[s-cars] silver paint

[Dan Slagle]

Olek:  As a PO of a Black '98 A4, I can appreciate what you are saying -
you learn a lot about caring for your car's finish when you own a Black
car especially when you are anal about how your car looks every minute
of every day.  Every little imperfection and scratch stands out like a
sore thumb.  However, there is nothing more striking than a highly
polished Black car, but shortly there after the dust begins to settle
and it time to wash it again and again.  Although I am still anal about
my car, life is a little easier since I purchase my Silver 95.5 S6.

Dan
95.5 S6


-----Original Message-----
From: s-car-list-admin at audifans.com
[mailto:s-car-list-admin at audifans.com] On Behalf Of Olek
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 12:02 PM
To: s-car-list at audifans.com
Subject: RE: [s-cars] silver paint

Wow, so many opinions, so many misconceptions .... Well that is what the
s-car list is
for, right? ;)

First - about clay. Fact 1 - yes, clay do contain abrasives. Fact 2 -
they are very fine
abrasives, not like a sandpaper, more like a very fine polish, like SMR
( 3m swirl mark
remover). Clay is removing contaminants from the paint (including
overspray) not because
of its abrasiveness (it just help a little) but because of it
stickiness. Said that I must
still agree that claying is slightly dangerous procedure and I would not
reccomend it to
everybody. Dirt particles that are accumulating on clay ARE scratching
your paint to some
extent. I never was able to be done with claying and have perfect finish
- some light
polishing is always in order. Said that claying is the only way I know
to remove that
nasty buildup of embedded contaminants that is going to appear on a
daily driver no matter
what. Is that removal nessesarry? Who knows ....

Second -about paint cleaner. Basically, marketing had really screwed
that term, they are
applying it now to almost anything that can be used on paint. But
originally paint
cleaner was meant to be low in abrasives content, and high in solvents.
That means that
it will not really polish your paint, but it will try to dissolve any
contaminants that
are embedded into it. And it DOES - white foam bonnet that I used to
clean my just washed
sandstone colored Volvo with white Mothers paint cleaner was completely
BLACK when I was
finished. I was deeply impressed. And paint looks MUCH better now (well,
I must attribute
that partially to Zaino, it looks so cool on metallic paints).

p21s is a slightly different type of a cleaner - that is why they named
it "cleanser".
It is more of polishing and glaze filling variety, and that is why many
people have
achieved good results using it after polish and before wax.

Third - 3M Imperial Hand/Machine Glaze is a very nice product. But it is
a "cover-up" type
of product. It contains a lot of fillings that are filling your
scratches so they are less
visible, and it will give your paint nicer gloss. Best used just before
waxing, just like
p21s cleanser. But it does not have enough of abrasives to polish paint,
and that means
that ones it is dried, you have your scratched/swirled paint back.

Forth - using power buffer on paint is dangerous, especially on high
speed. Now, Orbital ?
Come on, you gotta be kidding. It does not generate enough of heat to
burn through paint
and unless somebody is stupid enough to use it with coarse rubbing
compound without care,
it will not cut instantly through your paint. Actually, most of orbital
buffers on the market
are so weak, that they can't do any serious polishing, they can only
assist in waxing (and
I prefer to do it by hand anyway).

Now, you will ask, how do I know all that? My other car is black( where
is that crying icon ).
Those who ever owned a black car will undertand me.

http://olek.dhs.org/pics/car/set1/


regards,
   Olek