Can't Touch This

pfix

pfix

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My new GG polisher and HT low profile pads arrived yesterday so I decided to get a start on the old hunting truck this afternoon. Washed it up good and then clayed the paint and got some really nasty dirt off of the paint.

The paint felt totally smooth to the touch but the baggy revealed that the paint still felt like sand paper. I used PB clay with ONR for the lube.

I worked one half of the hood until my arm was ready to fall off with minimal improvement. The PB clay just wont pull the crap off the paint.

Is Clay Magic more aggressive than the PB clay? I can buy it locally but I don't want to spend the money if it is not going to be an improvement over the PB clay. Do body shop supply stores carry a more aggressive clay?

The truck has been out in the weather for the last 10 years and has never been clayed.
 
Check to see which Clay Magic clay they have. There's different grades of clay.
 
Clay Magic Medium Grade should compare to the PB clay you were using. There are aggressive clays, but those tend to leave micro-marring on paint surfaces. Unless you are prepared to remove this, I wouldn't try an aggressive clay.

Don't fret! If the contamination is bad enough it will take a lot of effort to remove. I have used 100g of clay doing just the sides of an SUV, and it took me 3 hrs. I can only imagine what you have to deal with. However, the results of claying are always worth it. The paint will look better, and wax will last longer.
 
aerogt01 said:
Clay Magic Medium Grade should compare to the PB clay you were using. There are aggressive clays, but those tend to leave micro-marring on paint surfaces. Unless you are prepared to remove this, I wouldn't try an aggressive clay.

Don't fret! If the contamination is bad enough it will take a lot of effort to remove. I have used 100g of clay doing just the sides of an SUV, and it took me 3 hrs. I can only imagine what you have to deal with. However, the results of claying are always worth it. The paint will look better, and wax will last longer.
Click to expand...

I am getting ready to buff the entire truck. I am not worried about the micro marring. It will be gone when I am done.
 
I would search around for some aggressive clay. Not sure where it stacks up, but the DP clay works great for me. If you want something else try the Meg's aggressive clay.
 
When you say buff:
What products do you plan on using?
What kind of 'buffer' do you have?
- Rotary
- Dual-Action
- Orbital

The reason I ask is you will need at least a dual action polisher with foam pads and a medium-cut polish to remove any marring caused by aggressive clay. A Sears orbital (a.k.a. wax spreader) won't do it. I prefer to spend more time claying than add an extra polishing step.

That being said, Meguiar's makes an aggressive clay available here:
Meguiars Professional Detailing Clay Aggressive
Most likely your local store will only carry the medium and fine grades of Clay Magic, which are not as aggressive as this.

EDIT: Just read you other post about buying a DA and pads. Welcome to a healthy addiction! ;)
 
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snowking724 said:
I would search around for some aggressive clay. Not sure where it stacks up, but the DP clay works great for me. If you want something else try the Meg's aggressive clay.
Click to expand...

I will make a stop at the local auto parts store that caters to the body shops and see if they have anything that would help.
 
aerogt01 said:
When you say buff:
What products do you plan on using?
What kind of 'buffer' do you have?
- Rotary
- Dual-Action
- Orbital

The reason I ask is you will need at least a dual action polisher with foam pads and a medium-cut polish to remove any marring caused by aggressive clay. A Sears orbital (a.k.a. wax spreader) won't do it. I prefer to spend more time claying than add an extra polishing step.

That being said, Meguiar's makes an aggressive clay available here:
Meguiars Professional Detailing Clay Aggressive
Most likely your local store will only carry the medium and fine grades of Clay Magic, which are not as aggressive as this.
Click to expand...

GG DA polisher with 5 1/2" HT low profile pads, Cyan and Tang. Products will be Optimum Spay Compound and Optimum Spray Polish
 
Good choice of products! Good luck with your truck. Be sure to place before/after pics so we can see it!

:)
 
I would try the regular (Blue) Clay Magic first. I have used several of them and the CM always works best. Clay Magic owns the patent and they are the real deal.
 
The blue is the fine grade. I have used the medium and found it to be similar to Meguiar's mild clay. The OP said the PB regular clay wasn't working for him, which I would also assume to be similar to Meg's mild.
 
pfix said:
My new GG polisher and HT low profile pads arrived yesterday so I decided to get a start on the old hunting truck this afternoon. Washed it up good and then clayed the paint and got some really nasty dirt off of the paint.

The paint felt totally smooth to the touch but the baggy revealed that the paint still felt like sand paper. I used PB clay with ONR for the lube.

I worked one half of the hood until my arm was ready to fall off with minimal improvement. The PB clay just wont pull the crap off the paint.

Is Clay Magic more aggressive than the PB clay? I can buy it locally but I don't want to spend the money if it is not going to be an improvement over the PB clay. Do body shop supply stores carry a more aggressive clay?

The truck has been out in the weather for the last 10 years and has never been clayed.
Click to expand...

If I can offer a suggestion.

If you are having problems with clay, try a little mineral spirits, and wipe down a small section before you get heavy with the aggressive clay. One of the guys got something on his Vette recently and clay wouldn't touch it. IPA wouldn't touch it but MS took it off quickly. If you have heavy sap on your paint, IPA may dissolve it while clay may take you forever.

I've found that I am better off using a bug and tar remover before clay if I have tar on the paint. I check around the lower body panels before claying.

