Wet Shine Detailing

New website is ALMOST READY!!

2011-03-26T09:28:00.002+08:00

Muahahaha

Try it out here:

http://wetshine.net/

And the rest of your post here

Initial Impressions: Dodo Juice Buff Daddy

2011-02-23T00:36:00.004+08:00

A locally available dual-action(non forced rotation) polisher! woohoo!

Firstly, wow it has been a looong time since the last post and the reason will all be explained in due time. I'm sure you wouldn't want to hear the boring story anyway, so let's skip to what we all love, detailing!

Us UK voltage countries do not have much choice when it comes to dual-action polishing machines. The Americans are so spoilt for choice, they have the Porter Cable, Cyclo, Flex and a machine from everyone's favourite brand, Meguiar's.

We are resorted to import these machines and used with a step-down transformer i.e selling an arm. Machines suited for our voltage is only the Flex XC3401VRG, which isn't exactly cheap (about MYR 2600?).

On the other end of the scale we have the Bosch GEX-125AE random orbital polisher, this machine is only capable of paint cleaning and to make it able to remove light defects, you really have to spend a lot of time by doing slow and multiple passes.
However, it only costs MYR 330! Perfect for the beginner.

But there is the gap in the middle. Of course a Makita 9227c rotary fits the bill nicely at MYR 900, but for the beginner's who aren't ready to spend the time mastering it, a rotary polisher might not be the best choice.

So in comes the Dodo Juice Buff Daddy, which is really just a rebranded Kestrel Das-6. I dig the funky green colour.

With a longer throw compared to the Bosch ROB, the Buff Daddy remove defects more effectively. I would estimate about 2-3 times the effectiveness(more if it had forced rotation).

Variable speed.

The quintessential Dodo Juice logo.

The paint was in an okay condition. So I just gave it a one step polish at speed 4.5 using Osren Perfect Cut 2.0 and Meguiar's yellow polishing pad.

This was followed with Meguiar's Gold Class Carnauba Plus applied with the same machine on speed 1 using a white detailogy pad.

Head-lamps and tail-lamps were polished and coated with GTechniq C1 Crystal Coating

The whole car was machine polished and waxed in 2 hours.

I was well pleased with my purchase at MYR 770. Costing at a fraction of the Flex XC3401VRG, I think it is pretty worth it.

I used the side handle the whole time, if I gripped the whole handle, my palm felt numb after polishing one door(need more flesh to buffer the vibration?). So I 'clawed' the edge of the handle, or hold the head instead. I didn't try the supplied 'D' handle (a.k.a bale handle).

Turning it off and on is intuitive, although not as convenient as the trigger on most rotary polishers. The speed dial is on the back of the polisher, hence adjusting speed while polishing might not be ideal. I think this isn't a very big issue since you do not really need to adjust the speed while polishing using a dual-action. For a rotary, adjusting the speed is essential(dependent on operator) during compounding, polishing or finishing.

The head of the polisher has a soft matte finish, same goes with the body of the polisher. It looks nice and provides excellent grip, but it gets scuffed and scratched very easily, will have to think of using something to cover the head.

All in all, I love it. If you are a beginner looking to polish your own cars, this is it, with no forced rotation, it is extremely easy to handle. Working time is also shorter compared to using the Bosch ROB since polishes will be broken down quicker.

Its variable speed allows it to be used for polishing or applying waxes and sealants. Removable backing plates allows it to be used with smaller pads for polishing tight areas.

I have not tried to use it for machine sanding yet, but have seen people on the detailingworld.co.uk doing it. Only challenge now for the Dodo Juice Buff Daddy is durability. I noticed my machine was a lot more silent than the demo machine, which wasn't very heavily used, will keep an 'ear' on that.

Initial Impressions Rating: 4/5

If you'd like to purchase one, do contact Osren Malaysia(+603 6250 2616 or mail@osren.com).

Now for some unrelated photos. Henry from Osren was kind enough to demonstrate to me the leveling ability of a velvet pad and a rocks-in-a-bottle compound.

Very good eh?? That was achieved without a single use of sandpaper.

Now that I have more time on the weekends, I will be posting a little bit more frequently. It is time for a comeback (again...), there will be more changes for sure. (hint: www.wetshine.net). Until then, keep on polishing!

Teaser: International Coating Battle

2010-08-04T01:01:00.002+08:00

Will these new paint coatings finally kill the wax market once and for all?
Will these coatings actualize the 'never wax your car again' statement?

STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT! Coating test tentative date is mid-August.

The International Coating Battle will soon....begin....

Announcement: Mini Forum is up!

2010-06-27T22:18:00.003+08:00

http://groups.google.com/group/wetshine

G'day mates! I just set up a mini-forum using Google groups. Anyone can join, no approval or activation is required. It acts as a discussion board for anyone who would like to post a question regarding detailing in general.

I would try my best to attend to them as soon as possible. Everyone is encouraged to post, whether you are a beginner, a seasoned enthusiast or even doing this for a living!

However, it is quite limited in the sense that no images can be posted and viewed on the forum, it's mainly text. So don't expect it to be a full-fledged forum when you can view flash animations, embed youtube videos and paste images directly. Also, the posts will remain pretty much permanent, with no 'edit' or 'delete' button. So think and read twice before posting.

Even so, I'm looking forward to build a warm friendly community.

Hope to see you there! Cheers.

http://groups.google.com/group/wetshine

Water Beading – What’s the big deal???

2010-06-26T08:57:00.010+08:00

So we all know that a waxed surface beads water. If water just lays flat on your paintwork, then it’s time to wax the surface.

But why will a waxed surface bead water in the first place?

Is it naturally occurring because ingredients in the waxes alter the surface energy(low-energy=hydrophobic) and turns it from being hydrophilic to hydrophobic?

Are the ingredients protecting the paintwork(silicones,carnauba, etc.) causing the beading?

Or there are ingredients in the wax dedicated to causing the water to bead?

I try to answer these questions from the perspective of a layman hobbyist detailer. I was curious and searched my university’s journal database on readings about contact angles, wettability, surface protection, etc.

Read on as I try to unravel a detailer's fascination with water beading!

I’m a business undergraduate and was very bad at chemistry in high school(I was having Form 4 & 5 chemistry tuition during my Pre-U days to help me catch up, yes, I was THAT BAD), but I was able to decipher the alien language in some readings that I went through that do suggest that hydrophobicity is related to surface protection.

Firstly, let me define what is wettability and contact angle.

Wikipedia: Wetting is the ability of a liquid to maintain contact with a solid surface, resulting from intermolecular interactions when the two are brought together. The degree of wetting (wettability) is determined by a force balance between adhesive and cohesive forces.

Don’t worry, I don’t understand what it means either. What I do know is, water will lay flat on a surface with high wettability, sticking to the topic of this post, an unwaxed surface has high wettability. Conversely, a waxed surface has low wettability as water will tend to bead up and slide off the paint.

The contact angle on the other hand is the angle at which a liquid/vapor interface meets a solid surface. The contact angle is specific for any given system and is determined by the interactions across the three interfaces. Most often the concept is illustrated with a small liquid droplet resting on a flat horizontal solid surface(Wikipedia).

In the image above, θC is the contact angle. Therefore, if the droplet of water has a high contact angle(more than 90 degrees) on the paint, it is said that the paint is hydrophobic.

There are also instruments to measure contact angle, as seen in the video below.

I then try to measure my own contact angle of a water droplet using a photograph and a digital screen protractor. Although it is very crude, it does give me a quantitative value.

The surface in the photograph is a foam applicator that is supplied with Carmate SIV Wheel Coat, as seen in this post.

It may be highly inaccurate, but again, it gives me a rough comparative figure.

So, how does a hydrophobic surface benefit the auto detailing industry? If a wax makes the paint more hydrophobic than the other, does it mean the latter does not protect as well?

This is a question that requires more research. I can’t really find the direct relation between hydrophobicity and surface protection but waxes, sealants and coatings usually cause the surface to be hydrophobic.

For what it’s worth, Emelyanenko(2007) reviewed that low-energy anti-bacterial coatings (that render the surface to be hydrophobic) showed a good resistance to biofouling for a broad set of bacteria cultures.

In addition, Jia and Ling(2005) found in their experiment that steel coated with a hydrophobic polysiloxane coating reduces soil adhesion to the surface. They also commented that soil animals’ skins possess a strong hydrophobic character, therefore, soil animals such as earthworms can freely move in soil and it does not adhere to their skin.

Metals, metal oxides, and inorganic materials are all high surface energy materials and possess hydrophilic character. Conversely, all organic materials are low surface energy materials and have an excellent hydrophobic nature.

I tried to find readings that directly relate wettability to automotive clear coats, there were little results and the ones which I wasn't sure was relevant had to be purchased at about USD34 per article.

It is then well established and well known that waxed paintwork will bead water.

This fact is so well known that contact angle has become a marketing tool.

I remembered my trip to Autobacs in Singapore, where they stocked many Japanese products that were not available in Malaysia.

It was interesting to see that on the packaging of almost every Japanese wax/sealant, it had a picture of water beading or a graph showing the contact angle of water over a period of time.

The graph would then point out that the contact angle of their product remains relatively large where as their competitor’s water contact angle would fall dramatically after the first few months.

There was one product which caught my eye. The back of it had beads of water with a fire trail blazing behind them, emphasizing the great speed that water will slide off the paint, LOL.

Compare this with car care products from western countries such as U.S.A and U.K., namely, Meguiar’s and Autoglym. They emphasize greatly on shine and protection their wax will give, and little to no emphasis on water beading at all. (Until recently where Meguiar's implemented their Hydrophobic Polymer Technology in products like NXT 2.0, M21 2.0 Ultimate Quik Detailer and Ultimate Quik Wax)

This can indicate two things. Either the western countries know that hydrophobicity does not benefit the paint in terms of increased protection, or the Japanese, so advanced in their technology, have already found out that hydrophobicity is positively related to surface protection.

Here's why I think water beading is a great marketing tool.

Besides looking at the water beads, how else could you tell the surface is being protected?

Two ways I can think of, is claying and polishing two different panels and comparing the amount of contaminants accumulated on the clay and applicator. The clay and applicator that shows less contaminants indicates that the wax/sealant/coating being used offers better protection(Wax A in image below).

Now let’s put yourself into the shoes of the salesman trying to sell a car wax. You go to your customer and demonstrate your product, the old burning lighter fluid on the hood trick is old snake oil and doesn’t work anymore.

NOTE: There is NO intention to defame the product demonstrator in the video above!

And you cannot do a clay and polish test since you just applied the product, the only other visual way to assess the performance of the product is hydrophobicity.

If the sealant you are trying to sell pushes water away much faster, create much taller water beads, you will probably close the sale straight away.

Other visual indicators such as gloss and wetness is hard to evaluate quantitatively. Slickness is only comparable for a short period of time since most of the oils are washed away after a few car washes and rain.

Hence, using water beading/contact angle as a visual indicator of product performance makes sense. Using it as a marketing tool makes even greater sense!

I hope you are still following me and see what I’m trying to show you. Your normal traditional wax will turn the surface hydrophobic, companies then use this clue to better market their products by creating more hydrophobic waxes. However,

Is greater hydrophobicity related to greater surface protection?

THAT IS THE QUESTION!

I wish I was a scientist right now and could do an experiment and give you an answer. Until then, water beading and contact angles would continue being the main selling point of car waxes, sealants and coatings all over the world(refer to Zaino Store).

This is unbeneficial to the society because some companies may exploit this by creating products that are very hydrophobic, but offers little to no protection to the paintwork. I realized this when I did my Soft99 Fusso Coat vs Meguiar’s M21 Synthetic Sealant years ago.

The cost is low and the process is easy in making a surface hydrophobic. There are products out there such as car shampoos that actually creates water repellency. There are spray products that can be sprayed on and the surface will bead water.

But will they actually protect the surface? Possibly, but I assume only to a certain degree. Creating a low surface energy(hydrophobic) is the primary function of those products, actually protecting the paintwork is only secondary(my own assumption).

Let’s look at another example, Aquartz, a new hydrophillic quartz coating from the U.K, which originates from Korea.

Forummer JJ_ from Detailing World posted a review comparing Collinite 476S, G|Techniq C1 and Aquartz. He also posted a video on water behavior on the three different areas of the bonnet.

(Left: Collinite 476s Middle: G|Techniq C1 Right: Aquartz)

As you can clearly see in the video above, a high performance quartz coating such as Aquartz does not bead water at all, it has the characteristics of high wettability.

Would you equate this to poor surface protection?

Probably not, due to the hardness of the coating and resistance to environmental attacks. If you compare that surface to an unwaxed surface, I would assume they would look visually similar in terms of water behavior. This is hard to tell and different methods have to be executed to demonstrate the protective capabilities of a quartz coating such as Aquartz.

Caledonia from Detailing World has shown this as seen in his thread, where he heated some high pH chemicals on areas untreated and treated to Aquartz. The treated areas showed resistance to chemical etching and clearly shows strong protective qualities.

It is a very good write-up with strong data to boot, but it would be hard to fit all of that data on the back of a bottle of wax.

Which brings us back to why water beading and contact angle is used as a sensible marketing tool as well as a suggestive indicator of product performance.

See here for example.

All of this marketing makes us love waxes that create tall water beads.

To detailers, having your paintwork bead water taller than the car beside you is akin to a girl walking around with Jimmy Choo shoes next to a girl wearing shoes from Tesco.

However, there are also some who go against the notion of water beading.

When rain falls from the sky, the droplets of water catch and hold atmospheric pollutants on the way down. These dirty rain water droplets land on your car and as they evaporate away, they leave the pollutants and minerals behind, which could etch into your paintwork, forming horrible waterspots that make your car looks like it is going through puberty.

However, findings show that the greater the hydrophobicity of the surface, the greater the tilt angle. The tilt angle, also known as sliding or roll angle, is the angle in which the water droplets slide off the surface.

Source: Aegerter, Almeida, Soutar, Tadanaga, Yang and Watanabe(2008)

Hydrophobicity is positively related to tilt angle. So the taller the water beads(larger contact angle) are created, the easier it is for water to slide off the paint.

