More advice for a Newbie

[The Toad]

Hello all,



Firstly I’d like to thank you all for having such a great and informative site, as I have been lurking on the site for some time now and learnt so much already.



However I have now plucked up the courage to do the newbie thing and ask a series of stupid questions.







Thanks in advance for putting up with them







I am using a Hitachi SAT180 mostly with GPI foam pads (in different grades for Polish and compound) for both my car and boat







1: No matter what product I use, I always seem to have a bad case of the Static electricity resulting in mass dust collection with in minutes of finishing. Am I doing something wrong? Will earthing the car to the ground make any difference? (sounds stupid I know, however may work in theroy)



2: I read that a lot of people apply there products with the buff. Anytime I attempt this all I seem to do is spray the product everywhere. Can someone inform me of the correct procedure? I have tried having the product apply to buff only to make a mess, small dabs on surface and work the buff through ends up with the buff not moving the product and I have to go back to spreading by hand letting haze and buffing off.



3: Will applying the product by hand allowing to haze and then using the buff to get the product off give the same results as applying the product with a buff letting it haze then rub off by hand with a M/F or T/T?



4: What is a Cleaner Wax? Like most I have become greatly confused with the vast number of products on the market. Especially when I look at information regarding boat detailing (Gelcoat) most of the information relates to a Cleaner Wax as the first step. Is is a WAX Cleaner (wax removal product) or a oxidation removal product i.e. a cutting compound?





I have a heap more questions, however with the fear of boring you all to death I will let you all deal with the above in the meantime.



Thanks again for putting up with my questions



Cheers Daniel

[Bert]

1: No matter what product I use, I always seem to have a bad case of the Static electricity resulting in mass dust collection with in minutes of finishing. Am I doing something wrong? Will earthing the car to the ground make any difference? (sounds stupid I know, however may work in theroy)

Are you sure this is not simply dust from the polish you are using? If so, sounds like you may be working the polish a bit too much. If this is not the case, I am not sure what you are doing so I will differ to others on the site to address this.

2: I read that a lot of people apply there products with the buff. Anytime I attempt this all I seem to do is spray the product everywhere. Can someone inform me of the correct procedure? I have tried having the product apply to buff only to make a mess, small dabs on surface and work the buff through ends up with the buff not moving the product and I have to go back to spreading by hand letting haze and buffing off.

What do you mean when you say you apply the products with the buff? Do you mean spreading the product with the buffing pad? If you want to see good ways to apply product, go you YouTube and do a search for things like menzerna, or Porter Cable 7247, or search for the video of Mike Pennington (think that is his name) of Meguiars when he shows people how to do wet sanding and rotary buffing.

3: Will applying the product by hand allowing to haze and then using the buff to get the product off give the same results as applying the product with a buff letting it haze then rub off by hand with a M/F or T/T?

When you say the product, are you referring to polish or LSP (Last Step Product = wax or sealant)? I would not recommend applying a polish by hand, generally you are better off to apply it with the pad of the polisher. With a LSP, I guess you could apply by and and buff off with a bonnet over a pad. I generally apply and hand and buff off by hand. Many on here apply by machine and buff by hand or machine. Really doesn`t matter.

4: What is a Cleaner Wax? Like most I have become greatly confused with the vast number of products on the market. Especially when I look at information regarding boat detailing (Gelcoat) most of the information relates to a Cleaner Wax as the first step. Is is a WAX Cleaner (wax removal product) or a oxidation removal product i.e. a cutting compound?

A cleaner wax is a wax with cleaners in it. This has a benefit in it in that you can combine you paint cleaning and wax into one step and save time and effort. Off the top of my head, I can think of two draw back to using a cleaner wax rather than a pure (no cleaners) wax (or sealant for that matter). 1) Using a dedicated paint cleaner or All in One product followed by a wax or sealant will generally give you better results. 2) With a pure wax, you can add additional coats of wax on your car for additional protection and improved appearance. If you do this with a cleaner wax, the cleaners in the cleaner wax will remove all of the original wax and you will be back with just one coat.

I have a heap more questions, however with the fear of boring you all to death I will let you all deal with the above in the meantime.

Just keep reading on here, 99% of the answers can be found using the search function.

Cheers Daniel

Cheers back to you

[abbeysdad]

1: No matter what product I use, I always seem to have a bad case of the Static electricity resulting in mass dust collection with in minutes of finishing. Am I doing something wrong? Will earthing the car to the ground make any difference? (sounds stupid I know, however may work in theroy)

I have never seen a static charge/attraction - more likey you`re just generating a lot of `dust`.

