Car Wash: How a Clay Bar Actually Cleans Your Paint
Published by Joel March 20th, 2007 in Cars, Chores. Share This
We may yet get into more tips about how to wash a car, but was shown this page yesterday and thought it had some good information about how detailing clay works (even if it is written by a person trying to get you to buy their brand of clay):
1. Detailing clay works by hydroplaning (floating) over the surface you’re cleaning on a thin layer of clay lubricant.
2. When the clay (polish) encounters surface contamination, it abrasively grinds it away.
3. Detailing clay shears off any foreign material above the level surface of the paint.
Learning to use a “clay bar” properly is a handy skill to have when trying to put a car’s paint job back in pristine condition. Because it is an abrasive, though, it isn’t a good idea to do it constantly, unless you have one of the special light abrasive varieties that don’t actually do much all that much.
For most people, claying out a car is unnecessary, because you just don’t care that much about you car’s paint job. Start with a good wash and a wax. You’ll probably be surprised how much of a difference that can make.
The Making of a New Detailing Clay [GuideToDetailing.com]
3 Responses to “Car Wash: How a Clay Bar Actually Cleans Your Paint”
- 1 Pingback on Mar 20th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
http://www.zainostore.com/
What I use: works great, smells even better.
clay bar is amazing. i finally claybarred my ‘01 focus zx3 and you can quite tangibly feel the difference before and after.
also, wax goes on a lot smoother and easier after you claybar (waxing becomes less of a chore and more of a “i should do this more often!” experience).
i plan to do this at least every other year now. of course, keeping a good coat of wax on your car (that is, waxing several times a year) should deter a lot of the contaminants from sticking in the first place.
this is extra important if you park near railroad tracks or industrial areas where particulate pollutants can be especially aggressive!