Then again, what if your car’s horizontal surface is perfectly flat, there’s no use no matter how hydrophobic the surface is, unless the tilt angle is 0, which means water will slide around on a flat surface, like it has a mind of it’s own.

So, hydrophobic or hydrophilic?

To me, I would choose the one that offers greater protection against environmental attacks such as acid rain, tree sap, bird droppings and traffic film. Which means having to test them over a period of time in natural exposures to find the holy grail of paint protectants.

It is not as easy as picking a product that says it is superhydrophobic. Because of this, I am still a cynic of hydrophobic=great protection.

Although I do admit that I would instantly buy a product if it claims that water will roll off from the paint from a small exhale through the nostril.

Additional Info:

Source: Aegerter, Almeida, Soutar, Tadanaga, Yang and Watanabe(2008)

The image above shows the film structure of the hydrophobic coating for Automotive Windows. According to Kamitani and Muromachi(2008) as cited in Aegerter, Almeida, Soutar, Tadanaga, Yang and Watanabe(2008), hydrophobicity is provided by a fluoroalkyl group arranged in good order on film surface. To obtain higher environmental stability and abrasion resistance, a silica under-layer should be applied on the glass surface.

This is just to suggest that hydrophobicity does not always relate positively with the protective qualities of the coating.

All this talk about water beading is making me itch to do my next test, coating test will come soon!

Stay tuned!!! Subscribe via e-mail to receive notifications of new posts.

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That's all folks, feel free to add your own thoughts on water beading or critique which areas that I am wrong in my post, I would appreciate it!

References:

Emelyanenko, A.M. (2008) Wettability of interface boundaries as an indicator of their properties and state. Protection of Metals, 44(5), 419-429.
DOI 10.1134/S0033173208050019

Jia, X., Ling, X.M. (2005) Reduction of soil resistance through the use of a composite coating. JCT Research, 2(8), 669-672.

Aegerter M.A., Almeida R., Soutar A., Tadanaga K., Yang H., Watanabe T. (2008) Coatings made by sol-gel and chemical nanotechnology. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol, 47, 203–236
DOI 10.1007/s10971-008-1761-9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_angle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetting

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=168666

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=170993&highlight=aquartz

http://www.markus-bader.de/MB-Ruler/index.htm

Initial Impressions: Autoglym High Definition Wax

2010-05-17T15:34:00.013+08:00

This wax costs RM453 here in Malaysia, a freaking expensive wax that lies in the price range of entry level waxes from boutique brands such as Swissvax and Zymol. Thankfully, managed to get it at a cheaper price, thanks to the help of mankarat, a forummer on Autoworld, who recently came back from the states. But seriously, RM450??! My dad would say, "You crazy?? I could eat 3 meals a day for a month!!". But he doesn't know that :P

Before:

After machine polish and HD wax:

The wax also does not behave like waxes in the cheaper price range(M16,M26,Pink Wax).
Read about my initial impressions on HD wax here! --->

Since giving my mum's car the full detail, I have to wash the car myself, and at times look very neglected due to my chronic procrastination. Thought this mini-detail would make it up to her for not doing anything for Mother's day.

The car has collected a fair amount of dust.

With water spotting on the bonnet as it is exposed to rain:

Under all the dust, dirt and grime however, you could see the paint is still pretty much swirl free, except for some light ticks scattered randomly over the paintwork.

And that is with washing with a Lake Country Big Blue washing sponge and drying with a synthetic chamois.

The front bonnet is polished with Meguiar's #205 Ultra Finishing Polish on a Meguiar's Polishing Pad followed by a Lake Country Black Finishing Pad via rotary.
I was polishing under the hot sun(on black paintwork!), it stayed lubricated but had some areas where the polish baked onto the paint. Dried polish residue was easily removed with Isopropyl Alcohol diluted 1:1.

Ingrained dirt removed after polishing:

Although there was enough cut to remove the waterspots, it wasn't aggressive enough to remove some deeper scratches. I won't bother with those because maintaining a daily driver to be in perfect condition is just unpractical and will drive you mad sooner than you think!

The paint looks LSP ready from the sun shot above, but from a different angle, you could still see holograms.

So I followed up with Lime Prime on a Lake Country White CCS pad via ROB, which was also used on the rest of the car to clean and glaze the paintwork.

Now, may I present to you, its highness, its majesty, High Definition Wax!

This new pot had some excess oil on top, it will look matte after one use.

I didn't use the supplied applicator as I wanted to see how it feels like when applied with the Meguiar's foam applicator which I often use to apply paste waxes.

The applicator is put under running tap water(or use distilled water for the true OCD) and squeezed out repeatedly to get the every pores of the foam moist and damp.

Scooping out a small amount on to the pad and apply onto paintwork.

The two pictures above shows that it looks very oily and greasy but feels quite the opposite during application. Instead, it feels quite sticky and tacky when I'm trying to spread it over the paint. At times, my fingers start to get tired and have to use the palm of my hand. This is especially so when the applicator is less damp. So after waxing half the car, I would dampen my applicator again.

I was breaking the rule of not applying under a shade on a cool surface.

Under direct sunlight:

Now this is where my Meguiar's logic is challenged. Meguiar's teaches us on using the swipe test to judge whether a wax is ready to be buffed off or not.

If I applied any Meguiar's wax on a black bonnet under direct sunlight, it would have probably flashed off and dried in under a minute, or even after a few seconds!

The HD Wax however, stays oily for more than ten minutes on very hot paint.

I had to pull out my finger immediately after capturing the photo below:

Despite the hot temperature, the HD wax still stayed oily and the directions stated to leave it on for only 10 to 15 minutes. I then contacted my friend Jimmy from Golden Wax - Shine My Car detailing for advice as he is a frequent user of HD Wax. He says that it is oily during the removal of HD Wax and it is common and normal.

So I trusted him and walah! No streaks or patches. Thanks Jimmy!

Although I would also say that it could be paintwork dependent as the Lime Prime I used earlier did not produce and streaks or patches. On the times I've used it on my own car which is also black, it will tend to streak quite heavily. Will have to try HD wax on my own car to see.

So I proceeded and applied HD Wax over the whole car and buffed off after 10 minutes.

Removal wasn't the easiest. It was easy to break the wax film as it doesn't completely dry, but for the same reason, it is hard to pick up all of the wax residue. Even when you think you have picked it all up, look at it again under a light source and you'll probably see it requires more buffing.

Enjoy the pictures!

Before:

After M205 and HD Wax:

My final thoughts:
Every time you use something new or expensive(or something hyped), there is always this placebo effect that tells your eyes the results are actually better than it really is. I always try to keep this placebo effect in mind when doing a review, and it applies to this review as well, which isn't easy with a price tag of RM453(USD141).

Having said that, the paint looks dripping wet and reflections are deep and sharp. This could be attributable to M205 or Lime Prime, I do not know, what I do know is, it doesn't look bad! If you live in the U.S and have a Walmart near you selling this for USD35, grab it!

It rained 4 hours after application and this would kill any tight beading as waxes have not fully cured. The HD wax beads did appear less round on some areas but managed to stay tight throughout the whole panel that has been exposed.

Will give you guys a durability update when the time comes.

Thanks for looking! Any comments will be appreciated, both good and bad.

I probably won't be posting until July as I have one last final paper to prepare for and also gathering all the required resources to do a coating test(G'Z*x,G|T***niq,Aq**rtz,Pompo***zi,Op*i-Coat).

p.s. Again, HUGE thanks to mankarat for helping a few of us acquire the HD Wax at a bargain price. *bow*

Till then, cheerios! ^^V

Kenneth Tang a.k.a Fishbonezken

Wheel Protectants: Waxes, Sealants or Coatings?

2010-05-14T05:34:00.006+08:00

Good day fellas! Howdy howdy ho...yeeehaaaw!

So, it's a known fact that we hobbyist detailers loooove waxing our paintwork. Some love the satisfaction of looking at the shiny paint after the hard work. Others find that massaging the paint with a coat of buttery wax is as sensational as rubbing a coat of soft butter over their partner. Okay maybe not the latter, but you get the idea!

With the paintwork on the body getting all the loving, what about the wheels? It's a well known fact that wheels tend to be jealous attention-seekers. They wipe their face with brake dust just to get you noticed and have you clean them. Sometimes, this jealousy can be so bad that brake dust will just build up on your wheels so fast that it might be too difficult to wash off if you delay your wash routine.

Which is where wheel protectants come into the picture. There are many types of wheel waxes on the market, just have a look on Autogeek. The problem is, many of these wheel waxes in addition to making the wheels easier to clean, claim to *repel* brake dust. The only wheel wax I have is Poorboys Wheel Sealant, and it claims to repel brake dust on the directions, but I haven't found it to do so.

So I continued the hunt for a better wheel protectant. You may have recalled I used Carmate C19 SIV Wheel Coat, and from my test, it has outlasted Poorboys Wheel Sealant. However, it wasn't very durable either, as it was completely stripped off with only one clean with a degreaser.

Then I realised my application method could be wrong after watching this video by Carmate.

From the video above, it looks like the Carmate SIV Wheel Coat will dry to a clear finish without being buffed off. So I tried to do that and did a comparison with Finish Kare 1000P.

The wheels were pretty clean to start with.

Hosed down the wheel when it is cool to touch, and cleaned with Carmate PS60 Brake Dust Cleaner.

After cleaning and drying the wheel. Carmate C19 SIV Wheel Coat was applied to one half while the other half received Jeff's Werkstatt Prime:Acrylic and two coats of FK 1000P.

Ingrained dirt removed by JW Prime

Contents of the box for Carmate C19 SIV Wheel Coat.

Changing the used foam for a fresh one.

Clear liquid.

Applied it as per directions.

I also applied some on to the paint just to see what it would be like. Thanks for the suggestion Mobile Blogger!

Goes on wet

Dries off rainbow-ish?

I then took a spray bottle with water and sprayed the previously used foam.

The water was literally bouncing off the porous foam!

I left it on for 2 days but did not see it dry to a clear finish.

The area where I applied it on the paint also looked the same.

So I just buffed it off and took some beading shots.

Let's time travel 24 days ahead.

Both sides were not beading well anymore.

So I guess no matter what we use, it just isn't worth the effort applying a protectant on the wheels of a daily driver. It will offer protection no doubt, but probably only for a week or two. If the car isn't driven frequently, then protection will definitely last much longer, and maybe the effort can be justified.

But wait!

It isn't over...

I was lucky to have some high-end coating applied to another half of my wheel. The performance of the product is just...insane.

One half was applied with G'Zox Wheel Coat while the other with Carmate C19 SIV Wheel Coat.

Fast forward 44 days.

The wheel before cleaning.

You can already notice the difference in beading between both sides.

I then washed it with some Osren Bubble and Wax shampoo.

There was also a different feel when washing the wheel. The side coated with Carmate C19 SIV Wheel Coat had more friction to it. The side coated with G'Zox however, felt super smooth, the bristles of the brush just glides over the wheel spoke, feels as if I am scrubbing glass itself.

After washing.

It is still super hydrophobic after the wash and water literally bounces off the wheel as I spray it with water.

The side with Carmate is basically flat and dead.

Water behaviour on the wheel was the same as what you see in the Carmate video above.

This is seriously impressive. Too bad these products are not available for DIY use and can only be professionally applied. With the wheel coating being so good, you can just imagine what their paint protectants will be like. I can see why silgt from Absolute Gloss raves about it on his blog and Autoworld forum.

Anyway, this post is not to endorse G'Zox but it does sounds like it eh. I am an advocate for DIY detailing and am dissatisfied that these high performance products are not available to us end users. That's business I guess.

That's all and thanks for looking! Comments are always appreciated, both good and bad. Who knows, a tub of Dodo Juice Supernatural wax might appear on your desk if you comment below!

Toyota Harrier in Pearl White: Full Detail

2010-05-06T16:41:00.015+08:00

Hey guys! I had the privilege to detail this almost new Toyota Harrier. Just want to say that this is going to be a short write-up as I didn't spend too much time taking progress pictures of this car, it's big!

Also, the car being only 4-months old, I did feel stressed prior to detailing the car as it's just way more difficult to bring an improvement to a new vehicle's appearance compared to a few years old daily driver.

Some before and after photos.

Read about the whole process after the jump!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Here's the car upon arrival. Surrounding areas of the bonnet has been taped up to demonstrate the basics of paint correction and protection to the owner.

Before correction

After correction

Tyre dressing sling-off in the wheel wells

In usual fashion, I started with the wheels.

• Tires and wheel wells cleaned with Meguiar's Super Degreaser
• Wheel wells dressed with Meguiar's Hyper-Dressing
• Wheel face and barrel cleaned with Meguiar’s Wheel Brightener
• Old wheel weight residue and tar removed with Osren Tar Remover
• Wheel face polished with Meguiar’s #205 Ultra-Finishing Polish on a Lake Country Uni-ball
• Wheel face deep cleansed with Jeff’s Werkstatt Prime Acrylic
• Wheel face protected with FK1000P Hi-temp paste sealant
• Wheel barrel protected with Enviroshield

Osren Tar Remover at work

Ingrained dirt loosened and removed from polishing

The engine bay had a light cleaning with some Meguiar's All Purpose Cleaner and dressed with Meguiar's Hyper-Dressing.

The washing stage of the car consisted of:

• Washed with a mixture of shampoo and degreaser(Osren bubble and wax + Osren Multi clean)
• Paintwork smoothened with Osren Magic Clay cloth
• Tar removal on lower panels of paint work

With the car washed, I turned my attention to the glass sunroof, which was full with water spots. The horizontal surfaces of the car also had some form of white coloured over spray.

Process for the glass sunroof:
• Watermark removed with acid
• Overspray removed with Osren Magic Clay Cloth by hand and Soft99 Glass Z compound via ROB(and Lake Country CCS Orange).
• Two coats of Rain-X applied for strong water repellency

Tomcat Watermark Remover

Before

After watermark removal, prior to overspray removal

50/50

The glass compound dries up quite fast and has to be constantly 're-activated' with plain water

The dried compound is removed with Meguiar's Glass Cleaner

After

Up-close

Note to self, always wear gloves when working with strong acid!!

