ledger64

After the rain last night and this morning's commuate.  Just a little bit of rain left on it near the cowl. 

During yesterday's rain storm.  Just so you guys know this truck hasn't had anything put on it for sealant or wax since sept.
 

Strip wash. Add a few ounces of APC to your soap bucket and proceed with your normal wash technique.

Mine has become my 3-4" pad machine and what I use for the scrub brushes that normally go on the cyclo.
It has also worked well for wet sanding from time to time.
 
Kinda turned into my "dirty job" go-to polisher.

I think they brought it back as a lower cost, easier entry option, for many weekend warriors who do not want to invest $350+ off the bat for Cyclo or Flex.  I applaud it, the PC was the machine I first learned on 10 years ago, and mine still works flawlessly to this day.

First use tonight of the H2O Guard and Gloss (HGG) from the show this weekend on my Daily Driver with is a 2004 Duramax.  I have a new favorite product!!!  After a quick 2 bucket wash I applied the HGG one panel at a time with a wetdouble soft towel followed by a dry double soft towel.  The product goes on and instantly starts working to activate and displace the water.  The drying and levelling with the second towel was effortless and leaves a nice glossy shine.  The whole process took approx. half an hour including the wash.
 
A few notes:
-  As I moved from panel to panel I found i sprayed less product as the applicator towel was primed with product from the previous section
 
- the smell,  I have nicknamed it Super Grape is phenomenal.  if you don't want to smell like grape for the next couple hours then i suggest wearing gloves. 
 
- this week is going to be rain here in CT so it should be a good test to see the results.  I will update at the end of the week.
 
The only real question I have is in regards to my towels that I used.  I currently have them sitting in a bucket with some APC.  Is this enough to remove the HGG or is there a different process that I should do to clean the towels?  Is it ok to mix these towels in with other towels when I was them?
 
Didn't get a chance to take some pics as it was getting dark after I finished my clean up but ill try to grab some tomorrow

First use tonight of the H2O Guard and Gloss (HGG) from the show this weekend on my Daily Driver with is a 2004 Duramax.  I have a new favorite product!!!  After a quick 2 bucket wash I applied the HGG one panel at a time with a wetdouble soft towel followed by a dry double soft towel.  The product goes on and instantly starts working to activate and displace the water.  The drying and levelling with the second towel was effortless and leaves a nice glossy shine.  The whole process took approx. half an hour including the wash.
 
A few notes:
-  As I moved from panel to panel I found i sprayed less product as the applicator towel was primed with product from the previous section
 
- the smell,  I have nicknamed it Super Grape is phenomenal.  if you don't want to smell like grape for the next couple hours then i suggest wearing gloves. 
 
- this week is going to be rain here in CT so it should be a good test to see the results.  I will update at the end of the week.
 
The only real question I have is in regards to my towels that I used.  I currently have them sitting in a bucket with some APC.  Is this enough to remove the HGG or is there a different process that I should do to clean the towels?  Is it ok to mix these towels in with other towels when I was them?
 
Didn't get a chance to take some pics as it was getting dark after I finished my clean up but ill try to grab some tomorrow

Alright who's bringing a box of Joe to this.
 
I would normally ask about a 30 pack of brews, but at 9 AM I may get some weird faces.

Proudly bought two jumbo towels even though I promised I would buy anything before this weekends clinic
 
having a child of my own with a heart detect I know all to well how stressful and worrysome it can be to have a child that needs special care. Happy to help and support others just like the many folks that have helped my family. In a day and age were many of us are wrapped up in superficial distractions its good to see people and taking the time and money to help our children as they are our future. Thank you to all the researchers, doctors, nurses, and parents for their dedication and sleepless nights striving to make the lives better for children with autism and the many other childhood disabilities and diseases.

Proudly bought two jumbo towels even though I promised I would buy anything before this weekends clinic
 
having a child of my own with a heart detect I know all to well how stressful and worrysome it can be to have a child that needs special care. Happy to help and support others just like the many folks that have helped my family. In a day and age were many of us are wrapped up in superficial distractions its good to see people and taking the time and money to help our children as they are our future. Thank you to all the researchers, doctors, nurses, and parents for their dedication and sleepless nights striving to make the lives better for children with autism and the many other childhood disabilities and diseases.

watch all the way to the end.... you'll be happy you did.

