s2000amuse

3 to 4 months ago thanks to Wanabe and S2kSimon great suggestions and recommendations:

clay, poorboys 2.5, pb 1, Klasse AIO, K Sealant, P21S Carb....beautiful shine....that was an 8 hour job at the detail shop...just sitting there watching was tiring.......

Now I think is time to do some touch up maintenance work...shine is still there but deminishing slowly....so what would you guys recommend?

The whole deal skipping clay and poorboys?

The longest part last treatment was poorboys 2.5 and 1 buff...he took a long time (Even with the machine) to buff off the swirls nicely...........it was almost 2/3 of the time!!

MikeyC

The tricky part with detailing is that you should always do the least aggressive steps that will get the finish to the desired level. Here are some tips:

Deciding to clay:
Put your hand in a zip lock bag or wrap your hand in plastic wrap. Then run your plastic covered hand over the finish (wash first of course). If the finish still feels smooth then you don't need to clay.

Deciding to polish:
If you have swirls, scratches, or oxidation then you will need to polish. Keep in mind you don't have to polish the whole car. If you only have swirls on one panel then just polish that panel. Just as a rule of thumb it's best to polish once per year to remove oxidation and then do additional polishing as needed.

Also, you stated you put P21S over your Klasse Sealant. You won't be able to add more layers of Klasse sealant until you know you have removed all the P21S. Sealants don't typically bond well on top of waxes. You can do remove the wax with the Klasse AIO. If you don't feel you need to add more Klasse Sealant you can just apply another layer of P21S.

Generally speaking it's REALLY hard to give 100% accurate detailing advice over the internet. What I do to my car may not work for you. A lot of it has to do with climate and personal preferences. With some practice detailing you'll develop a feel for what needs to be done and on what schedule.

wanabe

mikeyc- great tips!

imo, you can do another klasse over your p21s (as i do often)... i know that lotsa folks disagree with this-
first, chances are you dont have much carnuba left on the car- and from what you describe it sounds to me like you dont have any.
even if you did, i layer synthetics over carnubas all the time (just not within a few days of application- which is not a problem for you anyway).

i also agree that the first step is an inspection of the car before you detail, so you know what the car needs... if you have maintained the shine, you could most likely just either klasse product on it (ending with the sealant) or p21s alone. if you are at all concerned about the "sandwiching" controversy, just use the p21s (its the easiest to use anyway). that should bring back the shine and protect for a few more months.

glad to hear that you are doing this yourself- post up some pics when you get it done, and dont forget to pm me for a w&w badge!!

s2ksimon

i'm a little late on this one. I don't apply a sealant on top of a carnuba, but you're welcome to try. It's difficult to say what kind of maintenance is needed as we don't if it currently has swirls ? how degraded the shine ?

If it "swirl free" , skip the SSR, if it has swirls then re-compound it.

A general Acryllic maintenance is to remove any carnuba, and simply layer the SG on top. Products such as AIO and SG last a lot longer than 3 or 4 months. I think its really the carnuba I'd worry about re-injecting into the mix.

It really matters what you want to accomplish..

tenchi950

Wow, you guys are pretty hardcore. I just use a synthetic polish. Try "Finish First" The water still beads weeks after its applied and its just one step. Great shine and it sure beats Zaino. I was extremely disappointed with Zaino after spending lots of money on the kit.

MikeyC

No offense meant but, I would really, really hope that any wax or sealant you put on would still cause water beading just a few weeks later.

I often use Zymol on my car which is notorious for it's lack of durability and I get easily 6 weeks of beading.

Anyway, there are A LOT of really great products available. There's definitely no such thing as a perfect product though. Each one has positive properties and negative. The important thing is that you find a product that has negatives which matter the least to you. For me durability is not something I care much about.

wanabe

i have to chime in here to say that finish first was one of the first synthetics that i used and it was the one that we discovered sandwiching with.
in spite of sal zaino's opinion that carnuba over synthetics would not work, we began using carnubas over finish first (our member boiler was also one of the early "sandwichers" here), mainly because the synthetics were dust magnets and we knew that carnubas should repel dust. we were right- carnuba over finish first was a perfect combo.
last i heard, boiler is still using that combination.

btw, mikey- zymol used to make my fav car shampoo ("bathe"). and they do make some other nice products.
the "new" bathe is:
http://www.zymol.com/clear2.htm

MikeyC

[QUOTE=wanabe,Feb 7 2006, 09:00 PM] btw, mikey- zymol used to make my fav car shampoo ("bathe").