Door pillars were corrected using:
• Meguiar's #105 Ultra-Cut Compound on a 4" Lake Country Orange CCS pad via rotary
• Meguiar's #205 Ultra-Finishing Polish on a 4" Lake Country White CCS pad via rotary

Black paint transfer from the single stage paintwork.

Tight areas and door handle wells hand polished with M105.

Before

After

Process for paintwork was:

• Compound with Meguiar’s #105 Ultra Cut Compound on a Lake Country Purple Foamed Wool
• Polish with Meguiar’s #205 Ultra Finishing Polish on a Lake Country White Kompressor Pad
• Finishing and jewelling with Meguair’s #205 on a Lake Country Flat Black pad.
• Deep cleansed and base sealant with Jeff’s Werkstatt Prime Acrylic
• Sealed with Jeff’s Werkstatt Acrylic Jett Trigger
• Final wax with Meguiar’s #16 for longer durability and protection.

It was really hard to capture the defects in the paint because of the light colour and high metallic flake content.

Generally the paint had light swirling as well as some random isolated deep scratches(RIDS) which necessitates the step of compounding with purple foamed wool.

Before

After correction and protection photos below,

Again, every centimeter of the paintwork wasn't perfect under the LED lighting, but I would say I managed to achieve complete correction on 85%-90% of the car.

Headlamps polished with M105/M205 combo and protected with Meguiar's PlastX

Other things done but no pictures were:

• Leather cleaned with Meguar’s Step 1 Aloe Cleaner, conditioned with Meguiar’s Gold Class Rich Leather Cleaner/Conditioner
• Glass cleaned with Meguiar’s Detailer line Glass Cleaner
• Interior plastic and vinyl wiped down with Meguiar’s Quik Interior Detailer.
• Exterior trim dressed with Meguiar's Ultimate Protectant

Thanks for looking! Apologies to the owner for the lack of pictures this time around, will get better ones next time.

Comments and critiques always welcome!

^^V

Mercedes E240 - Headlamp Restoration and Paintwork Enhancement

2010-04-28T15:55:00.005+08:00

Good day folks!

Just recently detailed a Mercedes E240 that was in for two days. Wish I had more time as there was many things could be done to improve the state of the car. This car has never polished for three years and always washed at petrol station car washes. So there was a lot of grime buildup at the corners of the wheel.

The headlamps were also severely oxidized as there was cracking and blistering in the plastic, it was restored with machine and hand sanding, followed by machine compounding and polishing. Paintwork was also given a 'quick' polishing with the M105/M205 combo.

Although the car was clean to start with, it was in a pretty bad condition. The paintwork has water spots, moderate swirling and this gave it a hazy look to the whole car. This is how the car looks before doing anything.

So I began by cleaning the wheels, wheel wells and tires first. I spent a little too much time here and the results were also less than perfect, wish I had a polishing tool to get the wheel totally clean.

Tires were cleaned with Westley's Bleche White. Wheels cleaned with Carmate PS60 Brake Dust Cleaner. Cotton buds were used to get in the little small holes.

With the wheels out of the way, it was time to clean the bodywork. The car is foamed with a mixture of Osren Nano Wash(200ml) and Osren Multi Clean(150ml) diluted in a one litre bottle. As the foam was dwelling, I went around the car with some Meguiar's All Purpose Cleaner and a brush to clean tight areas such as window rubber trims, door mouldings, and panel gaps.

I then washed the car with a very light mixture of Chemical Guy's Citrus Wash and Gloss. Paintwork smoothened with Osren Magic Clay Cloth.

I then had a quick Chinese lunch, glutinous rice with chicken!

With the whole car fully clean, I turned my attention to restoring the headlamps first. I've never done this before but after reading some work examples and product descriptions of the net, you'll get the general idea.

The right side is after sanding, compounding and polishing.

Tools and products used:

Bosch GEX270-AE
Makita 9227C
Foam interface
Bosch 400 grit Random Orbital sanding discs
Generic sandpapers(600,800,1000,1200,1500,2000 grit)
Mirka 2000 grit sanding discs.
Meguiar's sanding backing pad.
Lake Country 3.5" Purple Foamed Wool
Lake Country 4" Orange CCS pad
Lake Country 4" White CCS pad
Meguiar's #105 Ultra Cut Compound
Meguiar's #205 Ultra Finishing Polish
A bottle of clean water and another bottle with diluted Presta Lubri-Sudzz.

Here's the condition of the headlamps before doing anything.

I then looked at under a magnifier.

I tried to capture what I saw with the camera, sorry if it's really blur, but you can see that the plastic has tiny cracks and blisters all over the surface.

So the objective is to remove the top layer of blistering and to restore the clarity to the plastic.

I started with sanding it down with a Bosch 400 grit sanding disc.

After every pass, I flush the headlamps with water and squeegee the lamps with a Meguiar's sanding backing pad to check my progress.

I sanded until I cannot feel the cracks or blisters on the plastic. The headlamps will have a uniform frosted glass look.

This is what it looks like up close and under the magnifier.

Also, don't forget to wear some eye protection as it can get a little messy.

Since I didn't have finer sanding discs, I resorted to hand sanding. Starting from 600 grit and working my way through finer grits, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500 and 2000.

After hand sanding with 2000 grit.

The last sanding stage is done with Mirka 2000 sanding disc, I cut them out to fit on to my foam interface. Thanks to dschia for the tip!! This step is to try to sand away all hand sanding marks.

And you can see the haziness start to clear up after sanding with the Mirka disc.

I really love the disc and can see how gentle they can be when used for paintwork. The 2000 grit disc was also still not strong enough to quickly remove the hand sanding marks from the headlamps. So many passes were needed.

After that, I followed up with some M105 on purple foam wool and orange CCS pad. Then M205 with a white CCS pad for greater clarity. The lamps are protected with some Meguiar's PlastX, applied on like a wax instead of rubbing it in like a polish.

Buffed off and ta-da!!!

Up close,

Under the magnifier,

On the edge of the lamps, it wasn't perfect as I didn't feel comfortable sanding with a large disc near the painted surface, even though they were masked.

Before,

After,

With the headlamps done, I turned to the paintwork.

The process for the boot lid was:

M105/Lake Country 4ply twisted wool/1500 rpm
M105/Lake Country White Kompressor pad/900-1500 rpm
M205/Lake Country flat black pad/900 rpm

Before,

After,

50/50,

The rest of the paintwork received:

M105/Lake Country White Kompressor pad/900-1500 rpm
M205/Lake Country flat black pad/900 rpm

Before,

After,

Before,

After,

One thing bad about the Kompressor pads is that when they are freshly loaded with polish, the 'flaps' on the pad will have a greater tendency to leave polish in the panel gaps.

I was behind time at this point so didn't take much pictures of the correction process. It wasn't a full correction work but I tried to get rid of as many defects as possible. After polishing, the car was foamed with Presta Lubri-Sudzz to help dissolve polish residue in the cracks and then pressure washed away.

For the interior, leather seats were cleaned with Meguiar's Step 1 Aloe Leather Cleaner diluted with water and scrubbed with a nail brush. Plastic and vinyl wiped down with Meguiars Quik Interior Detailer, glass cleaned with Meguiar's Detailer line glass cleaner.

50/50

Dirt from the seats.

Paintwork was protected with the Werkstatt twins.

Dirt pulled out from the paint and surrounding rubber trim during the Prime:Acrylic process.

Tires dressed with Osren Tire Shine. Wheel wells with Meguiar's Hyper Dressing and mudguards with Autoglym Bumper Care.

Enjoy the pictures!

Many things could still be done, such as removing watermarks from the glass and polishing the wheels as they were not totally clean during the washing process. More time on the paintwork could also be beneficial.

Anyway, for the time given, I was happy with the results!

Thanks for looking!

Oh just a special mention of a few friends that also blog about their work if you haven't visited their blogs before in my list of links below.

My friend from Singapore does paintwork correction work and achieves great results...in a petrol station! Many people have the perception that petrol station car washes or polishing services are generally rubbish, but not Golden Wax - Shine My Car detailing. Some detailers have nice polishing studios to polish their cars in but he has to work in a less than desirable condition and environment, but still produce great results! Check out his blog at http://smcgoldenwax.blogspot.com/

Known as the super Malaysian Duo on the Meguiar's Online Forum, both KC and Seech detail on a part time basis.

KC is known for his super human polishing speed, detailing 4 cars in a day and his hand can wax a car faster than an orbital buffer! He only started detailing eight months ago but has detailed over a hundred cars, including Porsches and Ferraris!
Check out his work on his blog at http://thedetailers.blogspot.com/

Seech is known for his Porsche 911 Turbo Special Martini edition detail, where he sanded down the paint to reveal its true luster. Talk about courage! The detail was also featured in Meguiar's Online Newsletter. You just have to read that thread. Visit his detailing blog at http://prodetailing.blogspot.com/

Announcement: Pictures are dead!

2010-04-17T18:57:00.013+08:00

Just a quick announcement here. Sorry guys, my Photobucket account has exceeded its monthly bandwidth limit. The monthly bandwidth allowance will restart on the 22nd. This is the first time it exceeded the limit one week before the restart date, I guess that's a good thing.

I tried to purchase the Pro account but keep having a payment error. Hope you will bear with it till the 22nd.

In the mean time, check out these whacko, funny and very creative commercials by Soft99.

Fusso 99 coating

Coat HANGAR!!!

Fukupika, wash and wax wipes.

LOL, I think that Fukupika CM is pure genius!

Chinese or Japanese? Not chicks, rotary buffers of course!

2010-04-09T15:17:00.012+08:00

I remembered hearing a story about a friend who attended a trade fair where there were many Chinese sellers setting up booths to sell their product/service.

He was walking past one booth where a Caucasian lady was talking to a fellow Chinese businessman. My friend overheard the Caucasian lady saying(rather loudly), "I am not Chinese, I do not copy!".

Upon hearing his story, I recalled a presentation that I had to do for my Economics class. The topic was about the two types of entrepreneurship.

The first type is the Schumpeterian entrepreneur, this entrepreneur is the one that innovates and creates a new idea/product to totally kill another product(aka creative destruction). Do you remember the Polaroid camera? It became obsolete after the invention of the digital camera. The Schumpeterian entrepreneur is the innovator.

The second type is called the Kirznerian entreprenuer. This entrepreneur is not a creative innovator, but is very alert to the market. Filling in gaps and satisfying needs that were not identified before. Somehow, they can still make money in a saturated market. One business strategy that Kirznerian entrepreneurs use is Creative Imitation. This is where they imitate the product of a market leader and add a few improvements to it. Then again, not all imitated products are improvements over the original product. You can also say many, if not most, Chinese entrepreneurs are Kirznerian entrepreneurs.

Which brings me to talking about cheap Chinese rotary buffers versus an expensive Japanese one.

I have been asked before whether one should spend the money on a rotary buffer(RB) such as the Makita, or start with an easier machine, such as the Bosch GEX-125AE.

To put things in perspective,
Makita 9227C RB - RM900
Bosch GEX125AE ROB - RM330

The Makita is nearly 3 times more expensive than the Bosch. When asked to choose which machine to start on first, my answer would depend on their time constraints and budget.

If the user is willing to spend many hours learning and getting comfortable with the rotary, he will be rewarded with results that are beyond the capabilities of a random orbital. If one is only aiming for clean and shiny paint without having to invest time in learning the machine, a random orbital is a good choice.

The second factor to choosing one machine over the other is budget. If one purchases the Makita together with all the pads, backing plate, compounds and polishes. The total bill can easily exceed RM1500. With the Bosch, you do not need pads such as a wool pad or traditional compounds such as M85. So you have lesser products to purchase when you want to buy the Bosch.

But after playing with the China made rotary buffers, I think I'm going to change my answer. If you are willing to spend time learning the rotary to achieve good results but do not have a high budget, I might suggest buying a China made buffer.

I only used the buffer on half of the boot on a Proton Waja, but boy were there huge differences.

Here's a quick comparison chart based on the very short play time I had with the Fuqiang RB

In addition to that, Henry from Osren Malaysia also commented that the China made buffers are not as durable.

With all those cons above, are they worth the purchase, well the price might suggest so. Such a HUGE price difference!

Okay okay, putting all those aside, the main question is, DOES IT WORK? I'll let the photos do the talking.

Spurring the wool pad.

And the reflection shots of the before and after. Note that the reflection shot in the before picture is unedited by any photo editing software(i.e. NOT Gaussian blur, etc.). The after shot is also not the result of sharpening using software, but by the cutting using hardware.

Another China made rotary named.... BoHai *cue audience laugh*

Here, Jackson is using it with a Lake Country 4 ply wool and Osren PC 3.0

The gloss achieved after compounding, polishing and Meguiar's NXT 2.0

So, would I recommend one? Yes if budget is an issue and time is not. I mean, with the China machine, you may have to spend more time learning it since it is not as smooth and comfortable to use as the Makita. For example, on speed 1 with slight pressure, the backing plate wouldn't even turn, unless you lift the buffer or up the speed. Not to mention the China machines are also MUCH louder than the Makita.

If you are willing to live with it, then it isn't such a bad choice.
The Fuqiang retails at about RM150. The BoHai at RM180. Another popular China RB, KEN, retails for about RM300+.

If you do go with the China RB though, I recommend getting quality pads and compounds/polishes. I have no experience with Chinese pads and compounds/polishes. But seeing the results we achieved that day, you can't go wrong with good pads and polishes, even if the machine is much cheaper!

Again, this is my opinion based on the short playtime, so please do not treat this as an absolute when choosing one machine over the other.

Rotary Ballet

Other than that, wish you all Happy Detailing and have a great weekend! Can't wait for tommorow, The Pacific pt. 3, showing on HBO at 9pm.

p.s. Would like to thank Jackson for hosting the RB party, snacks were delisshh. To Raymond for allowing us to use his car as a test mule, and to the rest for being great company as always!

^^V

EDIT: Seech's comment made me feel like I kinda betrayed you guys with the post title. So, here's a free bonus!

Mythbusting Wash & Wax Shampoos + Review of Meguiar's Ultimate Wash & Wax

2010-04-07T01:11:00.006+08:00

Wash and Shine, Wash and Wax, Wash and Gloss, car shampoos these days are marketed not only to clean your vehicle but also to enhance the gloss or add some form of protection to the paint.

