x3. That dude is legit. Glad he did his own gig. I was just watching him work on that one airplane. OMG.
I couldn't find the thread I posted this in, but I luckily typed it up separately.
"Here’s the list of liquid/clay products I use (mostly Griot’s, as my buddy turned me on to them):
• Griot’s Engine Cleaner
• Chemical Guys Black on Black Dressing
• Griot’s Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner
• Meguiar’s Gold Class Car Wash
• Griot’s Wheel Clay
• Griot’s Rubber Cleaner/Griot’s Rubber Prep/Black Magic Bleche-Wite Tire Cleaner
• Griot’s Vinyl and Rubber Dressing
• Griot’s Long Lasting Tire Dressing
• Griot’s Speed Shine/Meguiar's Quik Detailer Cleaner
• Griot’s Paint Prep (IPA will work just fine too)
• Dodo Juice Car Wash/Griot’s Car Wash
• Griot’s Paint Clay
• Griot’s Glass Clay
• Griot’s Machine Polishes (1-4, which 1 being compounding and 4 being for near perfect paint) — they’ve replaced these with their BOSS Lineup
• Griot’s Polish Remover
• BLACKFIRE Wet Diamond All Finish Paint Protection/Griot’s Paint Sealant
• Griot’s Best of Show Wax/Griot’s PREMIUM CARNAUBA PASTE WAX
• Stone Glass Cleaner (safe for tint)
• Griot’s Glass Polish
• Rain-X glass treatment
• Griot’s Dried on Wax and Polish Remover
Here’s a list of accessories to get the job done:
• 4 buckets — 2 for wheels/tires/undercarriage ONLY; 2 for washing (one is a Griot’s wash bucket with grit guard and built in car wash measuring cup)
• Razor Blade (scrape down the windows to get crap off)
• Boar’s hair brush (wheels and undercarriage)
• Bendable Brush (wheels and undercarriage)
• Stiff brush (tires)
• Microfiber car washing sponge (looks like an alien or deep sea creature with tentacles)
• Wash sponge that has a sort of scrubby side to it. Not like scour pad, but some have a mesh-like surface—used to get hard stains and/or bugs off
• Wash sponge I use SOLELY for below the door blades, where it can be much dirtier than above them
• Silicone Squeegee
• Cobra Waffle Microfiber drying towel (x2)
• Small Mityvac air blower (for faster drying in small spaces)
• Griot’s 6” Orbital Polisher (majority of car)
• Griot’s 3” Orbital Polisher (small areas and hard to get places)
• Griot’s Glass Polishing pads
• Griot’s/Lake Country Orange Buffing pads (for polish) - 3x-4x (separate polishes/compounds get separate pads)
• Griot’s/Lake Country Red Buffing pads (for sealant and/or wax) - 3x (sealants and waxes get different pads)
• Griot’s/Lake Country Black Buffing pads (final wax application) - 1x
• Set of soft, edgeless microfiber towels for wiping off the detail spray (mine are blue)
• Set of soft, edgeless microfiber towels for wiping off polish (do not mix with varying polishes/compounds) - mine are golden color
• Set of softer, edgeless microfiber towels for wiping off excess sealant or wax (do not mix/match) - mine are white
• Metal polish
• Disposable wiping clothes for metal polish (from Griot’s; pack of 100)
And for touching up:
• Soft microfibers, as described above
• Griot’s Speed Shine/Meguiar’s Quik Detailer Cleaner
• Griot’s Spray on Car Wash
• Griot’s Spray on Wax
• Microfiber duster (to remove pollen)
• MR-32 microfiber wash (for cleanup)
Make sure car is cool, preferably in shade.
0. If you are washing the engine bay, do this first because of the potential for getting oil/grease/harsh cleaners somewhere else. And if you do this, be sure to clean the hood around the felt mat, down the insides of the fender, the radiator clip, rain tray, etc. Don’t go half-assed.
1. Wash the wheels/tires/wheel arches. Clean the wheel arches with a bit of car wash and the boar’s hair brush. Any particulates will fall down to a dirtier area, so I start there. Then hit the wheel with Griot's Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner, which acts just like Sonax (which I also love), except it smells like cherry instead of god awful. This'll break down the brake dust (the spray will change to a reddish-purplish color as it dissolves the dust). Agitate it around to maximize it, and leave it sit a few minutes and wash off. I usually go through a couple iterations to get this done. Use the two bucket method to avoid scrubbing or transferring more dirt and brake dust back to your car.
If it’s your first time washing the wheel, consider removing it in order to clay bar it, as well as get all those hard to reach areas behind the lugs and on the inside. After this, use the stiff brush on the tires themselves with the car wash to help clean them more and scrub off old silicone and such. After this, I use a set of lower quality microfibers to dry off the cleaned wheel and tire to prevent spotting (or browning). Repeat for all 4 wheels (spare if you’re ambitious)
2. Exhaust tips. Using the metal polish and disposable cloths, clean and polish the exhaust tips. This way you don’t dirty up your rear valence later.
3. Using some detail spray, spray and razor blade each of the glass surfaces on the exterior only. This will remove build up filth (you’ll be amazed what is on there), and allow the car wash to clean even more.
4. Spray whole car down with Paint Prep. This removes the old wax so I’m actually drilling down to the surface. If you don’t need to go that far, then you can skip this part. Isopropyl Alcohol also works wonders in this way. Rinse off the car with water when you are done to make sure all the residue is gone. IPA will also help remove sap, if that’s stuck on.
This is also a great time to clean the inside of your gas flap, the drainage areas around the trunk (open the lid and clean around the trunk), and the very sides of the windshield (remove the two trim pieces).
