I've never used clay in my life. I have certainly heard great things about it though. I have an 07' Hyundai Accent that has lot of brush swirls, plus 14 months of harsh weather, and 26K miles on it.

The color is Orange / Red mettallic.

Is this stuff best applied by hand, or with a buffer ?
What brand should I use ? Is there anything good, available from the local Auto Zone, or Kragens ?
Of course I want to do a good job...... But I'd rather end up with a "less than complete" job, but NOT have any kind of swirl, or rub marks, than the alternative of, "removed all of the light scratches, road grime, oxidation, etc.... but left swirls, in the process"....

Of course I'd like to try this on my 07' Hyundai now.... So that I know what to do with my 08' F150, in 6 months or a year from now :-)

Words of wisdom please....
Thank you,
Fish

 

buy a kit from the parts store, cut the clay bar into a few pieces (if you drop the bar you MUST throw it away, hence the need for small pieces) spray the QD the kit comes with on the truck (be liberal and spray alot, you cant have too much lube) and rub the clay bar all over. when the clay turns black or begins getting dirty mash the bar up a bit (think back to your playdoh days) so it has a new clean side and spray some more QD and rub. when you get done your fingers will be throbbing but your truck will be clean and shiny! You can save old dirty pieces to clean exhaust tips, rims etc. but once you use the leftover clay piece on exhaust tips toss it. same goes for rims.

 

Clay is just a piece of clay that you clean the surface of your paint with it. It picks up all of the containments that are bonded to your paint's surface as well as removing the wax. Clay does nothing for swirls, scratches, etc. Claying is the second step in a full detail, washing be the first. To remove those swirls and scratches, you need some paint corrective polish like Meguiars #80 which needs to be applied by a dual action polisher like the G100, PC 7242, G110, or Flex. I'd also recommend reading the sticky at the top of the page.

 

Fish Chris, read the sticky on the top of the threads in this forum. It's very helpful! It'll inform you of the different types of products (including clay) and will explain their uses.

PS - Did you put the camo on your truck yet? I'd like to see some pictures of it.

 

My PC won't let me open that PDF file. I keep getting the message that Internet Explorer has encountered a problrem, and needs to close :-(

Anywhere that I can read that thread, besides in the PDF file ???

Thanks,
Fish

 

Try this:

1) Go into the Detailing Sticky
2) Right click on "Click Here"
3) Click on Save As -- save to where you want it
4) Go to where you saved it and open it from there.

That should work