Who’s still uses a clay bar/decon towel?

2wookies

2wookies

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When I do a full on paint correction followed by either a sealant or ceramic coating I haven’t been doing a mechanical decon. My process is Iron X entire car, let dwell while doing wheels and tires. I then rinse car and follow with Iron X snow foam, let dwell then rinse and finally hand wash vehicle. While snow foam is sitting I’ll hit front bumper hood and side mirrors with a bug scrubbing media.

I haven’t noticed any side effects doing this method, what are your thoughts?
 
2wookies said:
When I do a full on paint correction followed by either a sealant or ceramic coating I haven’t been doing a mechanical decon. My process is Iron X entire car, let dwell while doing wheels and tires. I then rinse car and follow with Iron X snow foam, let dwell then rinse and finally hand wash vehicle. While snow foam is sitting I’ll hit front bumper hood and side mirrors with a bug scrubbing media.

I haven’t noticed any side effects doing this method, what are your thoughts?
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I definitely still use clay. Hard to say "full on paint correction" without mechanical decontamination imo.
 
2wookies said:
When I do a full on paint correction followed by either a sealant or ceramic coating I haven’t been doing a mechanical decon. My process is Iron X entire car, let dwell while doing wheels and tires. I then rinse car and follow with Iron X snow foam, let dwell then rinse and finally hand wash vehicle. While snow foam is sitting I’ll hit front bumper hood and side mirrors with a bug scrubbing media.

I haven’t noticed any side effects doing this method, what are your thoughts?
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Are you machine polishing after this?
 
Definitely using it. Iron X only gets the iron particles, there’s a lot more that can be there. Maybe at least do the baggie test to see if clay bar is necessary.
 
I still use a clay bar. Initially I was using nano skin sponges but had some issues with marring so I went back to old reliable.
 
Ed Abbondanzio said:
I still use a clay bar. Initially I was using nano skin sponges but had some issues with marring so I went back to old reliable.
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The Nano's marred more than clay? I have not had this experience.

However, I never clay (or Nano, GG brilliant shine disc) without polishing afterward. Making the marring a non-factor.
 
My nano skin sponge does marr a decent amount. The problem with it is that it’s not very stable and is easy to tip when dragging it, if the side drags it leaves marring behind. The disc is much less prone to that because it’s flat and won’t tip over when dragging. Only issue with that one is it’s big and doesn’t fit everywhere.

I would use clay if it stayed on my hand and if i could just rinse it in case I dropped it :)
 
BSoares said:
I would use clay if it stayed on my hand and if i could just rinse it in case I dropped it :)
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I taped mine to my hand.

That's how I got that cool "racing stripe" on my hood....... ;)
 
PaulMys said:
The Nano's marred more than clay? I have not had this experience.

However, I never clay (or Nano, GG brilliant shine disc) without polishing afterward. Making the marring a non-factor.
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Yeah, on cars with soft paint (looking at you Subaru), and especially those with a lot of contaminants in the paint. I think nano skin is faster than clay, but the vehicles I tend to get are more on the neglected side so clay works better for me.
 
PaulMys said:
The Nano's marred more than clay? I have not had this experience.
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Fo sho

I get asked on this forum about my thoughts on traditional clay versus clay substitutes and my answer is,

If I know or think the paint is soft - I use a fine grade clay and lots of lube - even knowing I'm going to machine polish. I don't need the hassles, the risks of scratching the hell out of the paint nor do I want to invest more time into buffing out the paint. I have a write-up or two with Maserati's and Porsche's where I chose clay over clay towel just for theses reasons.

I recently shared this picture which shows Clay Towel Haze

Mike Phillips said:
Clay Haze or Clay Towel Haze = Marring from the claying process

If you look at the areas I circled in yellow - this is called clay haze or clay marring only in this case it's Clay Towel Haze as I switched to a clay towel after using traditional clay on the hood. I used the traditional clay because I wanted to see if any color came off the car.

1967_Vette_028_Clay_Marring.JPG
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And the paint was soft on this car. I switched over to the clay towel in this instance because the paint was already trashed and I needed speed over carefulness. I also ended up compounding the entire car to remove 44 years of oxidization, water spotting and swirls and scratches.

Here's the full write-up.

1976 Corvette Original Single Stage Paint - Paint Correction and Waxing




PaulMys said:
However, I never clay (or Nano, GG brilliant shine disc) without polishing afterward. Making the marring a non-factor.
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This is my normal rule or I won't clay the car and probably won't take on the job.

If I'm going to use detailing clay or any type of clay substitute - I'm already factoring in at least ONE machine polishing step to ENSURE any marring is removed.



:)
 
I still use a clay bar.....if the paint is soft, I have Griots clay, which I find to be on the very mild side. If not, I have 3M clay, which I think is more aggressive. I'm always amazed at what these clay bars pick up
 
For me:
Claying a vehicle is done by using
Auto-Clay (bars), not decon-towels.

Furthermore:
My decision to Clay, or not, is still
determined by the results of the
good ol’ ”Baggie Test” (<—MP).



Bob
 
FUNX650 said:
determined by the results of the
good ol’ ”Baggie Test” (<—MP).



Bob
Click to expand...

Is this test only possible after emptying said baggie of say, government-sanctioned medical "herbs"?
 
Paul/Bob - that was hilarious.

OP, I still clay. I like claying, helps me bond w my car :).
 
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