clay bars...newbie question

[E21_Ross]

was speaking to someone the other day (who happened also to be a PHer ) about car cleaning...not a fun conversation i know! but they mentioned i should use a clay bar.

never ever used one before so what would you guys recommend as a good clay bar, not too expensive and nice and easy to use

i've heard good things about the meguairs clay kit...?? i will try and get some pics of the E21 up and show you what needs doing, the bonnet comes up shiny and nice (bar a few scratches and one blemish i can't get out...though i haven't tried really hard yet!), the boot and roof come up ok (again, bar some scratches from 27years of wear), but the doors and sides just come up relatively dull. they do reflect the light, just not very well at all.

at the moment i do...

wash (autoglym shampoo)
dry with microfibre cloth
polish with autoglym super resin polish (some people have said something like t-cut may help...??)
wax with meguairs carnauba wax (the thick stuff)


job done really...it comes out nice and clean...but not as shiny as i'd like!!

will try and get some pics up in the next day or so. i cleaned it yesterday but i drove it in the rain this morning so it's not immaculate but will see what i can get up! cheers.

[ViperDave]

A Claybar wont get scratches out, it will just remove surface contamination, it may actually make fine marks look worse as it will strip everything off including the fillers in the polish you have been using.

Claybars are a great product at an early stage of getting a rather nice finish. It will get rid of all that tree sap, road tar and bug guts that washing never seems to remove, and once followed by various other products to fill fine swirl marks and provide a top polish you can achieve an extremely good finish, but garbage in garbage out.

[E21_Ross]

ViperDave said:

A Claybar wont get scratches out, it will just remove surface contamination, it may actually make fine marks look worse as it will strip everything off including the fillers in the polish you have been using.

Claybars are a great product at an early stage of getting a rather nice finish. It will get rid of all that tree sap, road tar and bug guts that washing never seems to remove, and once followed by various other products to fill fine swirl marks and provide a top polish you can achieve an extremely good finish, but garbage in garbage out.

i was worried about it showing up the scratches...what would you guys recommend? a more abrasive polish? as said...i'm only using autoglym at the moment which is only a filler (i think). what about t-cut, or something else?

thanks

want to get the E21 looking that little bit better. will see if i can get some pics up tonight.

[rsv gone!]

If you have a lot of surface marring and want to improve that then you need to read up on paint correction.

[E21_Ross]

right, took some pics of the E21, they don't quite show what i intended so you'll just have to trust me. you may be able to see the side/doors don't reflect quite so well, they are more flat in colour than the bonnet which reflects much better. it's not up to your detailing standards but cut me some slack, it's 27 years old

there is also a mark on the bonnet which you can see on one of the pics, how would i help to get this out? a more abrasive polish such as t-cut?

thanks guys

http://img88.imageshack.us/i/dscf3789.jpg/

http://img514.imageshack.us/i/dscf3790.jpg/

http://img406.imageshack.us/i/dscf3791.jpg/

http://img73.imageshack.us/i/dscf3792.jpg/

http://img529.imageshack.us/i/dscf3793.jpg/

[domster]

I personally wouldn't use a super-aggressive hand applied polish like T-cut. Better a more gentle machine applied one, or even take your time with a more gentle one by hand. It's easy to get inconsistent results with T-cut. I know because I've gone through a few panels in my time with it by being a bit keen!

The problem is, you don't really know what that mark is. You'd need to look at it closely. If it's a clearcoat over metallic, then maybe it's strike through already and any polishing will just make it worse. I am not an expert with old paint. Anything solid can be machined and machined, but I'm not sure about metallics. Maybe Paintman, Tol etc can help?

Edited by domster on Monday 13th July 21:15