However, do they really do that? Do Wash & Wax shampoos actually add something to the finish and negate the need to wax a car?
Or are they pure marketing BS?

I attempt to find out to these questions by comparing several Wash & Wax and non-Wash & Wax shampoos. I also review Meguiar’s new Ultimate Wash & Wax.

So the test panel will be used to test the shampoos. To prep the panel, I polished it with Meguiar’s #83 Dual-Action Cleaner/Polish via rotary @ 1500rpm to remove any old waxes and clean the paint at the same time. This is followed with a strong All Purpose Cleaner wash to remove polish residues and oils.

Here’s how water behaves on the clean panel.

The shampoos will be tested and evaluated on three aspects:
1) Sheeting ability
2) Beading ability
3) Foaming ability

Sheeting ability is tested because if the shampoo really ‘waxes’ the surface, then there should be higher surface tension, causing water to be repelled off the paint faster.

I evaluate on beading ability because some shampoos show pictures of water beading on the product package, indicating the shampoo being able to bead water off the surface. So I will try to see if it’s FO REAL!

Foaming ability is tested because certain wash and wax shampoos do not foam much at all and makes you feel like washing the car with water. I speculate that there will be a compromise between foaming ability and beading/sheeting ability. Enough talk, let’s jump to the pics!

Panels will be rinsed with a gentle splash of water and foaming ability is tested through the foam gun.

First up, Optimum Car Wash(Note: this is NOT the No-Rinse). About 16ml of shampoo is mixed with 500ml of water.

Washed with a small sponge, and left for 20 seconds before rinsing off.

After rinsing, Optimum Car Wash will sheet off water faster than the control area. Please note that this test is flawed because the shampoo will also spill to the control area(right side of the panel), so that might affect the results too. Do take the results with about 200grams of salt.

To test beading ability, clean water is sprayed from an atomizing chemical resistant spray head.

Not much difference between washed and control.

Foaming ability is tested through the foam gun set at the maximum shampoo to water ratio.

Foams really well!
Next up, Zaino Z7 Car Wash. Before I perform the test, I rewash the panel with Osren Multi Clean(no picture).

Note @ ‘Contains polish’
Same method is used.

Sheeting is faster than control area, but no improved beading too.

Foams well, just like Opt car wash.

3rd shampoo, Duragloss 901.

Note @ ‘Formulated to polish and shine as it cleans’

Similar product description to Zaino Z7, can we expect the same results? We shall see…

Surprisingly, it does not sheet faster than the control area. Again, do take this result with a pinch of salt.

Beading wise, not significantly better than the control area.

Foams well though…

4th shampoo, ArmorAll Ultra Shine Wash & Wax. Now this product should be interesting, just look at the packaging!

A miracle shampoo??

Sheeting is way faster than control! Way to go ArmorAll!

Will it bead water???

Sorry mate, no beads there.

Foams well, although a little bit lacking compared to the previous shampoos.

Next, Malco Ultra Violet Wash & Wax Shampoo.

The interesting this about this shampoo is it’s dilution ratio, 1:20. Yup, you read that right, 1:20, not the common 1:128(1oz. per gallon) ratio. Let’s see how it fares…

It’s hard to tell from this picture, but it does significantly sheet water away faster.

Beading wise…

I think this shampoo does leave something behind and will bead water. Albeit the beads won’t match any wax or even oils from a polish, but they do appear rounder than the beads on the control area.

Foams well, akin to ArmorAll Wash & Wax.

Next is the highly anticipated Meguiar’s Ultimate Wash & Wax.

The key difference is dispersed wax technology. While other Wash & Waxes appear translucent, Meguiar’s Ultimate Wash & Wax is opaque, and it would not separate into two different layers; unlike certain Wash & Gloss shampoos out there.

Sad to say, there was no difference in water sheeting between the washed area and control.

No water beading either.

The suds however, are wonderful!

Next we move to shampoos that are reported not to generate much suds.
First, we have Autoglym Bodywork Shampoo Conditioner.

Note @ ‘water repellent barrier’

Water sheeting is faster than control area.

Water beading is slightly better than control.

Things are looking good for this shampoo, BUT, foaming ability is almost zero!

Next, we have Carmate KK129 Shampoo with Wax. I bought this from Autobacs in Singapore after constantly fantasizing about other Carmate products since I was so impressed with their Black Resin Restore. Hoping this product will deliver and out-of-the-norm result.

I’m not sure if this product has past it’s shelf-life date, because it smells like old rotten eggs! Remember that strong sulphur smell in the chemistry lab? Verrry smelly.

There was a little faster sheeting action from the washed side, but not significantly faster when compared to other shampoos.

Water beading again, did not exist, another empty promise from the product packaging.

The next shampoo caught my attention greatly. It is not an OTC product nor is it a boutique online product, but something used by Rainaway detailing centres. You might recall that I’m testing Rainaway’s Nanocoat(paint sealant), testing has been extended due to ‘questionable’ results from my first attempt(shhhh). This shampoo hasn’t been launched yet but it is used as a maintenance shampoo for cars protected with Rainaway Nanocoat.

When a Rainaway agent first showed me the shampoo being used on a car, I was amazed at the water beading and sheeting ability. Water behavior was almost the same as a freshly waxed surface! I took out my Carmate, Autoglym and Meg's Ultimate Wash & Wax shampoo to try it on the same panel, but couldn’t match the result of the Rainaway Maintenance Shampoo. At that time, I was thinking to myself, “Man, this has to be a shampoo from another galaxy that aliens use to wash their spaceships”.

So of course, I begged on two knees to request for some to try.(just kidding)

Here is the water behaviour before washing, as usual, clean low surface tension paint.

I didn’t test it with the foam gun, but it doesn’t foam much either, just like Autoglym BSC and Carmate KK129.

On my first wash using the shampoo diluted with water, I didn’t see the results that the Rainaway agent showed me that day.

So I followed his method of pouring the shampoo directly on the sponge and washed the panel with it.

Now we are getting somewhere, but still nowhere near to what I originally saw. So I poured some directly onto the panel and spread it with my hand.

Now we get to see some relatively strong sheeting action.

Water will immediately sheet as I sweep my nozzle from left to right quickly.

But still, it wouldn’t repel water on contact, as compared to this area that is coated with Rainaway Nanocoat Premium.

Here’s water beading from Rainaway Maintenance Shampoo. The strongest out of all the other shampoos tested.

What confused me was even when I applied the shampoo directly to the panel, I could not replicate the result that I saw. One possible reason is the panel that he showed me on already had some form of protection on it, so the shampoo could easily increase the paint surface tension; greatly increasing water sheeting and beading ability.

However, on my test panel, I would estimate that I only managed to replicate 50-60% of what I originally saw. This would indicate that Wash & Wax shampoos are not meant to replace good old fashioned wax.

Notice that there is a compromise between sheeting ability and foaming. If we compare Optimum Car Wash to Malco Ultra Violet(MUV), MUV will sheet better and produce the same amount of suds compared to Optimum car wash, but it has a dilution ratio of 1:20. ArmorAll sheets water as well as MUV, but sacrifices a little bit in terms of foaming ability. Autoglym BSC sheets water the best compared to the rest but totally lacks foaming ability.

Now you may look at the table and radar above and conclude that Meguiar’s new Ultimate Wash & Wax is rubbish. But let’s remind ourselves that shampoos shouldn’t be judged only from those three aspects. A few other things makes a shampoo good, such as lubrication, cleaning ability, improved gloss, not leaving water spots, gentleness on applied wax/sealant and post-wash slickness.

Meguiar’s also do not have a history of relating water beading to protection. I remembered reading a statement on Meguiar’s Online stating something like, ‘Gold Class wax may not be beading water anymore, but it is still there protecting the paint’. Only as of late, they start emphasizing on water beading due to their new Hydrophobic Polymer Technology.

Meguiar’s Ultimate Wash & Wax also does not state on the packaging that it contains its Hydrophobic Polymer Technology, so I may not be looking for the things that Meguiar’s want me to look for in its new shampoo.

Being a Meguiar’s fan, I’m going to defend it!

So I will be using it on my daily driver. The car isn’t very dirty, just your average road grime and traffic film.

Before pictures of the car.

Measuring 5 ounces(150ml) of Ultimate Wash & Wax for 5 gallons of water.

As shown in during the test panel wash, it suds very nicely!

Here’s the bonnet before washing.

Half of the bonnet being washed with a Lake Country Big Blue sponge.

At the end of the wash, the suds were still strong in the bucket.

Water beading was maintained.

Carmate Black Resin Restore still going strong three months after application.

Car is dried using an Autoglym Aqua Dry Synthetic Chamois, leaving a clean glossy shine behind.

My conclusion about Meguiar’s Ultimate Wash & Wax, very sudsy, very lubricated, good cleaning power on protected paintwork and *maintains* water repellency. The keyword is maintain, it would not create better water beading, but at the same time, wouldn’t kill beading unlike Meguiar’s NXT shampoo; which from my previous experience, can be harsh on LSPs(last step product). I also noticed my hands had a waxy feeling after washing and drying the car. The paint also felt slicker, not sure if it’s due to the waxy hand feeling or Ultimate Wash & Wax doing its thing. Either way, at a price range that matches other non-OTC shampoos, I say this is a keeper. Definitely a good shampoo if you lower your expectations. Oh, it smells like yummy mango milkshake!

So, what about other Wash & Wax shampoos? Are they a time-saver for the consumer or a cash cow for the companies selling them?

Personally, I do not feel they are a necessary product category for the aware detailer. Non-wash&wax shampoos work just as well on well protected paintwork. Wash & Wax shampoos definitely will NOT replace conventional waxing. You may get good water sheeting from shampoos such as Autoglym Bodywork Shampoo Conditioner, but the lack of suds may put users off as it makes you feel like you are washing with water. Don’t expect the paint to bead water on its own because the bottle has a picture of water beads on it. It may help to maintain your current water beading better than non-wash&wax shampoos, but don’t expect to get beading like the picture below.

If you want the (possible)slickness from a wash & wax shampoo, why not use a spray detailer or spray wax after drying the car? It won't take more than 5 minutes and the benefits will beat any wash & wax shampoo.

For me, I am happy with using regular shampoos, but sometimes, change is nice. It’s also fun to have the placebo effect play with your mind, “after using this Wash & Wax, I can delay waxing for another month! Wheeee!” Pardon my insanity, it’s 2.10am, this write-up is taking longer than I thought, lol.

That's it brothers and sisters, uncles and aunties, hope you liked this post. Thanks for looking and will appreciate a comment, good or bad.

^^V

Product Review: Carmate SIV Wheel Coat and First Play with a Foam Lance!

2010-03-15T21:38:00.007+08:00

UPDATE: New comparison of different wheel protectants.

Hello again folks! Here's a product review of Carmate's SIV Wheel Coat. I purchased it from Autobacs during my trip to Singapore a few months back. I was so impressed with Carmate's Black Resin Restore, that I just had to try another Carmate product.

So I bought what seems to be a wheel coating, and compared it against Poorboys Wheel Sealant. Check out the results after the jump.

BONUS! Some pictures of the 'foam party' held at Fishbonez' Auto Detailing Theme Park. Check them all out after the jump!

So first up, is the review of Carmate SIV Wheel Coat.

Purchased this for SGD27.20 at Autobacs. (I'm a sucker for auto detailing products with Japanese Kanji on them)

It is a very watery liquid and from the pictures on the side of the box, it looks like it is supposed to repel brake dust.

The back of the box shows the application procedure and included in the box is a foam stick with a few foam refills.

As per my old test for Poorboys Wheel Sealant, I taped half of the wheel and applied SIV Wheel Coat to one side and PB Wheel Sealant to the other.

SIV Wheel Coat took longer to dry to a haze.

After leaving both sides about 30 minutes to dry(it was a cold and humid night), they were then buffed off.

Poorboys Wheel Sealant came off with ease as usual and left a smooth, slick and shiny finish.

Carmate SIV Wheel Coat however, was quite difficult to buff off and no matter how hard I wipe, all of it wouldn't come off, as you can see the reflection of the light is not as complete as the reflection on the Poorboys Wheel Sealant side.

Fast forward 1 month without washing the wheels,

Both sides had brake dust on them, but the Carmate SIV Wheel Coat side looks like it had less brake dust. On the other wheel however, both sides were the same. So I can't comment on whether it actually repels brake dust.

I then rinsed the wheel with a pressure washer.

This is where a difference is shown.

On the Poorboys Wheel Sealant side, I spent quite some time rinsing the wheel in that specific spot, but the brake dust had to be physically agitated to be removed.

On the side coated with Carmate SIV Wheel Coat however, most of the brake dust was rinsed off easly.

After washing the wheel with car shampoo, the side with SIV Wheel Coated beaded water better than Poorboys Wheel Sealant.

In conclusion, I would rate Carmate SIV Wheel Coat as high on protection and durability, but low on user friendliness.

Again, there is a compromise between these three factors, similar to my Paint Protectant Triangle Dilemma(PPTD) 'theory'.

Would I recommend SIV Wheel Coat? Probably not at the moment, until I find the correct application method.

Okay, next we have some pictures from the recent 'foam party', haha!

We had a variety of ammo to choose from to load into our weapon, the foam cannon(U.S term), also known as the foam lance in the U.K.

I do not have any pics, but we actually used the foam gun first before playing with the foam lance. The foam gun attaches to the garden hose and does not need a pressure washer.

Even with the foam gun, the foam does not stick to the surface, but the paint did appear cleaner after rinsing off the foam! We were quite surprised at this. It still required a hand wash with a mitt touching the paint.

We then played with the foam lance, trying out many different shampoos. Finally we decided to go crazy and overdosed our foam canister with Osren Bubble and Wax shampoo with a ratio of 30% water and 70% shampoo.

It produced massively thick and clingy suds.

While we were fooling around with the foam lance, Joe, our local 'chemist' cracks his head at trying to formulate the world's most premium shampoo.

He added all the shampoos available at the exact volume, this creates a chemical reaction that catalyses and activates the potential sudsing and cleaning power of each shampoo.

He calls it, the VooDoO shampoo.

*cue lightning and thunder effects*

Okay sorry, I'm just playing around. Turns out it didn't clean any better, or suds any better than any other shampoos.

