Should I Clay New Paint prior to Feynlab Lite?
 

Title says it all. Clear coat been on a year. Very lite swirls from final buffing. I purchased the FL wash and prep products. Nothing on CC, fresh CC only. What say ye wise ones? She’s in the avatar.

Oh.... and two coats FL Lite?

Yes I'd clay first.

Wait, what? Why would you even consider applying a ceramic coating over swirls? Are you trying to lock them in? Don't worry about claying. You need to get the swirls out. Time to break out the buffer and some polish.

Id clay anyways. It's pretty easy and can only help provided you keep it lubricated. And as Fyr said make sure to polish.

I don't know where this thing started that people, "clay their car". Clay is great for removing contaminates in specific areas - road tar, line paint, bug splats, etc. but it's not a good tool for doing the entire car. If you pick something up and don't knead promptly you can scratch the paint.

Polishing does the same thing with less risk. I think people see the dirt that comes off with clay and think it's the only tool that will do the job, but it definitely is not.

It sounds like your car needs a round of polish. If you have some tar, etc. on the paint use clay to remove it. If not, don't.

You should clay the car, polish it, do an IPA wipe down, and then coat.

You may or may not want to add an iron decontaminate step.

Rick

Thanks all. I used clay on the previous paint and I thot it was just a very fine polish. The swirls are very minor and I wanted to use the minimum abrasive. I’m not experienced at all in this area, but want to do my C2 with my own hands.

CLaying and polishing are 2 different processes and achieve different goals. Clay will re move surface contaminates that polishing may not. If the car is garaged kept you have less environmental fallout that claying would be the process before polishing. Clay is not used or meant to replace polishing in any form. It can induce marring-comes in various abrasive levels same as a polish.
In any event-always polish the paint to best correction before applying a coating

Then you need some Jescar Finishing polish and either an orange or white pad for your DA polisher, go over it and they'll be gone.

Unfortunately you are misinformed, it is the exact opposite. You absolutely have to clay the entire car before buffing/polishing. Clay when done correctly will not scratch and clean up contaminants stuck to the paint giving the pad a clean surface to work with. If the surface still has "stuff" stuck to the pant the pad will pick them up and create holograms/swirls. Buffing pads to a very poor job of absorbing stuck contaminants.

So it's a bit more of an oldschool opinion, but I'm not misinformed.

Car Care Specialties had the "Overspray clay rubs me the wrong way" article that was written when I was learning to detail.

https://store.carcareonline.com/oversprayclays.aspx

How abrasive a clay is or isn't has been addressed by manufacturers now to target detailers, so that's not as much of an issue as it was. However, the best practice is still to use clay only when needed. Autopia's writeup correctly suggests evaluating whether the car needs it or not before doing it.

https://www.autopia.org/forums/the-d...tail-clay.html

Picking something up and scratching the paint is still a concern. You're right that not kneading frequently is the main cause of this, but doing so does not elimiante all risk. You mention that buffing pads do a poor job picking up and absorbing contaminates. I don't happen to agree, but one thing that is true is that clay doesn't absorb contaminates *at all* until you knead it. Kneading frequently is crucial, because it all stays right on the surface until you knead. I learned this the hard way - I scratched a rocker panel on a car I owned when I was first detailing way back in the day. I was actually kneading, but the thing I picked up must have just been too big.

If you have a car that hasn't been maintained, sure, you definitely may need to clay the entire thing. But on a well maintained car, especially that's been garaged? With new paint? You don't need to. Larry from Ammo NYC is nothing if not, "extremely careful", check out what he has to say at 3:50 and what he says about pads after the text...


What he says about keeping your pads clean is a concern but, again, if you're dealing a clean car whose surface has been kept clean and protected it's not an issue.

The whole "you have to clay the car before polishing" thing has been driven by forum wisdom. That's fine, but if you started detailing before the clay frenzy you've probably detailed cars without using it. Like anything with detailing, if it doesn't need to be done based on the condition of the paint, don't do it.

I've certainly made my fair share of mistakes detailing, but swirls or holograms from polishing paint that hasn't been clayed? That has literally never happened to me. That's using both RO and rotary buffers with foam pads. As always you want to make sure the paint is super clean by giving it a thorough washing using an MF pad, two buckets, etc. and you want to make sure you're using clean pads...but that's true regardless of whether you are using clay or not.

Not even going to get into a semantics war of words as it is a total waste of my time. As the ex-owner of an award winning detail shop in Silicon Valley I produced many, many Pebble Beach/Monterey, and multiple other high end show car winners, Some of my repeat customers were asked to no longer compete as they always won every year. I have a successful technique that works.

Once again you are completely misinformed, claying is standard practice in the detailing world because it works not some Forum advice, prior to that was a liquid based paint cleaner that was incredibly toxic. Good Lord, where do you come up with this nonsense?
To be honest your Youtube buddy is wrong on many levels it is not even funny, but if it works for you great. He would not be anywhere near qualified to work in my shop, if I still had it.
I am done with this one.