can't buy the pro kind at a store that doesn't cater to pros, so you don't really have to worry. The products will be labeled as such. I sell and prefer Meguiar's C2000 mild clay which is a professional clay that works more effectively than their consumer clay. It also costs more but comes in a bar twice the size as the consumer clay. On some soft paints, this clay will mar it and thus needs to be polished afterwards, something that a pro has no problem taking care of. Pro Clay http://showcarsupplies.com/shopdisplayproducts.asp?Search=Yes&sppp=10 I shot a video on using clay earlier this week, editing it as we speak and will link it to this thread soon. Richard
Having a slight delay....I had the brilliant idea of consolidating 600GBs of video clips onto an external hard drive to get it off my laptop, only to find that drive become unreadable a few months later. Fortunately I bought some tools that are recovering the data, but really need to dedicate a desktop for this work as its estimated to take a week to recover the drive, lol. Will be up soon regardless. Richard
So I have a 'duh' question. If I use QD to lube the clay and paint surface, all that dried up QD is on the paint before I apply Epic. Is that a problem? If so what should I be doing differently?
You should be wiping the panel dry after each section clayed. This way you can inspect the dry paint to see if you're done claying. You also don't need to rewash the car as some people do which is totally unnecessary IMO.
Has never been an issue, but before I start to polish/wax, I spritz alcohol on and wipe off anything left. Because I'm cheap, when claying a whole car, I use soapy water as the lube, mixed with about twice as much soap as I would use to wash a car. I rinse this mixture off as I finish an area. In this case an "area" would be about 2 sq.feet, or half the bonnet, 1/4 of the roof, a door,etc... Mark
This stuff is da' bomb! I tried some of the over the counter stuff from the auto parts store and it would fall apart and get on the MF cloth and was very dififcult to get off the MF (Causing much anxiety of adding scratches back in where I just spent a ton of time polishing out). This stuff?....... Forgeddabout it!
Claying the car is the only way to go, makes the wax last longer. Oh what a feeling when your done too!
You were claying after polishing? That seems odd to me. What's that all about? Moving on, I use 50/50 Slick/distilled water as clay lube. Works well and costs half as much as straight Slick. I've used Clay Magic, Sonus and OG's Meguiar's clay. Sonus is a definite no - too sticky and ineffective. I remember Clay Magic working well, but OG was selling Meguiar's so that's what I have now. Works well, even on dreaded boot schmutz.
Maybe I wasn't clear Using the California Gold, I think it was, the clay would break up as I was working it and little bits would get stuck in the MF towel that I was using to wipe the area down after claying it Despite a machine wash I noticed that the chunks of clay were still in the MF towel after I was using it on my just polished car to put on some Hydro :incazzato:. Not sure on the damage but certainly took that clay off my list.
I have never tried clay but have been thinking about it for awhile. Thanks, lotsie, for the concise instructions. I have a question that someone might know (otherwise I guess I'll just jump in and try it on my own): How does claying affect vinyl and pinstriping (which is just really skinny vinyl)? I wouldn't target the vinyl on purpose, but on my car it's kind of hard to miss.
I picked up a Megs claybar kit at Wally world, less than 20 bucks, included 2 clay bars and bottle of quick detailer, works well. As far as claying vinyl no problem, just be careful if you have somekind of vinyl pinstripe, it could lift the ends around door edges.