I guess it's best to leave the mixing to the real chemists.

After we got the car squeaky clean, my hands were itching to bring out the rotary buffer, and decided to polish the small bonnet of the Perodua 'test mule' Kelisa.

Process was:

- Meguiar's #85 Diamond Cut Compound 2.0 via Lake Country 4ply white wool pad @ 1200rpm
- Meguiar's #83 Dual-Action Cleaner/Polish via Lake Country White Kompressor pad @ 1200 rpm
- Meguiar's #205 Ultra Finishing Polish via Meguiar's Polishing pad @ 900rpm
- Presta Aurora 3000 Hand Glaze via Lake Country Black Finishing pad @ 600rpm

Here are the results,

Mmmmm, glossy....

'Spirit36' then helped to finish off the roof using the same process. He handles the buffer as if he is holding a light plastic toy.

While 'Jackson' AIO-ed the rest of the car with Duragloss #501 Marine/RV Polish on one half and Jeff's Werkstatt Prime:Acrylic on the other.

Thanks for coming guys, your company is always enjoyed.

P.S Will need to think on how to do a full review on the foam gun and foam lance/cannon. Do you have any suggestions on how I should fully test their capabilities?

Thanks for looking as always!

Kenneth/Fishbonez signing out..... *pshhhht*

^^V

Honda Odyssey: Intermediate Detail

2010-03-01T16:58:00.007+08:00

A one and a half day detail to this metallic red Honda Odyssey. This isn't a full paintwork correction detail, but more to improving the overall condition of the car in the limited time given.

The car wasn't too bad to start with,

but this doesn't mean it cannot be improved!

Before,

After,

Before,

After,

Read the whole process after the jump. It's only a short post, I promise!

Gotcha!! You're in for a 200 pic, 2500 words ultra long write-up, grab a cup of.... no no I'm kidding! Don't click the 'x', it's really a short post.

Let's begin.

The car wasn't very dirty to start with, here are some before pictures.

The general condition of the paintwork,

Process for wheels, wheel wells and tires:
-Rinsed with pressure washer
-Wheel wells and tires cleaned with Osren Multi Clean(diluted 1:1)
-Wheel face and barrel with Meguiar's Wheel Brightener (diluted 3:1)

After washing the car with Presta Lubri-Sudzz shampoo, whole car is clayed with Detailogy clay using diluted Lubri-Sudzz as clay lube. This shampoo was so slippery that I had hard time holding the clay.

Process for the paintwork was:

Osren Perfect Cut 2.0 / 900-1500rpm / Meguiar's Polishing Pad
Presta Aurora 3000 Hand Glaze / 600rpm / Lake Country Black Finishing Pad

The Presta Hand Glaze is a very nice product indeed, easy off, and adds a 'wet look' to the paint. Great to use when perfect correction is not the objective of the detail.

Some general afters, I would say the swirls were about 60% corrected, 40% filled and 10% visible.

LSP of choice was Meguiar's new Gold Class Carnauba Plus wax. The paste wax is very soft and had some yellow coloured 'oil' on the surface when I first opened it.

Application was done by hand.

While waiting for the wax to haze over, I cleaned interior leather and plastics with Malco Leather & Plastic cleaner.

Before cleaning,

During, notice the middle section of the seat,

After conditioning with Meguiar's Gold Class Leather Cleaner/Conditoner,

Note to self, remember to charge more when detailing the interior of an MPV,

Before,

After,

Before,

After,

Before,

After,

Carpets were pressure washed, shampooed with Presta Lubri-Sudzz, extracted with a Karcher wet/dry vac.

More after of the leather seats,

I then buffed off the wax and removed excess 'oil' residue on the surface with Meguiar's Ultimate Quik Detailer.

Interior carpets and coil mats were sprayed with Osren Air Freshener.

Door jambs polished and sealed with Jeff's Werkstatt Prime:Acrylic to give a clean entry to the driver/passengers.

Before,

After,

Before,

After,

Before,

After,

Tires dressed with Osren Tire Shine. Wheel well plastics with Meguiar's Hyper Dressing(diluted 4:1)

Exhaust tip before,

Products used,

After,

After shots of the whole car.

Thanks for looking as always!

p.s. Many thanks to Puden for providing me with the sample of Presta Aurora 3000 Hand Glaze.

^^V

Washing with a sponge? A long term test

2010-02-26T11:42:00.007+08:00

Lambswool wash mitts, microfiber wash mitts, cotton chenille wash mitts, there are many types of wash mitts available in the market today and are becoming a widely used wash media for washing the car with.

However, this poses a question of extinction to another wash media.

Are sponges irrelevant?

This posts describes why I am testing sponges instead of wash mitt and how they will be tested.

Click to read the whole process after the jump!

Most people would normally wash down their cars with a bucket of soapy water and a cheap sponge. However, the sponge has created a bad rep in the auto detailing industry, being known to cause the majority of swirl marks.

The argument for it is that a wash mitt creates a buffer zone between itself and the paint’s surface, allowing grit to be safely trapped in the plush wash mitt, so there is a lesser chance of causing car wash abrasions.

A sponge however has a flat surface and does not have any space between it and the paint, causing the grit to ‘grind’ against the car as you wash. Read Dave KG's car washing guide to get a better illustration.

The wash mitt is undoubtly a very good wash media, regardless of its type, a wash mitt, carries more soapy water, acts as a buffer zone, and is gentle to the paint.

So are sponges going to face extinction as a choice of a washing media?

Probably not.

The first argument for this is washing technique is more important than the choice of wash media. You may be using the world’s plushest lambswool mitt(wookie's fist?) but there is still the chance of scratching the paint of you do not rinse the mitt often, or washing across many panels at one time without gathering more soap solution.

Detailing enthusiasts tend to agree that sponges are the cause of swirl marks, but I have a theory to disagree with them. When car owners start to learn proper washing techniques, they also purchase proper tools. As they learn to wash their cars with the proper method, they notice that swirl marks do not appear at such a rapid rate. I think you know where I am going here.

Swirl marks do not appear could be due to a combination of using proper washing techniques and using a wash mitt

or

solely due to proper washing method.

The second argument in favour of sponges relate to the online detailing community. On Autopia, a US detailing forum, many people have switched to using a grout sponge as many agree that it does not cause swirl marks and is cheap! (A grout sponge costs USD1.87 wheres a Meguiar’s wash mitt costs USD5.99). There are also new wash medias that utilize foam, those that I am aware of is the EDGE Shmitt, Lake Country Big Blue, LC Ultimitt and the Zymol sponge(this one isn’t very new).
Speaking of the Zymol sponge, I have noticed that world-reknowned celebrity detailer Paul Dalton, have been using it for a while now. You can watch him using it in the videos below.

Miracle Detail's new HD film trailer
Fifth Gear Paul Dalton feature
Miracle Detail - RTL - Formel Exclusiv - £5000 Car Wash

Another point to note is that the Zymol sponge has a flat surface, no grid-channels or egg crate shape to prevent grit from grinding into the surface. Maybe a buffer zone isn’t important after all, maybe washing technique is much more important in maintaining a swirl free finish.

This is what I’m about to find out. Four wash medias will be tested:

- The edge Schmitt
- LC big blue
- A generic sponge
- Cotton polishing cloth

I will wash each door with one wash media. They have been polished with Meguiar’s SwirlX to remove previous light swirling.

Here are the condition of the panels after polishing.

Shampoo of choice will be Turtle Wax ICE Shampoo, a basic shampoo with lubricants.

Allow me to comment on the wash medias I will be testing. The EDGE Schmitt features a very smooth foam with an egg-crate pattern, I’m assuming this is the same foam as their white polishing pad.

The big blue however feels a little more rough and the pores are bigger and inconsistent.

The generic sponge is a flat surfaced sponge but actually feels soft. I guess I purchased a ‘premium’ generic sponge.

And taking it to the 'extreme', I’ll be washing with a cotton polishing cloth. This cloth is virtually flat as it has no nap, unlike a terry cloth.

The method of washing would be to firstly rinse down the panel with a garden hose.

Then the panel being washed is drenched with soapy water carried by the wash media.

Wash media is reloaded with more soapy water and the panel is washed in a left to right sweeping motion.

The panel is rinsed off before washing the next panel.

Washing with the generic sponge

Washing with Big Blue

Dreching the panel first,

Reload with more soapy water and wash,

After washing the four doors, they will be rinsed with filtered water to prevent water spotting. Dried using an Autoglym Aqua dry synthetic chamois with the blot dry technique.

To maintain protection and water repellency, the panels will be sealed with Mad Detailer’s Enviroshield using an MF applicator in an up-down sweeping motion. This way, I avoid any unnecessary rubbing during applying and removing wax/sealant.

I’m doing all this to eliminate as many variables as possible, if I were to see scratches in a horizontal pattern, then I’ll know it is from the washing process, not from the drying or waxing. Oh, I also have to be stringent with friends who try to lean on the car, haha!

Well this test is going to be long term as it will take some time for any wash marks to accumulate. The paint is also heavy with metallic flakes, which hides light scratches.

Oh, remember when a mitt is supposed to trap grit and release them into rinse bucket during a wash?

This is what I saw in my bucket after washing the whole car down with the four wash medias. Besides the four doors, the rest of the car was washed with LC Big Blue.

You may also be wondering, why would I want to create swirl marks by washing with the cotton cloth??

This is so that I could play with some new toys...

I purchased them after being shown the effects of orange peel removal by hand sanding with only 3000 grit!

Before,

After,

Well, stay tuned for the results of this sponge test. Do subscribe via e-mail to be notified of new posts, your e-mail will remain anonymous to me and anyone else.

EDIT: After I posted the link to this post on Autoworld Detailing forum, a forummer named dschia from http://www.shinecars.sg/ made a great comment regarding wash method vs wash media.

"Just wanna add that it may not be practical to use the best possible wash method such as foaming, pressure washer hose down, then 2 bucket method etc. Of course, it will work much better since much lesser grit is left behind leaving wash medium minimal role to play, but we need to factor in time and limitations(water issue in SG & US). Sometimes we need to compromise in our wash method. This is where wash medium will be increasingly important depending on how we do it." (dschia, 2010)

Next post will probably to test whether Wash and Wax shampoos will actually leave something on the surface, or are they just a term to help market their shampoos.

Thanks for looking as always, and feel free to leave a comment below!

^^V

My perspective on current paint protectants

2010-02-13T00:27:00.011+08:00

Let’s talk car wax. To the average joe, waxing a car is equivalent to making a car shiny.

“ Hey Joe! Let’s toss the ‘ol pigskin around the park”
“I can’t man, I gotta wax the car. Got a hot date tonight!”

*Sorry for the non-halal dialogue, pigskin refers to American football*

I guess this is also the reason that many OTC(Over-The-Counter) car waxes have some form of cleaners in them, this makes life easier for the average joe.

Let’s take Meguair’s NXT2.0 for example, what is technically a synthetic sealant is named Tech Wax and contains cleaners strong enough to remove ingrained dirt from the paint.

This is just my own hypothesis but I’m guessing that Meguiar’s realize that most people do not know the difference between a wax and a polish. Hence, NXT Tech Wax 2.0 is the go-to product to making a car shiny.

Let’s say I have a product that will outlast and give far better protection than NXT 2.0 but it has to be applied on a perfectly clean surface, i.e. free of bonded contaminants, ingrained dirt and polishing oils. I then put this product up for sale at any auto parts/hardware store. I will also give this super durable product ultra-fancy packaging boasting claims of extreme durability and protection. With big bold statements such as “Will outlast Meguiar’s NXT 2.0!”

And just to get people to buy it, I name it something-something-wax. Chances are, people will buy it if it is competitively priced against NXT 2.0. However, they were expecting it to shine up the car as well as protect the paint. So they give their own cars a good hose down, wash with a bucket and sponge, dry with an old chamois lying around and apply my super-out-of-this-universe-product. I will expect them to face difficulties buffing off the product because of over-application or because the paint wasn’t prepped. Even if they did manage to buff it off, it wouldn’t last because it doesn’t have a clean paint to bond to. So, it will not live up to its claims of outlasting NXT 2.0. The product doesn’t sell well after a while and it eventually passes its shelf life and is thrown into the garbage bin.

I’m just trying to illustrate the term wax from an average Joe’s point of view.

Now let’s talk about paint protectants. I started my detailing hobby mostly using Meguair’s products, the original NXT Tech Wax blew me away at that time, as I slowly researched into it, I too found that its durability is not really up there. So I bought and tried several different paint protectants 'till today and here is my current perspective on today’s car waxes and sealants.

There are many different types of paint protectants out there, even a spray detailer will add some form of protection to the paint.

Several properties differentiate a paint protectant from another.

These are:
-Ease of use
-Durability
-Protection
-Filling ability/shine/gloss
- Cleaning ability

I will be focusing on the first three properties, which are ease of use, durability and protection. It seems that there is a trend of compromise between these three properties.

I shall call it the Triangle Dilemma.

Allow me to illustrate with my poor Microsoft paint skills, we have a triangle scale; on each end is the three aforementioned properties.

After using certain products and listening to experiences from other detailers, I came to my own conclusion below.

The first triangle shows most OTC car waxes/sealants. Think Meguiar’s NXT2.0, its ease of use is simply great. If you applied a bit too thickly, it still comes off with ease. If applied properly, comes off like butter.
However durability is not really there, and by durability I mean water repellency after a few weeks/months.
Protection is mediocre to good. This product category is suitable for the average Joe as they can easily use these products to shine up their ride and have some decent protection on the paint. No fuss, no mess, no hard rubbing, simple and easy.

The second triangle actually illustrates a specific product I have been using, Duragloss #105 Total Performance Polish.

Its ease of use is lacking a little compared to NXT 2.0 because if you applied DG105 the same as you did with NXT 2.0, you might have difficulty buffing off. It has to be applied so thin that it is almost invisible. Once you know this, then application and removal is a breeze.

Its durability is simply great, putting Zaino Z2 aside; this baby outlasts many liquid sealants on the market(EDIT: I may have drawn the durability line a little bit too far >.<). Here comes the compromise, the protection factor. Although it will still repel water strongly, you will notice that water spots can still accumulate and etch into the paint surface. High surface tension is not an absolute indicator of protection. Even so, I use this product most often now because of those two properties that it excels in, ease of use and durability.