If the MS doesn't help, then move onto the more aggressive clay. If it does help, you may save yourself some marred paint and a few hours of work.
 
aerogt01 said:
The blue is the fine grade. I have used the medium and found it to be similar to Meguiar's mild clay. The OP said the PB regular clay wasn't working for him, which I would also assume to be similar to Meg's mild.
Click to expand...
I don't assume anything. I deal with what I know works. We should always try to use the least aggressive product that works. In this case stickier might work better than more abrasive. :xyxthumbs:
 
Kurt_s said:
If I can offer a suggestion.

If you are having problems with clay, try a little mineral spirits, and wipe down a small section before you get heavy with the aggressive clay. One of the guys got something on his Vette recently and clay wouldn't touch it. IPA wouldn't touch it but MS took it off quickly. If you have heavy sap on your paint, IPA may dissolve it while clay may take you forever.

I've found that I am better off using a bug and tar remover before clay if I have tar on the paint. I check around the lower body panels before claying.

If the MS doesn't help, then move onto the more aggressive clay. If it does help, you may save yourself some marred paint and a few hours of work.
Click to expand...

Thanks Kurt. I will try the mineral spirits first since it is about 1/2 the cost of the Clay Magic Kit or a more aggressive clay if I can source it locally.

If I cant remove the contaminants from the paint entirely, will they abrade my pads or is there a concern that the contaminant particles will dislodge during the polishing process and scratch the paint?
 
pfix said:
If I cant remove the contaminants from the paint entirely, will they abrade my pads or is there a concern that the contaminant particles will dislodge during the polishing process and scratch the paint?
Click to expand...

Sometimes, the little bumps could be the paint itself, as in a shoddy paint job or imperfections in the paint from wear-n-tear...

Clay the paint as good as you can, sometimes you may even want to shrink the size of your work area down and investing in some aggressive clay may be the best approach.

Chemically stripping can help too... some times it's a trial and error process to figure out an approach that works best and different types of contaminants will come off with different types of chemicals/solutions, (MS, IPA, APC, etc).

Once you've given it your best shot their comes a point where you just have to start polishing. Foam pads on DA machines will tend to glide over little bumps on the surface, depending upon the abrasives in the product you're using and the pad you're using, it is possible to abrade anything on the surface the clay didn't remove, you won't know till you try.

This is another reason why it's a good idea to do a Test Spot to one area and then after going through your process to this one area, re-inspect the paint in the area you worked on as compared to an area you have not worked on and you should be able to determine if the paint is now smooth.

In most cases, if you're doing a heavy correction step first, any contaminants that come off... "if" they are then ground into the paint as a part of the correction step, the next polishing step should remove any of these marks.

Another good reason to,

  • Clean your pad often
  • Alway wipe off spent residue before applying fresh product

Give it a shot and post back here what you find out...


:)
 
for an aggressive clay you need RED clay magic. It works fantastic but it will marr dark colors .
 
I use a bunch of that Blue CM clay.... it usually does a great job but I do keep some of the Meg's aggressive (red) clay on hand for heavier contamination on rocker panels/etc.
 
Mike.Phillips@Autogeek said:
Sometimes, the little bumps could be the paint itself, as in a shoddy paint job or imperfections in the paint from wear-n-tear...

Clay the paint as good as you can, sometimes you may even want to shrink the size of your work area down and investing in some aggressive clay may be the best approach.

Chemically stripping can help too... some times it's a trial and error process to figure out an approach that works best and different types of contaminants will come off with different types of chemicals/solutions, (MS, IPA, APC, etc).

Once you've given it your best shot their comes a point where you just have to start polishing. Foam pads on DA machines will tend to glide over little bumps on the surface, depending upon the abrasives in the product you're using and the pad you're using, it is possible to abrade anything on the surface the clay didn't remove, you won't know till you try.

This is another reason why it's a good idea to do a Test Spot to one area and then after going through your process to this one area, re-inspect the paint in the area you worked on as compared to an area you have not worked on and you should be able to determine if the paint is now smooth.

In most cases, if you're doing a heavy correction step first, any contaminants that come off... "if" they are then ground into the paint as a part of the correction step, the next polishing step should remove any of these marks.

Another good reason to,

  • Clean your pad often
  • Alway wipe off spent residue before applying fresh product

Give it a shot and post back here what you find out...


:)
Click to expand...

Thanks Mike, I had some Acry-Solve body shop pre-sand solvent so I decided to give that a try before purchasing the Mineral Spirits. The solvent removed a good portion of what I was feeling with the baggie test.

I decided that was good enough for the old truck and I started to polish. First test section I used a Cyan 5 1/2" HT low profile and the hyper polish. Hyper Polish removed some of the defects but it was clear I needed to kick it up a notch. I then switched to Hyper Compound but not before the trigger sprayer on the bottle broke into pieces.

I installed a new spray nozzle from one of my Zep empty bottles (not ideal with this compound but it works) and did another pass at speed 5 and got 80 to 90 percent correction in my estimation. I am happy with that. Very low dust, easy to work with and finishes out very nice.

After completing several passes on 5 I decided to try speed 6 and wow! there is a big difference in speed and rotation power on 6. I could put some real pressure on the machine and still maintain rotation.

More work to do. Better get to it.
 
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