Best soap to strip all coatings?
- Thread starter Jon K
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Rmd
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- Dec 27, 2012
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I've used the CG red in my foam master. I sprayed the car, let it dwell for about 5 min, then rinsed off. Then I foamed it again and 2bm washed, cleaning the mitt in clean bucket with grit guard. I don't bother with a bucket of soap solution because I spray out more soap solution from the foam master on each panel as i go along. I get a ton of suds out of a couple of ounces of Red in the foam master; enough to soap it once, rinse it, soap it again, and keep wetting it with more soap as I proceed with the mitt. Works well for me when I want to take off lsp and play with new wax or sealant.
I don't really have the option of letting it dwell much more than 5 min or so without it starting to dry because its almost always warm and dry weather here in SoCal.
I don't really have the option of letting it dwell much more than 5 min or so without it starting to dry because its almost always warm and dry weather here in SoCal.
swanicyouth
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- Mar 3, 2011
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I don't think there is a soap that can strip coatings. Some have to be polished off (OptiCoat). What good would a coating be that can be removed with a soap? You can't always remove all sealants with a soap.
Lol, I just finished reading your thread comparing sealant durability.
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum...ock-blackhole-wolfgang-dgps-blackfire-wd.html
I guess your answer should be Meg's Hot Rims Chrome Wheel Cleaner...looks like that'll do it,lol.
Thanks for that comparison btw. I know it wasn't super scientific, but still, good job! I learned something from that thread.
Lost Highway
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- Sep 23, 2011
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+1 to swanicyouth's comments. Even to strip durable waxes or sealants strong shampoo mixes generally won't get it done, popular misconceptions and marketing claims not withstanding. Most of the new coatings, once cured, have to be mechanically polished (abraded) off although a few have proven weak against some stronger alkaline cleaners.
There are a host of new cleaners that have recently appeared on the market as prep for coatings because they demand such surgically clean surfaces: Gtechniq Panel Wipe, Duragloss Squeaky Clean, Orchard Auto Care Luminos, Optimum has one in development, etc. It should be noted, however, that these are only designed to remove polish residue, waxes and sealants to prep the surface NOT to remove the coatings themselves. There are also older "bigger hammer" cleaners like deodorized mineral spirits, ValuGard New Car Prep, DuPont Spies-Heckler 7010 Permaloid, etc. which should remove waxes and sealants.
And another one to that sentiment - neutral and moderate pH surfactant products won't strip and half decent LSP. I have argued the science of this elsewhere. In summary, surfactants are sticky and leave residues, some more than others. Any of the surfactant products which I have tried which claim to strip do nothing more than coat the LSP with a hydrophillic surfactant layer which hides the beading/sheeting. This finish is unsuitable for subsequent application of LSPs (they will be compromised badly). This can often be demonstrated by repeated rinsing and or even an IPA wipe - the beading will return.
Stripping requires a significant level of alkalinity and/or solvents (particularly non-polar solvents with high solvency, e.g. mineral spirits and stronger). If you manage to do it with less, best contact your LSP manufacturer and ask why their product is so fragile!
Stripping requires a significant level of alkalinity and/or solvents (particularly non-polar solvents with high solvency, e.g. mineral spirits and stronger). If you manage to do it with less, best contact your LSP manufacturer and ask why their product is so fragile!
If you what you say is true and I have no reason to believe it isn`t, then why do we have so many people that say most all of the waxes/sealants one can buy don`t last very long? 2 to 6 or 8 weeks except for some of the new paint coatings which last longer.
Based on your theory they should last a very long time in the light that practically nothing will remove them, outside of polishing them off.
KBsToy
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- Jul 4, 2011
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I just did my wifes van with CG. Followed directions on bottle and it worked fine. There was not alot of LSP on van. The only thing the van got after wash was Lucas spray wax when drying.
theblob640
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- Mar 4, 2013
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For those that recommend Dawn to strip your car, is there a reason why you choose Dawn instead of other dishwashing liquids? Seems like everyone who uses a dishwashing liquid uses Dawn. I use Palmolive and was wondering if that is fine too?
I can't comment on all products but I don't find CG Citrus W&G to strip. It is tough to rinse off but it is designed to be - the gloss enhancers are specifically intended to be surface substantive, if they weren't, they would wash straight off and you wouldn't have any gloss.
I am not saying that coatings will not be degraded to an extent, but they will not strip with the ease people suggest. I don't know all the products people use but this is supposedly the high end of car care so I am assuming that the products are not useless. My experience is that I apply and strip products, on a daily basis, because we formulate them and have to test. As I have said elsewhere, even the QDs will not be removed by fairy (our equivalent of dawn hand wash liquid). Move onto the sealants and even strongly alkaline cleaners (e.g. neat APCs) will often not be effective. IPA does't reliably do it and is often useful for removing the residues which hide the LSP (so it can recover performance!). The most reliable way to strip is the heavy hydrocarbon solvent route (e.g. panel wipe) but even this will often not succeed if you have a polymer film as your protection.
The other possibility is that these products do work as many think but the LSPs we make are light years ahead of others (much as I wish that was true, it isnt!). In terms of durability, 2 weeks is scandalous! You should get that sort of performance out of wash and wax and QD products. Going further depends on your wash regime. Whilst wash products often won't strip, they will degrade to some extent. If a wash product strips 10% of your protection, it def wont take it all off in one go, but 10 washes down the line and there won't be much left. The whole 'LSP safe' thing is just a much a myth as dawn stripping. If a product is an effective cleaner, it will degrade a wax or traditional LSP to some extent. If it did not, it wouldn't be a very effective cleaner! Cleaning products cannot be classified as black and white - they are shades of grey with different products having differing degrees of harshness. The problem is that, even in this high end arena, there is nowhere near enough accurate information to ascertain which products are harsh and which are not (not least when you consider that the simple matter of surfactant films is, more or less, unknown!).
Lost Highway
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- Sep 23, 2011
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I'd be curious to know which waxes and sealants are being reported as only lasting two to eight weeks and where? IME there are a few show waxes whose look is gone after a few weeks or less but they are the rare exception. There are quite a number of waxes and sealants that reliably last fifteen weeks or more for me on daily driven and often not garaged vehicles. I should note, however, that I am in a relatively low temperature and low UV environment but we do have a considerable amount of precipitation and our rain tends to be slightly acidic (pH 5).
The more durable coatings like Opti-Coat should last multiple years.
Lost Highway
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- Sep 23, 2011
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Zaino has recommended Dawn for years which is probably where that came from but other dishwashing liquids should be equally effective or ineffective as is more likely the case. Zaino currently recommends Dawn followed by claying and their AIO and/or Fuzion paint cleaner (both of which contain abrasives) to strip and prepare the surface, not Dawn alone.