BUMP! The day is rapidly approaching... and we've decided to go for it RAIN OR SHINE!
Adam, Matt, Ashley, and myself will all be there - the first time ever we've all been in one location for an east coast event so don't miss the chance to meet the team.

We're coming out with a couple of surprises including your first chance to buy an all new product before it goes on sale anywhere else and a few sneak previews of products set to release later this year. This will be a clinic you don't want to miss!

Purple Water... April Fools joke... Thats my 2nd guess.

Simple Green will work ok Phil if that's what you have. The chemical makeup of it is a bit harsh for my taste though, I would always be using gloves with it if I were you.
 
But if you don't have microfiber detergent yet or Adams APC I would recommend spot treating with a diluted simple green mix, and washing with Free and Clear detergent afterwards.
 
 
at 1 oz per load the Adams MF detergent gets you 36 loads in one bottle. And APC always gets used, from cleaning applicators to buffing pads and tires etc.
 
I save simple green for cleanin my Scag, tools, and power washing my house lol. (Although nowadays I don't even do that I just buy more APC). Wife even keeps a bottle inside the house for cleaning sinks, toilets, tubs, bathrooms, etc

Absolutely can. Effectively all you're doing is diluting a pH neutral chemical with a NON-pH neutral chemical to create something somewhere in the middle. You could add APC to a rinseless wash solution and get a strip rinseless wash as well.

air dry for me...no dryer....  i take over the wife's clothes drying rack.  First time I did it i got the look follow by "really your hanging your towels for the car to dry"  When i told her yes and that there is special microfiber cleaning soap that was more she could handle...Now years later shes excepted it as the norm.  shes actually folded them for me a few times

Thanks for taking the time to review and post your results!
 
To clarify:
 
 
Make sure the washer is fully seated/intact - I have experienced that in testing, only to find the washer wasn't all the way bottomed out like it should have been.
 
 
This will happen no matter what, simply by design. The flow of water thru the head creates a vacuum that draws the solution into the path and ultimately creates the foam. Because there is a path for the soap to travel from the bottle into the system when its upside down and no water is flowing from the hose it back-travels thru the air path. 
 
Like you said though, easy enough to avoid simply by not turning it upside down - don't foam your car gangsta style and you should be fine
 

Do it right or do it twice. Please don't wash with dawn, just add some apc to your soap bucket.
 
You are most definitely going to need an iron remover (DWC 1:1) because of all the fallout from transport, and after that follow up with clay.
 
It's black right? That's a cold day in hell that I see a new black car that doesn't at least need a pass with PF Polish as new car prep, before applying LSP.
 
What is your LSP going to be? I would apply 2 coats of LPS after the prep, Decon, and polishing to lock in protection than top with traditional wax (patriot etc) as needed

Anyone catch the 60 mins show on how cars can be remotely hacked?

Negative. Having been up close and personal with cars at $1m+ including Ferrari's, Bentleys, and a Bugatti or 2 not even they are immune from orange peel. No factory finish that I'm aware of comes free of orange peel. Its not a quality issue, its not a money issue, its a process issue. Not long ago had my hands on a RR Phantom Drop Head - had just as much, if not more orange peel than my factory GM paint jobs did. While a bespoke car may be painted by a person instead of a robot it doesn't necessarily eliminate orange peel. See below for why.
 
 
Like the other guys explained - it looks like the outside of an orange. Not rough, but bumpy/lumpy up close. The picture below was of the door on my 06 TBSS after a detail. The reflection looks fantasic right? Look at things in the reflection that should be straight lines, like the frame of the garage door. That ripple effect is the texture of the paint aka orange peel:
 

 
So what is orange peel? Its pretty much what paint looks like when its sprayed on and not sanded down to level it. Really, the only way to correct orange peel is to sand the finish flat. There are newer pad technologies like denim that level orange peel as well.
 
All factory, and even bespoke vehicles are going to be sprayed either by a robot or a person, either way the end result is orange peel to one degree or another. I don't care if its a Kia or a Rolls Royce, its going to have some degree of orange peel to it.
 
