Clay - another site where everyone loves it!

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endus

New member
So when I went on Maxima.org for the first time I saw a lot of misinfo about detailing, and a LOT of people using clay. One of my primary sources of detailing info had the following article, which I have always agreed with (I have found this guys info to be very reliable)...



http://www.carcareonline.com/viewarticle.aspx?art=0



So I thought it was just uninformed people falling victim to marketing. However, now I come here where people are definitely a lot better informed and I still see people using it.



Clearly if this many people are using it it's unlikely that it will *hurt* anything, but I am still curious why people feel it's necessary. Personally, I have not been all that impressed with using clay, especially since I keep my car pretty clean/polished waxed. Maybe it's better if you're working on a car that hasn't been well maintained?
 
endus said:
So I thought it was just uninformed people falling victim to marketing. However, now I come here where people are definitely a lot better informed and I still see people using it.



Clearly if this many people are using it it's unlikely that it will *hurt* anything, but I am still curious why people feel it's necessary. Personally, I have not been all that impressed with using clay, especially since I keep my car pretty clean/polished waxed. Maybe it's better if you're working on a car that hasn't been well maintained?
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Going out slightly on a limb here as I am fairly new to clay (not a big thing here in the UK), my understanding is that we are talking about two different products here. Abrasive clay is used in bodyshops but the clay popular here does not contain abrasives. That said, of course it does require folding and checking as mentioned as dragging grit etc (with clay, a cloth, sponge etc) will of course cause damage.



The idea of using clay is that it pulls stuff of/ out of the paint, unlike an abrasive (bodyshop clay, polish etc) which merely grinds off the top of the contaminant and leaves a flat surface.



My personal experience and reason for using it is that it is an easy process which makes the polish stage much easier (I work by hand). As all my cars are pretty old, anything which reduces the amount of polishing (ie removing paint layers) is a good thing as it delays the day when the next respray will be required.
 
Clay will pull surface contaminants, such as rail dust, outta the paint.



Ever seen those horrible little rust spots ?

I bet ya cant polish them out no matter how hard you try.



Same goes for overspray etc.



Grab some clay and it'll come right off.



Nothing leaves the paint as silky smooth and trouble-free to polish as when its been clayed.
 
endus said:
.....the following article, which I have always agreed with (I have found this guys info to be very reliable)...



http://www.carcareonline.com/viewarticle.aspx?art=0
Click to expand...
Heheh, actually you listed one of the few places whose articles an opinions tend to rub people the wrong way at Autopia. He says some things that are either plain wrong or contrary to what people here know and do. Among them is his beliefs about machine polishing. :rolleyes:



Do a search in the Archives for the name of his site or "Larry Reynolds" I think his name is.... ;)
 
Granted you're not gonna use clay frequently but then its not really needed that way. I only clay my car when I do a major detail. After several months there are plenty of surface contaminents built up on the paint.



But if your car is a garage queen or gets polished and waxed frequently (mine is neither) then, yeah, clay will be less beneficial. As in everything in life, YMMV.
 
4DSC said:
Heheh, actually you listed one of the few places whose articles an opinions tend to rub people the wrong way at Autopia. He says some things that are either plain wrong or contrary to what people here know and do. Among them is his beliefs about machine polishing. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...



Ha! That was my other purpose in this thread...to see what people thought about that guys opinions (I had a feeling). :)



I agree about the machine stuff though, he's far too conservative in that regard. His advice might be okay for garage queens that sit under a car cover most of the time, but not for cars that you drive with any regularity. Some of his other how-to articles are good though. I always thought his one on tire care was good. I'll have to search for the opinions.



Good explanations for the clay though. Using it infrequently or in extreme cases definitely seems appropriate. I've been reading a lot of clay threads so maybe I just got the wrong impression...that people were using it with excessive frequency.
 
endus said:
..but I am still curious why people feel it's necessary. Personally, I have not been all that impressed with using clay, especially since I keep my car pretty clean/polished waxed. Maybe it's better if you're working on a car that hasn't been well maintained?
Click to expand...



Have you ever felt how smooth the paint is after claying? It's great :D makes the car feel like silk. Clay works wonders on old white cars that have a yellow look, which is actually dirt. I also took immaculate car of my car, only 1 year old, and a noticable amout of dirt was lifted form the bumper when I clayed.
 
I had an email exchange with him [Larry Reynolds] a couple months ago. I was brash enough to ask him to remove the article from his website; it keeps getting linked on numerous boards as gospel truth and keeps feeding the flames.



He seems like a smart guy and his arguments were based on his experience, but ultimately we agreed to disagree.



He said that clay would create scratches visible under magnification. I think he mentioned 4,000 screen--a level I think just doesn't apply to car finishes when you consider that polishing follows claying. (And this isn't perfection we are talking about, this is about the sensible application of polishes--I have direct experience in wood finishing and a working knowledge of telescope mirror grinding)



I guess one of these days I'm going to have to put a retort on a web page. But anyone who uses it loves it and ends up with a better result accomplished with less wear and tear on their paint.
 
endus said:
Personally, I have not been all that impressed with using clay, especially since I keep my car pretty clean/polished waxed. Maybe it's better if you're working on a car that hasn't been well maintained?
Click to expand...
Regarding this, and sorry for not mentioning this earlier, I've found that claying a car that has been clayed before (say, last year) is easier to do but sometimes the difference isn't as dramatic (depending). Also one other thing I've found is that if you wax your car frequently the act of waxing alone (at least, with a foam pad) tends to shear off some of the gritty contamination that clay removes. While this is NOT the way you're supposed to remove this stuff I've found this to be the case and the reason why my apps get dirty and have to be changed or flipped during the process.



I'm not quite sure how to deal with this finding myself :nixweiss but I doubt I'll start doing complete clay session more often.... Some people have mentioned they gently "spot clay" during every wash though, and I might try this and see how it works out for me.



Maybe I'll just wax really frequently. :D
 
If you read the atricle carefully, id doesn't say don't clay, it says if you clay, clay carefully. Fold the clay frequently, etc. The only wrong things are the title (not wrong as his opinion, but not descriptive of what he actually says), and that he says paint is removed. I've clayed my non-clearcoated red car, and the clay bar has not picked up any pigment. But heck, just about everything else we do does remove paint, so why the heck would that scare anyone? :lol



Mosca
 
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