The Alchemist

iTrader: (19)

I agree with you Joe about using multiple new products, so what's your take on the Menzerna?

Also, I totally agree about different clay bars. I used the mother's for a while and was satisfied, then tried the BlackFire Poly Clay II and was very impressed and tossed the Mother's one.

The Alchemist

iTrader: (19)

To be honest, I only started getting into the multiple step cleaning proccess when I bought my car back in 2000. At the time, I was using Mother's three step proccess after I had claybar'd the car of course.
Then I stepped up and bought a Porter cable and a couple different pads and noticed another big difference in outcome. I was pretty content with the quality since the car is pewter and it's hard to tell the difference and I really couldn't see any swirl marks as well.

Then last summer my wife got a new Saab 9-7x in black and I thought the Mother's and porter cable would be able to take care of the factory swirl marks and was dissapointed. Did some research, talk to some people, actually looked at vehicles while they were being polished and ended up getting the Menzerna kit. I've been extremely pleased with it's results on the Saab, and the T/A has stepped up another level in shine and depth, not quite like the black, but still better.

Maybe when it comes time to re-order I may try a different final wax or sealant, but we'll see. Any recommendations?

PurEvl

iTrader: (2)

We are actually playing with the meguires nxt line right now and its actually doing a really good job on my black cobalt. We are going to go all steps on my camaro this weekend with joes porter. I would be curious how you like p21s...i was really really impressed with just using the cleaner and the wax and nothing else. It was half the time of zaino and looked and lasted twice as long...there wheel cleaner is the ***** too

Rhode Island Red

iTrader: (2)

The Alchemist

- Good Info. I'm not say Zaino is the end-all-beat all, Just for my purposes it works really as well as a vast amount of car nuts (for me its under a car cover most of time with evil bobcat mutants munching on mice on/under vehicle). Wax ain't the end-all-beat all either. I just call shenanigans as I've yet to see at a car show where zaino didn't outshine on a realtively new car and the board was slow today anyways - we needed a good debate !

Joe any experience with the zaino cay bar? doesnt fall apart and only streaks when metal is under hot sun in the 90's. Just have to have strong hands to fold it. I've had good luck with it... I've tried the Meguairs version - it sucked .

Joe "Preachers Sheets" DIESO

iTrader: (4)

Menzerna is a polymer, not a wax like P21S.

http://www.topoftheline.com/menzerna-car-care.html

They have been around for a while but haven't been used in the states heavily until this past year. I hear alot of things, some bad some good. I don't know if it's the idiot using the stuff or the product itself. Only a few guys I have talked to used it and all of them aside from one went back to other stuff or said it was good and moved on to something else. It’s just one more product I have to try.

There is so much to choose from:

Clearkote
Poorboys
4 Star
Platinum
Blackfire
Klasse
Zaino
Mothers
Meguiars
Menzerna
Pinnacle
Sonus
Blitz
P21S
Zymol

Unless you’ve used 75% of that list I don’t think people like Cheesy have the right to tell people what to use because they just don’t know. Yea, people glance at his car now but he would get more attention is he used better stuff.

The picture Mike posted is just two coats of P21S wax spread 15 minutes apart. The shine came from the P21S but the clear was cut just enough to make it look like it was brand new. When I was done with that car I couldn’t find any swirls, not even in the sun. Like Mike said we are just using the everyday Meguiars line, the Deep Crystal stage 1 polish and stage two cleaner/glaze then we will use the NXT liquid wax and NXT spray liquid wax in place of the NXT quick detailer. This weekend I am going to run through this:

Clay with Clay Magic
Meguiars Deep Cyrstal stage 1
Meguiars Deep Cyrystal stage 2
Meguiars show car glaze (just because it's a straight glaze, not a two in one product. I just need to max sure there isnt any fillers or oil in it)
Meguiars liquid NXT wax
Meguiars spray NXT wax
Meguiars Final Inspection quick detail (if I have time)

I wouldnt recommend a wax until I try this new Meguiars setup but if you want a wax, I'd get P21S. It's used in alot of Concour shows, last a long time and if the car is prep'd, the shine cant be beaten (at least by anything else I have). For Sealents, I like Klasse and the Sonus acryllic sealent spray.