2: I read that a lot of people apply there products with the buff. Anytime I attempt this all I seem to do is spray the product everywhere. Can someone inform me of the correct procedure? I have tried having the product apply to buff only to make a mess, small dabs on surface and work the buff through ends up with the buff not moving the product and I have to go back to spreading by hand letting haze and buffing off.

I like to apply product evenly on the panel with a handheld applicator - it only takes a few seconds longer and I don`t get any sling and don`t have to worry about covering or taping anything

3: Will applying the product by hand allowing to haze and then using the buff to get the product off give the same results as applying the product with a buff letting it haze then rub off by hand with a M/F or T/T?

No - removal with a pad or pad w/bonnet generally doesn`t work very well as it becomes loaded pretty quickly (although the machine with pad/bonnet can bring out a great shine after hand removal - applying the product by machine, IMHO, is better than you can do it by hand.

4: What is a Cleaner Wax? Like most I have become greatly confused with the vast number of products on the market. Especially when I look at information regarding boat detailing (Gelcoat) most of the information relates to a Cleaner Wax as the first step. Is is a WAX Cleaner (wax removal product) or a oxidation removal product i.e. a cutting compound?

A cleaner wax is a combo product of a chemical cleaner and a wax as a one step product. Since most of us would use a PC to polish before applying an LSP, a cleaner wax most often isn`t used. There are one step exceptions, Klasse AIO comes to mind. Also, most off the shelf `waxes` typically contain cleaners in the concoction to clean as they wax (even if they aren`t necessarily marketed as a `cleaner wax`.)

[Glossy McGlosserton]

Welcome to Autopia!



The search is your friend.



Break your questions up into one topic, and read posts by some of the greats of this board. There are many, but Accumulator has, in particular, created some great posts for newbies going into procedures in patient detail.



Also check out the Autopia Learning Library section to start with, especially the guide to detailing.



Have fun!

[Accumulator]

The Toad- Welcome to Autopia!



I`ve heard of people grounding the vehicle...might help some but IMO when you rub a vehicle enough you`re simply gonna build up the static electricity to some extent.



On the issues with the products, you gotta differentiate between products that need to be worked into the paint and products that you just wipe on, let dry, and then buff off any residue.



Most all abrasive polishes and chemical paint cleaners are in the first group. Once you get them on the paint, you need to "work them" with the buffer`s pad (or by hand) so they can do their thing.



Working them with the buffer without spraying the product everywhere (called "buffer sling") is pretty much a matter of practice, including using the right amount of product- most people use way too much product IMO. There are videos showing people using various techniques to avoid sling, well worth searching out and viewing.



Doing it by hand accomplishes the same thing in a less efficient (and often less effective) manner.



"Working the product": Abrasives need to be rubbed against the paint so they can level it (i.e., "sand out" the scratches) and cleaners need to be rubbed against the paint so they can emulsify/etc. the stuff on the paint to clean it off. Once the product has been worked sufficiently (usually until it`s almost, but not quite dry), the abrasives will have broken down and/or the cleaners will have done their thing. Then the excess/residue is buffed off, usually by hand.



Cleaner waxes mix wax in with polishing and/or cleaning agents. Some products of this type are *MUCH* better than others, but all are somwhat inferior to single-purpose products to some extent because the various processes/types of products involved are simply not that compatible; e.g., you can`t clean old wax off while leaving new wax behind all that well- how does the product know what to "clean off" and what to "leave behind" and then differentiate between the two? So these are always a bit of a compromise even in the best cases. But they do offer convenience and can sometimes be very user-friendly. Note: generally, you need to keep cleaner wax off of black plastic trim, it`ll leave white stains.



Some polishes contain *just enough* wax to be sorta like cleaner-waxes. Some of these work surprisingly well and are among my favorite products. One of the best examples is the 1Z polish line. They`re about as close to foolproof as you can get, very user-friendly. They contain mild abrasives and also some cleaners. And they leave behind enough wax to last until the next time you wash, which is convenient if you`re all tuckered out from doing the polishing They work by hand or machine too and seldom stain trim. Sources: Welcome to Exceldetail.com! or Aloha & Welcome to Our Oasis for All Your Auto Detailing, Auto Detailing Supplies, Auto Detailing Equipment, Auto Detailing Products, & Auto Detailing Accessories for all your Automobile Detailing