The third triangle illustrates many paste waxes on the market.

Think Meguiar’s M16 professional paste wax. Its user-friendliness is definitely incomparable to many liquid waxes out there, but it is easy to use once you get the hang of it. I assume that protection is better than sealants because there is a thicker physical layer on the paint surface. That means any contaminants have to etch through a thicker layer of protection before reaching the clearcoat.

However, the compromise is in its durability. A paste wax does not bond to the paint like a sealant does. It basically just ‘sits’ on top of the paint, instead of grabbing on to the clearcoat with razor sharp claws like a sealant does(cross-linking?). I must remind you that these are just my ASSUMPTIONS, there may be truth in them, but I cannot guarantee them, so do read what I say with some critical-ism.

Now the last triangle is what interests me the most and is uncharted territory for me.

This triangle illustrate paint coatings. You’ve probably heard of stuff like Nano Coating, Glass Coating, Quartz Coating, etc. etc.
These stuff are finicky to use and application has to be done right to achieve maximum product performance.

An example is Pompanazzi Real Quartz Coating. A detailer once showed me a tiny bottle that was used to store the coating, the product inside has dried up and I was shocked when I saw what was inside the bottle. The liquid coating has actually solidified and creates a rattling sound when the bottle is shaken. Your normal liquid sealant will probably dry up into a dry paste or turn powdery. But this stuff was solid, I didn’t feel it, but I could see it was as solid as plastic.

Now I am only speculating the durability and protection factor on the triangle but I am pretty sure it is not like your average paint sealant. Its ease of use however is terrible, it is very oily during application and takes days to cure and harden! Thanks to DrayFX from http://www.drayfx.blogspot.com/ for this information. You can view his write-up about the Pompanazzi HERE. This is why I rated it very low on the ease of use scale.

Other paint coatings that I’m aware of include G’Zox Real Glass Coating, Hi-Mohs Coat, Nanolex and G|Techniq.

That pretty much sums up about what I think about current paint protectants. As a product increases its ease of use, it will have to compromise in either durability and/or protection and vice versa.

I wonder how soon it will be until we can have a paint protectant that ignores the Triangle Dilemma and excels in ease of use, durability and protection.

What do you think about the waxes and sealants that you are using at the moment?

p.s. Thanks to vx55 for his ideas and input on this topic!

[Video] Water Behaviour on Different States of Paintwork

2010-01-21T10:00:00.003+08:00

This video shows different patterns of water repellency on three states of paintwork:

1st state: Levelled paintwork with wax. This panel has least exposure to environmental attacks such as UV rays and acid rain. The paint has been fully compounded and polished and protected with Duragloss sealants and spray wax.

2nd state: Waxed paintwork with contaminants, ingrained dirt and heavy waterspot etching. This panel has also been fully compounded and polished, but is exposed to the environment most of the time. The paint is constantly bombarded with hot sun and heavy rain. This accelerates the waterspot etching process. As a result, this panel is heavily water spotted, has ingrained dirt and is contaminated as it feels gritty. Although the sealant/wax on the surface is still repelling water, it doesn't sheet off water cleanly, leaving drops of water behind. This is because the waterspots in the paint 'grabs' the water as it is being sheeted off.

3rd state: Levelled paintwork with no wax and no polishing oils. This is the same panel as the second state, but after polishing with Meguiar's SwirlX to remove waterspot etchings and any ingrained dirt. It is then washed with a basic car shampoo to remove polishing oils. This state shows that levelled paintwork in itself will sheet off water very cleanly.

The ideal state would be the 1st state.

So the next time you wash your car, try to notice how your paint repels water, if it repels water like the 1st state, then protection is good. If it repels like the second state, it is probably a good time for a polish and wax session.

Of course, these are only my observations and could very well be wrong. Please correct me and feel free to point out to any mistakes or ambiguity.

Thanks for looking!

p.s A hint to what's coming next. A test between wash sponges and China vs Japan.

Initial Impressions: Rainaway

2010-01-18T22:28:00.008+08:00

With an abundant variety of detailing products on the market, many companies try to differentiate themselves from the crowd. Rainaway is one of them, they offer products that are supposed to outperform and outlast Over-The-Counter(OTC) products.

They offer four different services, which are:

Nano Glass Coating
Nano Paint Coating - Premium
Nano Paint Coating - Diamond
Nano Titanium (Coats a surface to become anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and mold free. Used on interior surfaces)

These services are not available directly to the end user and can only be applied by detailing centres that offer Rainaway services.

This post will show how these products are applied as well as a small glimpse of whether they are worth it.

Read about my initial impressions after the jump!

Products that will be tested is the Nano Glass Coating and Nano Paint Coating(Premium series).

When you opt for the glass coating, the detailing centre will first clean the windscreen with an abrasive powder to remove any oil, grease, etched in waterspots as well as any previously applied products on the windscreen.

I applied the powder with a 4" Lake Country CCS pad by hand.

As you can see below, the pattern show lines of waterspot etchings on the glass.

I then worked the product in until it does not show any lines or hydrophobic properties.

After rinsing and washing the powder off,

Crystal clear glass with no waterspots,

For the test, the entire front windscreen will be coated with Rainaway's Nano Glass Coating. The rear windscreen will be split into half, with one half coated with Rainaway and the other with a very popular glass water repellant, Rain-X.

The Nano Glass Coating consists of two chemicals, F1 and F2, which have to be mixed together prior to application. I'm assuming that one if it is the hardener/catalyst.

The mixed solution is then applied with a cotton pad.

The removal process was vastly different between Rain-X and Rainaway Nano Glass Coating.

Rain-X is very much oilier and washing it off with soap and water is the best and cleanest option for removal, I tried that method with the side coated with Rainaway Nano Glass, it was hardly removed.

It had to be dry buffed and any remaining streaks cleaned off with a glass cleaner. Buffing it off was difficult indeed, it was dry and grabby.

Rainaway is also supposed to protect the glass from watermark etching. From my previous experience with Rain-X, it doesn't do much for protecting in the long term, but it's water repellency is pretty durable.

That's all for now for the Nano Glass Coating.

Next product to be tested is Rainaway's Nano Paint Coating - Premium series. The higher end version is the Diamond Series.

I prepped the paint with some Meguiar's SwirlX on the Random Orbital Buffer. This was more than enough since it had a paint makeover a few weeks ago.

Worked in,

Buffed off,

Reflection,

Dirt and contaminants removed from the paint,

The Bosch ROB may be an infant in the world of polishing machines, that doesn't mean it's unable to kick some butt on its own!

The Honda that had the full monty HERE, had suffered from severe watermark etchings.

However, frequent washing prevented the watermarks from being etched in too deep and was possible to be removed with only the Bosch ROB.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

I also received instructions to remove any polishing oils on the surface prior to the application of Rainaway Nano Paint Coating.

So I washed the boot and bonnet with Osren Nano Wash, a basic shampoo without any wax or gloss enhancers. The roof wasn't washed just to see if the oils would affect the durability of the coating.

All horizontal surfaces were then taped into half.

Products and process is as follow.

Driver's side:
- Apply Duragloss #601 Polish Bonding Agent
- Apply 1st coat of Duragloss #105 Total Performance Polish
- Wait half an hour and buff off
- Apply 2nd coat of Duragloss #105 Total Performance Polish

Passenger's side:
- Apply 1st coat of Rainaway Nano Paint Coating(Premium)
- Wait half an hour and buff off
- Apply 2nd coat of Rainaway Nano Paint Coating(Premium)

Then during the buffing process, experienced the same thing as the glass coating. VERY difficult to buff off.

On the Duragloss(DG) side, as expected, it came off with ease and leaving a smooth, deep and even finish. On the Rainaway side, it's like I had to buff through several layers of dried product.

Sorry for the poor picture below, but you can see on the right side(Rainaway) of the picture, the light reflection is not sharp.

The left side(Duragloss) just had light smearing that was removed with a fresh microfibre(MF) cloth.

This could be one of the reasons why it is not available for end users and have to be professionally applied.

In addition to the buffing process, the looks was also different. Now I belong to the camp of 'looks is in the prep work', whatever wax or sealant I put on afterwards is merely for protection.

On the DG side, it looked dark and wet. On the Rainaway side, it didn't look as dark, this could also be due to the coating that I used, which was meant for metallic paint. Rainaway has another type meant for dark coloured vehicles.

Fast forward 2 days with an afternoon of heavy rain.

The bonnet is washed with shampoo, dried and the Rainaway side is buffed off again with a dry MF cloth. Even shampoo solution wouldn't wash the excess product away!
After much difficulty, the finish was quite even and on par with the DG side.

The pictures are just to show their water beading characteristics, not a comparison as DG #105 isn't a very strong beader in itself.

However, the Rainaway side repelled water VERY nicely whereas the DG side was a little bit slower. Even so, I do not blame it as that is how it is supposed to be.

Speaking about water beading, I'm one who believes that water beading is not the absolute indicator of protection as a cheap RM19 bottle of Soft99 Fusso Coat can repel water very well, but lacks in protection.

This is where Rainaway is supposed to differ, it's meant to repel water greatly and at the same time provide great protection.

Although it is too early to tell, there were slight differences between the two halves. The DG side had very tiny waterspots whereas the Rainaway side was as clean as freshly polished paint.

In conclusion, my initial impressions of Rainaway is good, only if you do not have to apply it yourself. It is too early to evaluate it's performance, therefore, do stay tuned and check back in 1-2 months time for the full product review of Rainaway with videos.

You can subscribe via e-mail HERE to receive notification of new posts. Don't worry, your e-mail will remain anonymous to everyone including myself.

Thanks for looking!

Many thanks to Darren from Autowaxshop in Kuching, Sarawak for the Rainaway samples!

Feel free to post your comments, or maybe a prediction of the outcome below.

Experiences of current Rainaway users are highly appreciated!

^^V

p.s. Just in case anyone might get the wrong signal, there is NO intention to defame any product, person or company.

Practicing Moderation In Auto Detailing

2010-01-07T17:29:00.000+08:00

As with all things in life, moderation is important. One should not be at the extreme end of a scale.

An example is that our cars need engine oil, not using enough engine oil will result in lack of lubrication and increases wear. Filling up engine oil over the maximum limit will cause the engine to be sluggish.

A second example is in giving praises and compliments. If you praise one person too much, that person might become egoistical, if you don't give that person any praises at all, he/she will be unmotivated and lacking of self-confidence.

Then come auto detailing. Gone are the days where washing and waxing is all that is done to make a vehicle shine. These days, you have polishes, glazes, pre-wax cleaners, clays, quick detailers, waxes and sealants. All these contribute to making a paint finish look its best.

If a person only wash and wax the paint, it might not be enough as the surface might still feel rough and swirls and scratches are still on the paint. Therefore, more steps are needed, such as claying and polishing with an abrasive polish to remove swirls and scratches.

However, some people get too deep into the details until they forget the basic purpose of detailing the paint.

Many types of paint protectants have emerged in the market. You have your basic carnauba wax, then comes your synthetic sealants, then your spray on waxes/sealants and your wipe-on-walk-away sealants. Not to mention that there are different brands or manufacturers in a product category.

Now let's remind ourselves of the basic function of a paint protectant, i.e. car wax.

A car wax acts as a sacrificial barrier to protect the paint from harmful contaminants such as acid rain, bird droppings, industrial fallout and traffic pollution. Of course, waxes also add to the look by filling some scratches, and oils add that wet look to the paint, giving it a glossy shine.

These are the basic functions. Now, those who go into detail will often compare waxes and sealants of different brands, most of the time, trying to hunt for the best. Let's focus on carnauba/synthetic paste waxes. Firstly, you have your famous brand, Megu**r's, on the other end of the scale, you have your boutique brand, Zym*l. Megu**r's have their own paste waxes.

Zym*l has many more different varieties to choose from, since that is what their main product offering consists of. For Zym*l waxes, the higher the percentage of carnauba is in the wax, the more expensive it gets. The benefits of a higher percentage of carnauba is? More protection? Better looks?

I do not know, as I'm not a chemist or a professional detailer. But if I were to apply an RM500 Zym*l wax beside an RM70 Megu**r's wax on a well prepped surface, would one be able to see any discernible difference? I highly doubt so. If I happen to know that the volume of carnauba in the RM70 Megu**r's wax is ten times lower than in the RM500 Zym*l wax, does this mean that the RM70 Megu**r's will perform ten times lousier?

Speaking of which product is better, on internet forums, I've observed that many people like to compare which wax is better, myself included. Is Finish Kare 1000P better than Collinite 476s? Which one shines better? Which is more durable?

I am guilty to be in the same camp but I try to tell myself not to care about too much of the details. Most of the time, I fail, as I tend to analyze and criticize different products of the same category.

This is bad as it will result in overspending in products. Just because people on the internet say that Collinite 476s is better than Meguiar's #16, do I have to go buy it? No I shouldn't, but I did, and only to find out that there is not much of a difference!

The bottom line is, a wax is a wax, a sealant is a sealant, a paint coating is a paint coating. What we should focus on instead is the process in getting the paint detailed and the proper techniques involved. Not because I used this so and so wax, it will shine better.
What is the point in using costly products if the main problem is user error? It's like giving a high-end computer to a computer-illiterate person.

So I would like to remind all fellow detailers out there that we should always keep it simple.

Enjoy the process of detailing and not delve too deep into details.

These are solely my opinion and anyone can freely disagree with me. There is no intention to defame anyone or any company.

What are your thoughts?

Product Review: Carmate Black Resin Restore

2009-12-27T01:30:00.007+08:00

Following my initial impressions here:
http://wetshinedetailing.blogspot.com/2009/11/carmate-black-resin-restore-initial.html

Black Resin Restore have been holding up pretty well on the Honda City's wiper cowl. How will it hold up on lower quality/more porous trim?

In addition to that, a new contender is added to the competition, Black Wow

Read the full review of this expensive little product after the jump.

If you haven't read my first thoughts about this product, you can read it here:
http://wetshinedetailing.blogspot.com/2009/11/carmate-black-resin-restore-initial.html

So after five weeks, we have the following result.

