Polish after clay?

Polish after clay?

  • Yes (always)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Sometimes

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other (explain)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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Anytime I clay, I polish. It's an abrasive still. Most of my jobs are paint corrections anyways so it's included. At minimum I would do a clay poli seal job.
 
Got_Leather said:
...At minimum I would do a clay poli seal job.
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+1. I never clay without doing some sort of machine polishing afterwards.



I can't imagine claying a car and going straight to LSP (unless it is a *super* mild clay and the car has next to no contamination). Doing so would mean the finished product be worse swirl/marring wise than when you first started working on it, which IMO is unacceptable.
 
With clearkote fine grade clay and dodojuice clay lube I can clay a car and get pretty close to zero marring. So yes sometimes I dont
 
Bigpoppa3346 said:
+1. I never clay without doing some sort of machine polishing afterwards.



I can't imagine claying a car and going straight to LSP (unless it is a *super* mild clay and the car has next to no contamination). Doing so would mean the finished product be worse swirl/marring wise than when you first started working on it, which IMO is unacceptable.
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I found this the case tell I switched to dodojuice clay lube, with clearkote fine grade clay it was getting all kinds of contaminates without marring
 
This is why I started this thread. I know there are some out there who do not polish after claying. I am curious to see how/ why they are doing this.



WMD-DFW said:
I found this the case tell I switched to dodojuice clay lube, with clearkote fine grade clay it was getting all kinds of contaminates without marring
Click to expand...



Have you tried Sonus green or Pinnacle poly clay? If so how do they compare to Clearkote?
 
I would say its finer than both of them, even finer than automagic fine grade clay. Its extremely mailable and pliable. You can shape it with one hand easily, I can flatten a 100g piece in prob less than 5secs with little effort
 
I dont really think Clay Magic fine grade clay is that fine at all. Pinnacle poly, Sonus green, Mothers yellow are all much much finer, more pliable, and softer than Clay Magic.
 
Somtimes I have clayed without correction, that was requested by the customer. Would I suggest doing it on a soft clear NO way. I have induceed marring big time with clay before. :D
 
I'm a little confused. I'm also just an enthusiast. Let's say this is a standard detail routine:

Wash/dry; clay; correcting polish; finishing polish; LSP



Say 2-3 weeks later, my shorter lasting liquid wax has started to diminish, and I want to do a "maintenance" detail on my car. Why couldn't I just omit one if not both of the polishing steps? Seems ridiculous and an insult to your paint to polish it every time you want to wax it.
 
Yes it is a good idea to polish after the clay process. The reason is ;because there is a lot of HARD particles are embedded on the clear coat. You do not want to grind them in to the paint.

Therefore clay the surface first to remove all the particles. This way you will get the full potential of the polishing cream evenly on the surface of the vehicle.
 
haha so many people are interpreting a simple question in so many different ways it's kind of funny. :p



To answer the question... I offer a basic exterior detail service, which is wash/clay/wax or seal. I offer this because from my experience, claying is a much more important step than polishing as far as paint maintenance is concerned. All the particles the clay removes dull the paint and can pop up with washing/drying to swirl the paint even further. So it's sort of a way to get the paint freshened up again without paying me to actually correct it.



Yes 99.9% of all the detailing work I do consists of polishing work (wash/clay/polish/seal) but for those who want to maintain their car and don't care much about swirls, etc., I think wash/mild clay/seal is better than just a wash & wax.
 
I marked Other.

For me, it totally depends on the application. Can claying be done w/o marring...yes. On certain cars with little to no contaminants, you can gently clay it w/o creating *visable* marring. Here's a thread I posted a few years back where I clayed this car regularly, didn't buff or wax it and it was marr free. http://www.autopia.org/forum/car-detailing/89873-non-marring-results-how-i-wash-cars.html



On cars that get detailed that are being polished, I'm not overly cautious about marring the paint; especially with how faint clay marring is. It's not the clay that creates the marring (so much), it's the contaminants that embed themselves in the clay that's getting wiped across the surface. I get a kick every time I see Click N Brags when people post pics of their dirty clay. You shouldn't let your clay bar get that dirty. BlackFire makes a clay bar cleaner that works excellent at cleaning clay and will extend the life of your clay 10X BLACKFIRE Detailing Clay
Cleaner & Extender
 
I've clayed 4 cars that I did not polish. I used Sonus Green and 50/50 Megs Last Touch/Water as the lube. I'm not using a sun gun but I didn't see any maring enduced by the claying. I gave the cars one more wash before the Colonite 845. They all looked great.
 
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