Joe "Preachers Sheets" DIESO

iTrader: (4)

The Zaino bar is fine, doesn’t streak even in 100 degree heat, just use a buck of soapy water and re-dip every so many passes. When you go to a car show you can see someone who compounds and polishes their car then uses a tub of shitty wax; the car looks awesome because of the prep work. You compare that to someone who just spent 100.00 on some Pinnacle Sovereign and the car looks dull, oxidized and all swirled and you think the shitty wax is better but in reality it's the prep work. The Pinnacle in a real world test where everything is equal would blow the doors off the other car.

You shouldn’t compare final finishing products without knowing what else went into the wax. Like I always say, the wax/sealant is just a reflection of how good the clear coat was prepped.

Joe "Preachers Sheets" DIESO

iTrader: (4)

hey mike....umm....i heard of this new stuff and it's supposed to be reaaaaal good, wanna try it?

Alchemist - what exactly do you do to prep your car now?

PurEvl

iTrader: (2)

im good for anything, i like to try new things, as you know all to well. This sunday went like this

mike: im bored
Joe: me too
mike: lets go some meguires **** and detail the cobalt
joe:ya lets



bare in mind i have drawers full of p21s, zaino, zymol etc

Joe "Preachers Sheets" DIESO

iTrader: (4)

wasn't that spur of the moment... "i'm thinking of the new meguiars stuff" and 15 minutes later we have 4 bottles of stuff and a clay bar. "hurry dieso you *******, it's gonna be dark in 45 minutes, we dont have time for your 10 step ****"

too bad it's getting cold. i'm gonna be bugging the hell out of don this winter.

PurEvl

iTrader: (2)

we got my dads shop every sunday as usual, dont be dramatic..besides my car will be living cozey in there all apart muahahaha...dont tell don

dont forget this part...i got 70 is that enough? Oh of course....ding...69.70 please...

Slowhawk

iTrader: (12)

You better hurry up or I won't even let you see the parts for your car

Joe "Preachers Sheets" DIESO

iTrader: (4)

dont even tell me you got anything, i'll be awake for an extra hour every night thinking of it. argh, i can keep myself busy detailing.

i was like "70 you crazy bastard, it's gonna be like 20.00" then "oh your gonna want this, and this, and this and oh **** get this and that too, it's new lets try it". 70.00, man that sucked *****.

Slowhawk

iTrader: (12)

Awesome,I don't even have to take it apart

The Alchemist

iTrader: (19)

Well, if the car is in bad shape, like when we got her Saab, I start with a wash with a neutral or close to neutral pH car wash. Yes, I check the pH of the car wash as I have a calibrated pH here at home that I use to do soil sample analysis for the lawn, but I digress.

So after a quick wash of the car to get rid of the crap on it, I will then proceed to wash each panel and claybar it at the same time with the BlackFire clay bar. Obviously I wash each panel after I claybar it, so once I'm done with that it's time to polish with the Menzerna Intense Polish and I use a medium cut oranger pad from here:
http://properautocare.com/coprorpopa.html

I use these for both the Intense Polish and the final polish. As I'm going through with the intense polish on the black car, I will use a high wattage flourescent light to see how the swirl marks are and how the paint quality is. I take my time and go over some spots multiple times before moving on.
After I finish the intense polish, I'll was the car again which is one of the things that I like about Menzerna is that it is water solluable. Once again remember, polishing doesn't 'apply' anything to the surface of the car. It is smoothing out the outer most layer of the car to make it optically as smooth as possible so that it can reflect light back as distortion free as possible. So to get to this point, I've already spent close to 3-4 hours working on the car, and sometimes more if need be.

So once the major problem spots are done, I will move on and repeat the process with the final polish. At this point, the proccess is getting quicker and the final polish step usually only takes 30-45 minutes to complete. Again, I'll wash the car to clean it up completely.