Sorry for the low light condition picture. As you can see, Carmate Black Resin Restore still looks very good, and this picture is taken when the trim is dirty and unwashed for almost 10 days. On left side of the picture, Jeff Werkstatt's Prime Acrylic still adds some colour to the trim, but is almost unnoticeable. Autoglym Bumper Care is completely washed off and does not show any more darkening effect.

Now let's find out how it will hold on more porous trim. Also, a new contender is introduced, Black Wow. Many thanks to Krismas a.k.a Azizi for it.

From my research on Auto Detailing forums, many of its users have mixed feelings about it. Some absolutely love it for it's long lasting darkening effect, while others felt that it is a total waste of money.

The wiper cowl on this Proton Saga has been scrubbed and cleaned with Osren Multi Clean three times and then wiped with Isopropyl Alcohol(diluted 1:1) before applying the following products.

After application,

As you can see, the three trim dressings/coating darkens the trim really well whereas JW's Prime Acrylic only deep cleaned the surface and slightly darkens it.

Since the air was very humid and the drive home might affect the product's curing/drying process, I taped that section with some plastic.

It is then left to dry overnight and under the hot sun the following day.

A closer look at each section,

Fast forward 5 days of hot sun and heavy rain.

Black Wow's colour has diminished quite noticeably, followed by Autoglym Bumper Care, and finally Carmate Black Resin Restore, which had the least change in looks.

I was quite surprised at this result as I expected Black Wow to outlast AG Bumper Care. That is not conclusive, as it might last longer on less porous trim. Also, the position where AG Bumper Care is applied can be considered bias as it is on the far side of the trim. It has a smaller surface area and has a larger area that is protected by the car's hood, that is, when driving in the rain, it is not being bombarded by rain drops as heavily as the other areas.

Anyway this is a review of Carmate Black Resin Restore, not a comparison of AG Bumper Care with Black Wow or other products.

So what do I think about Carmate Black Resin Restore?

Application (2.5/5): Not very easy to apply as it is very thick and sticky. On porous trims, you will need more effort to apply the product as the trim will absorb more compared to less porous trim. On less porous trim, lesser amount is required and spreading is also easier. If you accidentally get some onto the paint, remove it immediately.

Value for Money (4/5): What? 4/5? Yes it may be small, only 10ml, but the fact that it lasts so well, the interval of re-application is longer. If you were using a water based dressing and want to keep your trim looking good all the time, chances are you need to reapply it every week or two. Then again, if I were to use this on customer's cars, a premium will be charged.

Performance (5/5): Bang on, the longest lasting trim product I have ever used. If you can afford the time and money for this product, I highly recommend it for personal use.

Product Availability (2/5): I have only seen this in Eneos during their 'Japan Products Fair', stocks could be limited and this brand isn't as popular here compared with other brands such as Meguiar's or Autoglym. Not to mention the unreadable Japanese instructions and product description on the back, unless you are Japanese, BANZAAAI!!

Thanks for reading this review. The review of other Japanese Products as mentioned in the previous post will be postponed, in place of that, Rainaway's products will be reviewed first, stay tuned!

Good and bad comments are always welcome. If you have not subscribed, click the 'Subscribe' tab above and enter E-mail, you will be notified of new posts.

^^V

[Video] How To: Detail Your Wheels, Wheel Wells and Tires

2009-12-17T08:25:00.003+08:00

Product Review: Carplan Eco Car range

2009-12-04T13:13:00.007+08:00

As the world becomes more environmentally conscious and individuals and organizations start going green, how will detailing become a part of it? Are we still able to keep our cars clean with minimal carbon footprint?

Click 'read more' to read the full review of Carplan's Eco Car range.

As people realise the world's natural resources are becoming scarce and pollution is going to be a constant battle, people start to become more environmentally conscious and responsible. Going green has put a foothold in many aspects of our present lifestyle. Individuals and organizations try to minimize their carbon footprint by changing their way of living, organizational objectives, manufacturing techniques and creating a new product segment altogether. For example, Samsung recently released their Eco TV, which boasts clean and efficient manufacturing techniques, minimizing waste and saving on packing.

So where does detailing fit into all this? To answer this, we first have to ask ourselves what are the benefits of detailing. Sure it increases your car's resale value and helps to maintain the condition of different surfaces. For example, car polishes and waxes help to prolong the life of the clearcoat to prevent the need for a respray. Similarly, leather cleaners and conditioners prevent leather seats from cracking and drying out. Detailing also creates a stronger sense of pride for car owners.

Now let's look at detailing from an ethical perspective, does it contribute anything to humanity? No. Detailing is not beneficial to human existence, unlike fields such as medicine or engineering, which contributes towards humanity. Therefore, from a humanistic approach, one might argue that detailing is a total waste of time, effort and resources. A very ethical car lover might want to keep their car looking good but at the lowest cost possible. A bottle of all purpose cleaner, shampoo and cleaner wax is enough in most cases. However, many products contain solvents and surfactants that might be harmful to the environment. An ethical and environmentally conscious car lover would then want to keep their cars looking good with the minimum cost and minimum impact to the environment.

There have been many products created to satisfy this (niche?)market. An example is Optimum No Rinse Wash and Shine, designed to wash a car without a hose saves water and the chemical itself is also environmentally friendly. Other eco products include waterless spray and wipe products that claim to clean, polish and protect in one step.

What if a person prefers the conventional method of washing with a hose and bucket, giving the paint a good rub down with a polish and deep cleaning interior surfaces with a specialist cleaner?

This is where carplan's eco car range come into the picture. Four products to be reviewed will be the car shampoo, polish, wheel cleaner and dash cleaner. The test mule is an '08 metallic silver Toyota Vios.

First up is cleaning the wheel wells and tires with Osren Multi Clean

The wheel face and barrel was cleaned with the Eco Car Wheel Cleaner.

It cleaned the wheel face pretty well, but the wheel barrel not so much. As you can see in the picture below, a second cleaning using Osren Multi Clean still removed alot of brake dust as the foam turns brown.

Conclusion, it is okay for frequently cleaned wheels but lack the cleaning power for very dirty wheels.

Next up is the Car Wash. Firstly, the lower panels were sprayed with Osren Multi Clean,

Then the whole car is washed with the car wash diluted at one ounce per gallon ratio.

It does not create much(or any) suds, washing the car feels like washing with water.

It also requires a bit more agitation on an unwaxed car, which could indicate the lack of cleaning power, but it also proves that it is gentle and diminishes any wax on the surface at a slower rate.

Conclusion, does not sud much, (too?) gentle on the surface, relatively costly as only sold in 500ml quantities.

Next product is the car polish. Applied using a Lake Country CCS DA white pad via Random Orbital Buffer(ROB), it cleaned off ingrained dirt pretty well, turning the white pad to dark brown and grey after the whole car.

Only little amounts were used.

However, the lack of chemical solvents made it unable to remove sticky residues such as tar spots. It also dried up very fast, after applying it over three panels, the first panel was already dried up and cannot be buffed off with a dry cloth. After polishing the whole car, polish residue removed using some Meguiar's Last Touch, a damp cloth would be fine too.

The finish it left was clean, glossy and slick to touch.

It should be noted that it is also very low in abrasives, so do not expect it to remove scratches. Conclusion, cleans well(except for tar spots), removal can be difficult as polish dries up quick, unabrasive and will not scratch or scour clearcoat. Protection will be improved if topped up with a non cleaning wax.

Final product is the dash cleaner, directions state to just spray and wipe, but when tested on a glass surface, it leaves some residue, so I think some form of rinsing would be better. Method of cleaning was to slightly wet the surface first, spray on Dash Cleaner, agitate and rinse with Autoglym Hi Tech Interior Cleaning Pad and wipe off with a dry microfiber cloth.

Before cleaning,

During,

After,

Before,

After,

Carpets vacuumed and pedals cleaned,

It cleans off oily stains and dirt well, turning the water in the rinse bucket from clear to murky grey after cleaning all interior plastics(forgot to take a picture, D'OH!). One thing I noticed while vacuuming, a few red insects were flying in the cabin, somehow it was attracted to the scent. Conclusion, good cleaning power, may discolor some surfaces if it's not wetted before application, fragrance may be unappealing to some and is an insect attractant?

In conclusion, Carplan's Eco Car range is excellent in concept, but only moderate in execution. Cleaning power does not match ordinary detailing products. So if you want to use this range, have your car fully detailed with normal products and then only maintain your ride with this range.

Would I recommend it for the average Joe? No, the lack of cleaning power and average user-friendliness puts it off for me. If you are ethical and very environmentally conscious and dont mind the disadvantages, this product range is okay at best.

The whole range is also relatively cheap compared to other brands.

I then applied 2 coats of Meguiar's Ultimate Quik Wax over the next 12 hours for more protection and dress tires and wheel wells with Osren Tire Shine. Here are some 'after' pictures.

As mentioned, it won't do much to reduce swirls.

As always, thanks for looking and any comments are highly appreciated.

P.S. I'm not paid to do this review and these are solely my opinion and should not be treated as an absolute when deciding on purchasing a product. Products in the range not reviewed are the glass cleaner and windshield cleaning fluid.

P.P.S. What's next in store?

A How-To on detailing your wheel wells, wheels and tires, this includes a pictorial and a video demonstration.

Future product reviews include Carmate SIV wheel coat, G3 glass coat and Surluster Crystal shield.

Upcoming details are only quick spruce ups of some families cars and unconfirmed full correction details.

Stay tuned! You can subscribe via e-mail for notification on new posts, don't worry, your e-mail will remain totally anonymous to me or anybody else.

^^V

Initial Impressions: Carmate Black Resin Restore

2009-11-20T21:03:00.004+08:00

Found an interesting product while browsing in Eneos recently.

Inside the box is a small vial of clear liquid meant to restore trim. Being different from regular oil-based dressings, could this be a better long term alternative?

Only time will tell, read about my initial impressions after the jump.

The wiper cowl was cleaned with Osren Multi Clean during the wash stage of this detail. Before application I wiped it down again with Isopropyl Alcohol (cut 1:1).

Products used during this test will be:

1. Jeff's Werkstatt Prime Acrylic
2. Carmate Black Resin Restore
3. Autoglym Bumper Care

The reason for JW Prime is because it can be used on matt surfaces such as unpainted B-Pillars, an oil based dressing will just smear across those surfaces. It will also clean the surface off of any contaminants. So it's a worthy product for plastic trims.

Autoglym Bumper Care is chosen because it has a good balance between good looks and durability, it may not be as durable as Mother's Back to Black, but it provides a darker finish. In my opinion, it is also more durable then Meguiar's Trim Detailer.

So we have a representative from the acrylic category and the oil-based dressing category. Where does Carmate Black Resin Restore fits in, I really do not know. Could it be using a similar chemistry to Dodo Juice Supernatural Gloss Trim Sealant as shown here and reviewed here?

Anyway on to the pics.

Inside the box is a small vial and two rectangular foam applicators.

Are these Japanese Kanji or Mandarin characters?

Clear liquid,

Each section is taped off and product applied with 'ye old sponge.

Seems that Osren Multi Clean and the IPA wipedown did not clean the trim well enough,

JW Prime cleaned the most, followed by AG Bumper Care, and lastly Carmate Black Resin, which did not clean at all.

I left it for an hour to dry,

And then buffed off with different clean sections of a microfibre cloth.

One thing I felt was that the Carmate black resin part was more grabby during buffing, as in, it fellt a little bit sticky. Whereas JW Prime and AG Bumper Care buffed off without resistance or friction.

Left to cure overnight,

So my initial impressions of Carmate Black Resin Restore is that it definitely looks good, it gave a uniform finish, without any streaks or patches. It also looks just a little bit darker than Autoglym Bumper Care. If this could last a few rainstorms and multiple car washes, it's surely something worth looking at. Will keep you guys posted on this product.

Thanks for looking as always! ^^V

Honda (swirl)City in Nighthawk black

2009-11-20T17:52:00.006+08:00

A full exterior paint correction detail on an ’06 Honda City in nighthawk black. The buffer marks from the body shop were horrendous and the paint hardness wasn't making it easy to correct either.

Read the full post to see how the paint that began with this,

ended with this!

Hey guys, so this is a detail for an ’06 Honda City in nighthawk black. It has been in an accident and resprayed in a few areas and there were some colour mismatches as well as other minor damage in other areas. So the whole car was resprayed and Honda kindly provided free buffer marks service.

The car wasn’t too dirty to begin with.

Process for cleaning the wheels were Meguiar’s Super Degreaser(cut 4:1) on the tires and wheel wells and Meguiar’s Wheel Brightener(cut 4:1) on the wheels. Tar spots on the face of the wheel removed with Perma Glass Tar Remover.

Car’s body is washed with Osren Bubble and Wax shampoo, surface smoothened with Osren Magic Clay Cloth and exterior rubber cleaned with Osren Multi Clean. The paint is then de-waxed with Osren Multi Clean.

Then a test spot was performed on the passenger rear door. First step would be Meguiar’s #105 Ultra-Cut Compound via Lake Country 4-ply twisted wool @ 1500-2100rpms and followed by Meguiar’s #205 Ultra-Finishing Polish via Lake Country Kompressor white pad @ 900-1200rpms. Due to the hardness of the paint, M205 was not enough to completely remove the wool buffer marks from the first step.

So three polishing stages will have to be needed, which were:
1. Meguiar’s #105 Ultra-Cut Compound via Lake Country 4-ply twisted wool @ 1500-2100 rpm
2. Meguiar’s #105 Ultra-Cut Compound via Lake Country Kompressor white pad @ 1200-1500 rpm
3. Menzerna 106FF Final Finish via Lake Country flat black pad @ 600-900 rpm

Some before pictures,

After M105/wool and M105/Kompressor white

After M105/wool only,

More ‘before’ shots,

Joe a.k.a. Slk dropped by to lend a helping hand (THANKS bro!)

The rear boot gave us some difficulties, M205 were leaving very light holos(could be my wrong technique) and Meguiar’s SwirlX used with an ROB(Random Orbital Buffer) remove holos but left the finish slightly cloudy. So we settled on Menzerna 106FF on an LC flat black pad.

After the three polishing stages,

My rather wet office,

Lake Country Kompressor pad,

LC Kompressor white with M105 left a very decent finish with only very minor swirling.