5. Time to start washing. Fill up your wash and rinse buckets (only the wash bucket should have car wash in it). Soak all your sponges, enough so they are saturated with the wash. I start off with the scrubbing-like sponge on the front bumper, grille(s), windshield, and mirrors. Basically anywhere that bugs and road crap have really impacted the car. Ring out, and then rinse the sponge (shake/massage to remove dirt) in the rinse bucket, ring again, and saturate again in the wash bucket. I also clean the wipers and underneath them here, because they are downright filthy.
With the nice washing sponge, you want to work your way from top to bottom (or roof-down), around the car. Wash sections at a time; i.e., split the roof into quarters and wash one quarter at a time, and following the ringing/rinsing/wash procedure above. I like to do this around the car, piece by piece, until I’ve reached the height of the door blades. This includes the bottom of the doors, side skirts, lower quarters, lower front bumper, and rear valence. Be sure to rinse as you go—you don’t want the product to dry onto the car and leave spots, and it helps wash away dirt.
On this lower area, I like to use a completely different sponge (removed the other sponges to avoid cross-contamination). Same method as above—work section by section, top-down, until it’s all clean, two-buckets, etc.
6. Rinse off the car. I mean RINSE. Make sure nothing is left but water droplets.
7. Dry the car. I use a silicone squeegee to remove the majority of the water, as it just slides along the surface of the car. Then I use either the Waffle towel or the blower to continue drying or do harder to reach areas.
8. Clay bar! Kneed a chunk of clay so that it’s flat and about the same size as your 4 fingers extended. Warmer clay=easier to mold. Starting again with the roof, spray a liberal amount of detail spray both on the clay bar and surface. Slide the clay along the surface, periodically kneading it and maintaining the surface liberally coated. DO NOT APPLY PRESSURE. The clay gliding will be more than enough to pull debris from the clear coat surface. Repeat for the whole car. You should be noticing how dirty the clay is, especially if you’ve never done this before. It’s ok—keep kneading and repeating. Should be ok to finish up the whole thing. Store it in an airtight container, liberally coated with detailing spray.
9. Polishing or Compounding. Now that the paint is clean enough to see, make sure you have a bright source (i.e., the sun or bright halogen light) to see how bad the surface is. Scratches you cannot feel do not need to be aggressively polished. Scratches you can barely feel should be polished a bit more, and deeper scratches may need compounding. If it’s been recently done, use the lightest polish you have (very minor polishing effects) or go straight to sealant. You want to start with a lighter polish across the board, and only use more aggressive polishes where absolutely necessary, and even then, you want to step down, and then back up to blend it. Polisher-wise, a medium speed is pretty good at doing this. What you want to do is apply a bit of the polish to the pad (don’t saturate it), smear it around, and stamp the surface a bit (to avoid splattering from too much polish). Place the polisher flat on the surface with very slight pressure, hold on tightly and turn her on. You want to break up the area into smaller parts (like 1/4s). Within each 1/4, picture a 4x4 grid. You’ll want to snake the polishing pattern horizontally from top corner to bottom corner (slight overlap=ok), and then vertically back to the top corner. KEEP THE POLISHER MOVING! Otherwise you can burn through the paint. Do this 2-3 times should give you good results. Re-apply polish as necessary, or between 1/4s. Once each section has been done, I like to wipe it down with your microfiber and see if any areas need more attention, either more polishing or more aggressive polish. I also like to complete the whole thing before going back. Don’t use the same pad for different levels of polish.
10. Wipe down everything with Paint Prep or IPA to remove the old polish. Keep in mind that you JUST removed all or nearly all of your scratches, so use a very soft microfiber to avoid incurring any scratches. Some polishes may be designed to work with sealant or wax, and may not require removal. Always check.
11. Apply sealant (skip to next if you’re just doing wax). Follow the same process for polishing, except: a. use a lower speed, and b. use a non-cutting pad. You can apply a second coat if you’d like but it may not be necessary. Wipe off with a softer microfiber. Most sealant requires a short amount of time to “cure” before applying wax. Adhere to this as closely as you can. Obviously if optimum temperature is 65 F and it’s 90 F out, the curing time will be a bit less. Some may look cloudy at first and flash off over time. Just follow the directions.
12. Apply the wax. Same process as sealant. Multiple coats are perfectly fine (though I heard after 2 coats, it’s a waste). I like to use white microfibers to get an idea of how much wax I’m buffing off. I also have a microfiber buffing pad, but I find doing it by hand gives me better results. If you have trouble buffing off some wax because it’s dried, apply some fresh/wet wax, and then buff. Spray-on Wax is great for this too!
13. Glass. Spray a microfiber with glass cleaner and clean each window, one at a time. For the door windows, put the window down enough to clean over the edges. For polishing: Clean windows. Mask off the adjacent areas you just polished. Apply some glass polish to the glass polishing pad, stamp, and start polishing the glass. Minimal pressure is needed. Same principle as polishing above. May need more time for deeper scratches. Just keep it moving. Repeat for the remaining windows. Wipe off, wash with glass cleaner, and apply Rain-X treatment. Don’t forget your mirrors either! You may just want to clean them, not polish.
14. Trim. I like to get any of the black trim with the Vinyl and Rubber Trim Cleaner, as it leaves it dark and healthy looking. I’ve never had good luck with the aluminum trim on the sides, but others have.
15. Touch-up as necessary (remove bird droppings, sap, bugs, spots, etc).
Note: if you are applying a product like Opti-Coat or C-Quartz or any of those glass/ceramic type coatings, then you would skip Step 10 above, as the ceramic-like coating fulfills the sealant role. You can still wax on top of it though."
Your detailing process and supplies
Originally Posted by CJ_
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