MnRiverman
New member
A few things I noticed:
- 3M SMR leaves all kinds of dust all over the car - it's quite the pain in the ***.
- Use a paint cleanser/gloss after the 3M SMR. I almost didn't do the HD-Cleanse after the SMR, but boy, I did half the hood and the gloss it leaves is amazing, so I did the whole car.
- You can apply HD-Cleanse with an orbital buffer, although it is pretty hard because you'll find yourself buffing it too much and then it's hard to remove.
- Zymol Carbon removes like butter with a MicroFiber towel!
- I used two of my Viper MF towels during this detail session and I will never go back to a regular terry cloth towel ever again, these things are amazing, and they don't get contaminated like normal towels, especially when using Zymol wax.
The 3M SMR took me the better half of yesterday because honestly it wasn't working. I came up here and read some older threads about breaking it down and such, and I ended up realizing I wasn't using enough pressure (I was using a polishing pad) and in some spots I used the cutting pad also. In the end though, it sure did remove a lot of the spiderwebbing I had.
I then went over the whole car with Zymol HD-Cleanse and then with a layer of Zymol Carbon wax. The gloss is quite amazing, and the paint is buttery smooth and perfectly clean.
A tip to those who use Zymol waxes. Apply it in an even up and down motion, and then get a perfectly clean and soft terry cloth towel and in one big sweep, wipe it horizontally immediately after you applied the wax. I believe this lets it crystalize or something like that, but whatever it does, it works. Then I waited a minute (it was fairly cold here today even with my heater on so I gave the wax a bit longer to cure) and then took a MF towel and wiped it right off, it left no residue, only a perfect shine.
I now believe though that there is no way of getting a "perfect swirl free finish" because I noticed on a certain panel in direct sunlight there were some microscopic spiderwebbing that you could only see in certain angles of the light. Whatever, it may also just be some residue and I didn't want to use any QD so I could give the wax more time to bond with the paint (Zymol wax really needs to be applied when it's atleast 60 degrees out, otherwise it gets kinda quirky).
It was dark when I finished, so I didn't get any good pictures, but here is one I took with the car in the garage. the gloss sure is nice. BTW, the car is blue, although it looks black in this picture.
- Anthony
- 3M SMR leaves all kinds of dust all over the car - it's quite the pain in the ***.
- Use a paint cleanser/gloss after the 3M SMR. I almost didn't do the HD-Cleanse after the SMR, but boy, I did half the hood and the gloss it leaves is amazing, so I did the whole car.
- You can apply HD-Cleanse with an orbital buffer, although it is pretty hard because you'll find yourself buffing it too much and then it's hard to remove.
- Zymol Carbon removes like butter with a MicroFiber towel!
- I used two of my Viper MF towels during this detail session and I will never go back to a regular terry cloth towel ever again, these things are amazing, and they don't get contaminated like normal towels, especially when using Zymol wax.
The 3M SMR took me the better half of yesterday because honestly it wasn't working. I came up here and read some older threads about breaking it down and such, and I ended up realizing I wasn't using enough pressure (I was using a polishing pad) and in some spots I used the cutting pad also. In the end though, it sure did remove a lot of the spiderwebbing I had.
I then went over the whole car with Zymol HD-Cleanse and then with a layer of Zymol Carbon wax. The gloss is quite amazing, and the paint is buttery smooth and perfectly clean.
A tip to those who use Zymol waxes. Apply it in an even up and down motion, and then get a perfectly clean and soft terry cloth towel and in one big sweep, wipe it horizontally immediately after you applied the wax. I believe this lets it crystalize or something like that, but whatever it does, it works. Then I waited a minute (it was fairly cold here today even with my heater on so I gave the wax a bit longer to cure) and then took a MF towel and wiped it right off, it left no residue, only a perfect shine.
I now believe though that there is no way of getting a "perfect swirl free finish" because I noticed on a certain panel in direct sunlight there were some microscopic spiderwebbing that you could only see in certain angles of the light. Whatever, it may also just be some residue and I didn't want to use any QD so I could give the wax more time to bond with the paint (Zymol wax really needs to be applied when it's atleast 60 degrees out, otherwise it gets kinda quirky).
It was dark when I finished, so I didn't get any good pictures, but here is one I took with the car in the garage. the gloss sure is nice. BTW, the car is blue, although it looks black in this picture.
- Anthony
I just use it to spread the wax softly after I apply it with the zymol wax applicator.
But yes, I have a heater in my garage. 