So now that the clear coat is as smooth and clean as possible, I will switch pads again and put on the black finishing pad:
http://properautocare.com/hi612infopaa.html

I will drop the speed on the porter cable down to a 1-2 setting and will do larger sections at a time and let the FMJ dry completely.

So, that whole proccess took me two and a half days on the wifes Saab the first time I did it. If I were to break down into percentages how much time and effort is spent on each process, it would be like this:

50% Intense polish. Can't rush this step, and once over is never enough. Sometimes I do a 12" x 12" section 3 or 4 times.
30% Final polish. This step goes pretty quickly, but is a direct reflection of how much time is spent using the intense polish.
10% Sealant. The FMJ goes on very easy and comes off even easier.
10% Wash and claybar. Speaks for itself.

I know that the FMJ is a polymer, but chemically, so are wax's. It's just a difference in some of the characteristics and how big of a polymeric chain it is.

Rhode Island Red

iTrader: (2)

Joe, here is an independent 3rd party (they don't sell car wax or car anything) report on 46 car washes. It costs some $ but is well worth it.

Then you'll see Zaino is great stuff

8ALTNG

iTrader: (1)

So Joe, When you gonna clean my truck????? It needs a real bad cleaning

Ace$nyper

iTrader: (8)

Nice I'll snag some thats less then the price of Mothers Gold !

Joe "Preachers Sheets" DIESO

iTrader: (4)

The Alchemist - you def know what your doing, your using good products and best of all, you have the time. i swear, if i had days on end of indoor protection, i could prob enter a car into a show. i just don't have the time to clean the door jamb springs and rubber seals and get down to that level of detail all in one day.

your right with the wax, i always saw polish as an abrasive that smooth's the clearcoat, the abrasive properties in the polish create friction which in turn creates heat which softens up the clear and smooths the surface out by filling in the swirls (swirls as you know are nothing but a scratch in the clearcoat and when the light hits it a certian way bam, you've got your paint defect). thats why when people like cheesy use the older zaino "polish" and swear they are correcting swirls it gets aggrivaiting.

aside from buying an entire new product line, you can get yourself some p21s and after your prep your car, try two coats of that, spread an hour apart unless it's wicked humid or freezing cold. i was just reading someone's post (details cars all over texas, beyond pro) and he's flaming people telling them that no polymer can shine like a wax. to 95% of people like cheesy, they cant tell the difference. it's the poor saps like me who are willing to spend alot more on something that only i notice.

8altng - what do you want? a wash and wax? if so then all you need to do is drop that sled off.

The Alchemist

iTrader: (19)

What's funny, is when people throw around chemical terms and have no clue how stupid they sound. A wax is an amorpheus polymer as opposed to a semicrystaline polymer. Heres the difference: Semicrystalline polymers have true melting temperatures (Tm) at which the ordered regions of the polymer chain break up and become disordered. In contrast, the amorphous polymers soften over a relatively wide temperature range (always lower than Tm) which is also known as the glass transition (Tg). Think of glass, it doesn't instantly turn from a solid to a liquid, rather it soften first and becomes maliable. Fully amorphous polymers do not exhibit Tm, of course, but all polymers exhibit Tg. Above these temperatures, polymers are liquids.

So, when some people start throwing around terms like wax vs. polymer, tell them to stick something in their pie-hole and shut the hell up.

ArcticZ28

iTrader: (14)

I'm a huge fan of the Menzerna polishes as I've done a couple cars with the IP/FP combo and have seen great results. I've attached a couple before/after pics of how well it has worked for me. I'd like to try other stuff as well but I'll probably be sticking with this stuff till it runs out b/c I'm not made of money and well, it just works. I use meguiar's #26 to finish everything off and that has worked out pretty well also.

First two are "before" pics of my beater cavalier that was in desperate need of attention in the paint department. The rest of the pics are the finished product after two passes of IP with orange pad, one of FP with white pad, and Meg 26 to finish it off.

Just thought I'd share some real world info on some things I've tried and my level of happiness with them.