Claying is worthless!

[eric77]

What do you think?







I use it occassionally, but I often find it hard for me to reach for clay when iknow I will be polishing the paint in the very next step anyways. Logically, since clay is a very ligth abrasive and polish is a heavier duty abrasive you would imagine the polish would do the job of clay and then some. I am still kind of split on this subject and deciding whether or not to keep claying customers' cars. It almost seems pointless if there is no overspray or anything of that sort.





I guess the question is would you clay after polishing???? If not, why do you clay before?

 

[BigAl3]

i would definitely not rule out clay. washing and polishing will not always get rid of all the contaminants stuck to the paint. just go by a case by case scenario and look/feel for smoothness....

 

[Scottwax]

Claying is almost always faster at removing bonded contaminents then polishing.

 

[Setec Astronomy]

I think the original argument for the clay was that when riding on a film of lube, it will "selectively" attack the high spots, where polishing will more uniformly attack the surface. Therefore, theoretically, the clay would remove less paint while removing the bonded contaminants than a general polishing. This of course would depend on how "bonded" the contaminants are. If they are not really stuck, then the polishing will probably remove them.

 

[eric77]

i would definitely not rule out clay. washing and polishing will not always get rid of all the contaminants stuck to the paint. just go by a case by case scenario and look/feel for smoothness....

ya thats ussually what I do, but if you think about it in what seems to be a logical way to me then you realize both are abrasives. One is a heavier abrasive so wouldnt it seem illogical to go with a light abrasive before the heavy abrasive? In a more extreme example its like taking the swirls out of a surface with a pc before sanding it down for a repaint.

 

[the other pc]

There’s a lot of gunk that clay will remove quickly and efficiently without imparting any wear to the surrounding paint. Some of that crud will require a great deal more action by a chemical/abrasive cleaner than you would otherwise need to subject the rest of the paint to.



Clay is very selective, grinding down only those contaminants that stand above the surface. A chemical/abrasive cleaner will grind on everything, everywhere.



If the chemical/abrasive cleaner isn’t removing the contaminant efficiently the act of buffing will simply burnish it into the paint. That makes it take even more effort to remove.



A contaminant that has a grit component will be dragged across the surface when buffing. It would have been embedded in the clay, hydroplaning above the surface if you had clayed first.





PC.

 

[eric77]

There’s a lot of gunk that clay will remove quickly and efficiently without imparting any wear to the surrounding paint. Some of that crud will require a great deal more action by a chemical/abrasive cleaner than you would otherwise need to subject the rest of the paint to.



Clay is very selective, grinding down only those contaminants that stand above the surface. A chemical/abrasive cleaner will grind on everything, everywhere.



If the chemical/abrasive cleaner isn’t removing the contaminant efficiently the act of buffing will simply burnish it into the paint. That makes it take even more effort to remove.



A contaminant that has a grit component will be dragged across the surface when buffing. It would have been embedded in the clay, hydroplaning above the surface if you had clayed first.





PC.

I knew there was a reason i was wasting all that time doing that

 

[the other pc]

And while I’m on a roll…

…both are abrasives. One is a heavier abrasive so wouldnt it seem illogical to go with a light abrasive before the heavy abrasive?…

Clay is an abrasive that acts selectively, heavily on those objects projecting above the hydroplaning film, negligibly on the surface itself. Those objects that are not abraded are mechanically dislodged.



A chemical/abrasive cleaner is the opposite, acting primarily on the materials it was designed to abrade and maybe or maybe not others. Try sandblasting a piece of rubber and a piece glass. Which is harder? Which takes the greater beating?





PC.

 

[imported_truzoom]

Try taking out sap or industrial fallout with polish



Clay is a great thing, and it only needs to be done 1 or 2 times a year depending on conditions; not too hard either-- just make it another step after rising off.

 

[SVR]

I'll always clay, twice in most times when doing a refinish job on paint

If you washed and machine polished a car with lots of fallout, you are simply taking the heads off of the fallout and revealing another sub layer of it

Polishing paint like that ain't fun and I'm not into these decontamination washes as they contain sulfuric acid or other types of acid and soften the clearcoat

If you clay first, as long as the paint is not chalky, after you do your machine work, clay again using a finer bar before doing the enhancing with VM, RMG, YCW or AIO and then seal the paint a few times



I've done clay magic blue then sonus ultra fine, diamondite speed clay and deep surface cleaner , optimum yellow opti clay and sonus ultra fine and gotten awesome results

 

[imported_kgb]

Well, you could polish all of the contaminants in the paint or actually pull them out using clay. Pretty simple.

 

[wannafbody]

I've found clay removes bugs and tar faster and easier than polishes-spot claying is good

 

[benpocock]

I clay for two reasons:



1) I find it quicker at removing bonded contaminates than polishing.

2) I don't want to load up my pad with those contaminates and risk marring the surface with them, so remove them prior to polishing with the clay.



I can clay a car in about 20 minutes when I put my mind to it (unless it's really bad). I can't imagine reaching the same level of decontamination in 20 minutes just by polishing.



Ben

 

[Bill D]

If you feel your paint is especially contaminated and/or if you live in a polluted area ( metropolitan, near railroads, airport,etc.) the Valugard ABC system removes all of the contamination. I understand it dissolves the contaminates entirely from the "pores" of the paint and you can incorporate claying during "B".

 

[foxtrapper]

I find polishing and claying to perform to distinctly seperate functions.



Claying is the most fantastic paint smoother I've ever encountered. It's what gives the butter smooth feel to the fingers, and causes the perfect mirror like reflection.



Polishing removes oxidized paint. It gives me great color restoration.



I find attempting to use clay to restore faded paint to be a worthless exercise. I also find polishing rough paint doesn't do a good job of restoring the smoothness to the surface.