After M105/wool,

After M105/wool and M105/LC Kompressor white

For the finishing stage, weapon of choice was Menzerna 106FF Final Finish via Lake Country flat black pad @ 600-900 rpm.
Technique was to first work it at 900-1200 rpm until it turns clear (to remove light swirling from M105), spray one light pump of water for relubrication and work at 600 rpm to remove any holograms.

Here are two pictures. One of them is before refining with 106FF, the other is without refining, just after M105/LC Kompressor white. Can you tell the difference?

Neither can I, the first pic is after refining whereas the latter pic is before refining. That’s how fine M105 left the finish with.
After fully refining the paint, polish dust is blasted away with the pressure washer. Firstly by soaking it with a mixture of Osren Bubble and Wax shampoo and Osren Multi Clean, this is to help remove any polishing oils and help dissolve polish buildup in the cracks and crevices. This is rinsed off and soaked again with Osren shampoo only to neutralize any APC that might not be rinsed off.

Here are some pre-LSP (Last Step Product) shots. If there are any holograms from the refining stage, they would show up now.

Then all polish residue in panel gaps were cleaned off with a MF cloth and Meguiar’s All Purpose Cleaner (cut 10:1).

The car is dried off with a Cobra Arctic White cloth and the blow function on the vacuum cleaner to blow off water from tight areas.

LSP time, I originally wanted to test Duragloss 105 and Zaino Z2 side by side. That would have to be postponed because my sample of Z2 separated and long vigorous shaking didn’t help. However, the Z5 sample was still okay… hmmm. (Sorry about that Brian, I will find another way to review the Z2!)

So my own choice would be to lay down a base of Enviroshield (this is akin to Opti-Seal, Z-cs, UPGP).

While this was curing, tires and wheel wells dressed with Osren Tire Shine. Autoglym Bumper Care applied to mudguards. Wheel face cleansed and protected with Jeff’s Werkstatt Prime Acrylic and Poorboy’s Wheel Sealant.

Areas where Enviroshield was applied too thick were buffed off and Duragloss #105 Total Performance Polish is applied via MF from MadDetailer.com. I followed application technique from Zainostore.com, which is to lay down a strip of product diagonally across the pad, spread them with a finger, and apply in straight lines.

After drying for about an hour, it was then buffed off and Duragloss Aquawax was used in some areas to aid removal.
Here are some post-lsp shots. The paint wasn’t perfectly polished as there are quite a number of RDS(Random Deep Scratches) left, I would say about 92% correction. Hope you’ll enjoy the photos and thanks for looking!

Special thanks to:

Joe for the big help, not having to polish another fender and door saved my arm from breaking!

Liew from Duragloss Malaysia.

Brian from Zaino Asia Pacific for the Zaino samples.

Henry from Osren for lending me the foaming head sprayer!

Remember to subscribe via E-mail for notification on new posts! Don’t worry, your E-mail will remain totally anonymous to me or anybody.

Update!

2009-11-13T11:02:00.004+08:00

Hey guys, finally my exams are over and have a few things planned over the next two months.

Here is what to expect on the upcoming posts,

1. Full Detail on a black Honda (swirl)City
2. Zaino review
3. Carmate black resin trim dressing/sealant review

and more unconfirmed plans, so if you haven't subscribed, just click on the subscribe tab above to subscribe via e-mail. Notification on new posts will be delivered to your e-mail immediately! The e-mail won't be displayed and I won't even know who my subscribers are.

Till then!

p.s. This is the entire post. Don't have to click on 'Read More!'.

Proton Waja: Tuition detail and Duragloss first impressions

2009-10-19T20:39:00.002+08:00

My old secondary school friend recently purchased a second hand car and was keen to take care of it as it was well maintained by its previous owner.

So he came over and as we had breakfast, I explained to him (rather haphazardly a.k.a cincai) the basics of car care.

If you were wondering what that yellow thing is, it's a Detailogy clay

The agenda of the day was to basically show him the steps involved in basic car care maintenance.

So I started cleaning the tires with Westley's Bleache White and wheels with Osren Multi Clean.

We then wash the car with Osren Bubble and Wax, clayed with Detailogy clay using Meguair's Last Touch (cut 1:1) as lube and Osren Magic Cloth(lube was car wash solution).

Then the following products were used.

NXT All Metal Polysh on the wheels and Autoglym Glass Polish for the windshield wipers.

SwirlX was used to remove gummed up residues of M105 on the paint.

It was also my first outing with Duragloss products and I have to say I did not disappoint.

The bonnet/hood was polished with Meguiar's #105 Ultra-Cut Compound with a Meguiar's W-8006 polishing pad at 1600rpm. Followed by Meguiar's #205 Ultra Finishing Polish with a Lake Country black finishing pad at 600-1200-900rpm.

The rest of the car received Duragloss #501 Marine/RV Polish with a 5.25" Lake Country white CCS DA pad via random orbital buffer(ROB).

I can now see why people keep mentioning DG501 as an AIO.

This product is easy to use, does not leave the paint looking patchy, buffs off with ease and cleans superbly!

I just advanced another level in my quest to find a replacement for the reputable Autoglym Super Resin Polish.

We buffed off DG501 and applied Duragloss #601 Polish Bonding Agent by hand via foam applicator pad. It might be easier to apply this product with a microfiber pad as it tends to get grabby after spreading it further across the panel with a foam applicator. Nonetheless, it was still manageable and dried quickly.

This allowed us to immediately apply the next product, Duragloss #105 Total Performance Polish. Applied with foam applicator pad, spreads easily.

While we waited for it to dry and cure, we had lunch and returned to buff it off an hour later. We followed this with Duragloss #951 Aquawax for that extra slickness.

Wheels polished with NXT All Metal Polysh and tires dressed with Osren Tire Shine.

Here are the afters.

Owner checking out his shiny wheels.

I then gave him some Osren shampoo, multi cleaner, tire shine, bottle with chemical resistant sprayhead, sponge applicator pads and a noodle microfiber wash mitt for him to maintain his ride with. He already has some Magic One products, so its better to use up what he has.

Thanks for looking! :)

p.s
The Duragloss products were easy to use, left a uniform shine and very price competitive. It doesn't have any fancy packaging with extraordinary product description on the back of the bottle, it just works!
This is just my initial impression, yet to comment on other factors such as durability and/or protection.

p.p.s
updated this post and an Optimum No Rinse review on the previous post at the same time, here's the link to it.

http://wetshinedetailing.blogspot.com/2009/10/optimum-no-rinse-wash-and-shine-review.html

p.p.p.s
My finals will be in 2 weeks ending in mid november, so it will be another hiatus till then.

Optimum No Rinse Wash and Shine Review

2009-10-19T20:13:00.001+08:00

Hello folks, apologies for the lack of updates recently. Having ended the constant bombardment by the 501st Assignment Division recently, finally have the chance to post this long overdue post.

Product to be reviewed today is Optimum No Rinse Wash and Shine, also known as ONR in auto detailing forums.

photo courtesy of Autogeek.net

VX55 was at my house during this review and he cleaned while I took photos.

Here's a general 'before' shot of the car, about two weeks worth of grime.

ONR is mixed in the bucket at the wash solution ratio where as the spray bottle contains ONR at quick detailer(QD) ratio.

Wash solution ratio: 1oz. to 2 gallons of water
QD ratio: 6oz. to 1 gallon of water

The panel is first sprayed with ONR at QD strength to 'soften'/'loosen' and grime on the surface.

The picture below is a drop of ONR at QD strength on the ground and if you look closely, you could actually see the heavy grit that is being encapsulated floats upward.

Same photo cropped.

Using the Detailogy sheepskin wash mitt, VX55 gave each panel two passes.

Meguiar's Water Magnet drying towel showing a clean surface after drying.

Same process on the rear door.

Before ONR,

After ONR,

The paint was not perfect to start with, but the before and after shows that no additonal scratches were inflicted during the wash.

The next wash tool used was VX55's own Cobra Bone microfiber wash pad.

Before ONR,

After ONR,

Next tool is the Lake Country Foam Car Wash Sponge, also known as Big Blue. It is a big block of soft foam with a cubed design for grit and dirt to get trapped into.

Ever since learning about the two bucket system and proper washing techniques, I have been wary of sponges and have always used a wash mitt (Cotton chenille mitt, sheepskin/lambswool mitt, microfiber mitt). So I was quite skeptical and was prepared to polish out any marring afterward.

Big Blue was used without spraying any ONR on the panel.

It cleaned well, showing no dirt during the drying pass.

One half washed with Big Blue and ONR without any pre-spray.

Before ONR and Big Blue,

After ONR and Big Blue,

Wow! No additional scratches inflicted by it, I was surprised to say the least. I was even surprised when I washed the other half with my year old Mothers lambswool wash mitt.

Light scratches were inflicted when using my old mitt that has lost its plushness.

Conclusion

Pros:
Cleans well (on a waxed/protected surface?)
Safe (does not introduce new scratches when used correctly)
Makes a cheap cleaning QD and clay bar lubricant
Saves a lot of water

Cons:
May be expensive for washing when compared with basic car shampoos.
May not protect from car wash abrasions if the washing tool does not carry enough wash solution and the panel is dry.

Would I buy it?
Yes on the basis that it makes a cheap QD and clay lubricant plus I can use it when the car is too dirty to use a QD with but not dirty enough to necessitate a full bucket and hose car wash.

p.s
Thanks VX55 for the help with this review!
Thanks to AE Detailers (http://aedetailers.com/ae2/) for the sample of ONR!

This review wouldn't be possible without you guys :)

Paste wax/sealant test update

2009-08-11T17:44:00.001+08:00

Three and a half weeks after the first day of application.

The test is not 100% valid anymore because at one point, my dad picked up the hood and left it vertically, so the results are skewed towards one side. One end of the hood is heavily contaminated and gradually lessens to the other end of the hood.

Here are the water repellency pictures. First with a no pressure flow from the hose.

Then with a spray pattern from the hose.

Ranking from the fastest water repelling to the slowest will be:

1) Collinite 476S
2) Meguiar's #16
3) FK 1000P
4) Collinite 915

Again, do take this with a pinch of salt until I can redo the test again.

Although the test may not be valid anymore, it taught me a few things.

Firstly, a contaminated panel would not sheet off water as cleanly. This is because as the water is being pushed away during sheeting, contaminants like mineral deposits from the water spot etching 'grabs' the water.

So the less contaminated the panel is, the more complete the sheeting action will be.

Next, the panel is sprayed with water from a spray bottle using a fine mist to check for beading.

All are lacking uniform beading except for Meguiar's #16. Here is where it gets invalid, the most left panel, Collinite 476S, suffered the most as the result of being placed vertically during a rain. Where as the right most panel, Meguiar's #16, suffered the least.

And towards the edge of the right side, I applied Jeffs Werkstatt Prime Acrylic, and it stll looked good.

which is why this test is invalid because it would be difficult to explain as to how an All-in-One (AIO), can outlast a tough paste wax.

Photos of watermark etchings, as mentioned earlier, here you can see the left most panel that suffered the most, gradually lessening as we move to the right.

And the second lesson learned from this test is that surface tension does not equal to protection.

Here we have Collinite 476S, the fastest water pusher but is contaminated with water spots and ingrained dirt.

Collinite 915, the beauty wax in Collinite's range, has the most ingrained dirt and heaviest watermark etching.

FK1000P has the 3rd least contamination.

And Meguiar's #16 the least contamination.

Again, this is invalid and skewed to one side. I will have to redo it again, although this time I will remove Collinite 915 as the test already indicate that it cannot put up a fight against it's sibling the 476S in a durability and protection battle.

Meguiars Slide Lock Detail Brush - Boar's Hair!

2009-07-26T16:11:00.000+08:00

Quoting from a thread in Autoworld forum,

http://forum.autoworld.com.my/index.php?showtopic=90190&st=0&gopid=1435833&#entry1435833

"---On 2009-07-24 00:44:00.0 You Wrote Us--- My question is this :- Meguiars Slide Lock Detail Brush - The bristle is made of ??
_________________________________________

Hello,
Thank you for contacting Meguiars with your product question. The Slide Lock Brush used boar hair for the bristles.
Regards,
Michael Stoops
Customer Care Center | Meguiar's, Inc.
17991 Mitchell S.
Irvine, CA 92614
(800) 854-8073 xt175"

So to Muslim users out there, please be aware that the bristles are made out of Boar's hair, not horse hair or synthetic bristles.

Proton Exora: Protection Detail

2009-07-19T23:25:00.001+08:00

A brand new car in for a quick protection detail only.

The wheel wells were clean and had dressing applied from the dealer, so I didn't bother cleaning them and just hosed off loose dirt.

The wheels were cleaned with Meguiar's Wheel Brightener (diluted 10:1), stickers and tar removed with Osren Tar Remover.

Then the whole car is washed with Osren Bubble wash shampoo and paint smoothed with an Osren Magic Cloth.

Dried with an Autoglym Aquadry.

Jeff's Werkstatt Prime:Acrylic is applied with an old Meguiar's w-8006 polishing pad via ROB to cleanse the paint and leave a base of sealant.

Not much dirt was pulled out of the paint as the pad was pretty much clean after the whole car.

While waiting for it to dry, Rain-X was applied with an old homemade microfibre pad to the side windows and mirrors. Autoglym Glass Polish applied to front, rear and inside glass.

At this point, the layer of JW Prime:acrylic is buffed off and one coat of Finish Kare 1000P is applied by hand. While waiting for that to dry(which didn't take long), door jambs sealed with JW Prime:acrylic, wheels cleansed and sealed with JW Prime:acrylic followed by Poorboy's Wheel Sealant.

Interior upholstery plastic is removed and two light coats of 3M Scotchgard upholstery protectant is sprayed on.

FK1000P is then buffed off and here are the results, I apologize if you feel claustrophobic when viewing the pics as I didn't get any full shots of the car.

That's all folks! Thanks for looking :)

p.s This would be the beginning of another hiatus for my final packed semester, see you in a few months. I will probably update once in a while but there won't be anymore car details for now. Till next time!

(One week old JW Prime:acrylic and FK1000P after a wash)

Jeff's Werkstatt products are now available locally through a new online merchant at AE Detailers