The reason its not fixed at a factory level is cost. Not only would the cars take significantly more paint to enable someone to sand and buff them, the time (literally days of labor to do it correctly) would add so much cost that even something as common as a mustang or a camaro would likely cost around $10-20k more, mostly in labor. Would you pay that much more? Not likely - and OEMs recognize that. The percentage of the population that notice orange peel is small. Its not a process that can be automated, and its not one that can be rushed.
 
I have a few friends in the paint business back in California that do nothing but high end aftermarket paint for hot rods, customs, and show cars. One of the STARTS at $50,000 for his work and it takes 8-12 weeks on average. Not only are the cars skim coated and blocked, but the primer is sprayed on heavy, then blocked. The base coat or coats are sprayed heavy, multiple times, then blocked. The last stage (clear coat) is sprayed heavy as well, sanded smooth, then meticulously buffed to perfection.
 
His work comes out glass smooth, not a single bit of orange peel anywhere, and his paint jobs have been on cars that have won the AMBR, in the running for the Riddler, and regularly recognized as some of the finest paint jobs... but obviously all that material and skilled labor comes at a substantial cost.
 
Long story short - if you find yourself being annoyed by the factory orange peel on your car take a look at 99.99999999999% of the cars around you on the road. Fact is they all have it.

Here's a perfect example of what Dylan is talking about, as well as the insane cost of labor to achieve such a result:
 

To put something into perspective for everyone:
 
Your factory paint has a total coating thickness (TCT) of around 5-7 mils. Thats the primer, base, and clear total.
The breakdown is usually something like:
2 mils primer 1-2 mils of base coat 2-3 mils of clear coat Assume you got a really generously painted car the high side on all those you have 175µ:
50µ of primer 50µ of base 75µ of clear If you assume the low end, a car painted on Friday by a lazy robot you get 125µ:
50µ of primer 25µ of base 50µ of clear To put that into perspective a sheet of common copy paper is 100µ thick. So ALL of the coating from primer to clear on your car is just barely thicker than a sheet of paper. The clear is about half the thickness of a sheet of paper. Crazy thin! You have VERY little to work with in terms of aggressive removal (sanding) from the factory paint job... I strongly advise against anyone sanding OEM clear simply b/c it isn't very thick to begin with.
 
And b/c I know the question will be asked "HOW MANY TIMES CAN YOU POLISH YOUR CAR?"
 
On average I've tested 4-5µ of material removal doing correcting polish + orange microfiber on the Flex at high speed and aggressive work followed by a pass of finishing polish and a white foam pad.
 
Most swirl marks and common defects are going to be between 4-6µ deep.

what about a glass towel wrapped around a foam mf applicator.  give you some added media to push in to those hard to reach areas

Phil I know you were looking forward to hearing from me LOL
 
White caked salt, although unsightly (and trust me on a black car its laughable), in our areas its not terrible.  If the sun comes out and temps are up to the high 20s or so you can head to the pay n spray.  The key is the sun being out.  Take a dampened MF towel and some diluted rinseless and after you spray the car down (rinse only) at the coin op, just wipe your door jambs down with the MF towel so that the grime is removed and there isn't sitting water there to freeze.
 
If you have LPS applied, it may degrade faster on the lower portions in the winter but it should hold up fine.
 
FWIW, and I assume your M5 is garaged at night.  Even if you have some water frozen on your paint its not harming anything if it melts naturally.  It will probably melt off in the garage anyway.  Only harmful thing would be to try and mechanically scrape it off lol.
 
My local coin op is 15-20 min drive away and sometimes I get some frozen droplets on the finish when I arrive home, I just let it sit overnight and they melt off and I do a rinseless wash the next day.
 
Dylan is right though, everyone tries to keep the shiny stuff looking good, while I'm a A-hole who's on his knees and spending $5 in quarters to blast off the undercarriage and wheel well areas of the salt buildup in the winter before I even get to rinse off the shiny parts, thats the easy part of it all lol.

Really depends on what "IT" is... if its just road grime, for the mostpart its nothing horribly caustic. If its salt and/or magnesium chloride from the snow its not exactly delicate to your exterior. Rinsing it off at least would go a long ways to preserving your LSP and ultimately your clear coat.
 
The bigger concern is the underside of the vehicle. Even coated components of the frame and suspension can develop ugly surface rust if the salty gunk is left on too long. Just blast it off at the local pay n' spray or head thru a touchless wash if you don't have any other options.