ilogikal1

There's plenty of definitive information on the subject available, however it's much more complex than "what's better" so people as whole don't bother to try to understand it for themselves and subsequently end up reciting whatever ill-researched nonsense they themselves were told.

More pictures happened today (because there aren't many already ), if anyone's interested? There's ducks any everything... well, not everything, but there are ducks.

Either way, that's a great present. It just might not be nice for her.

My OCD demands (well, politely requests, please, if you don't mind ) that those two unused sockets are switched off. I don't understand people who leave empty sockets switched on.

S'more.

Yeah but we all know how tight-fisted you are when it comes to tyres, always willing to compromise on quality just to save a few quid.

On the other hand, if you're selling a car and the tyres need replacing, are you going to throw £500 away on decent tyres or are you just going to chuck the cheapest solution at it? I understand your point if the ditchfinders are clearly well used and been on there a while, but if they're brand new it may not be as simple as "cheaped out on it's care" during ownership... then again, if they're not brand new, the seller may even have thrown some part worns at it just to sell it. Just putting that out there.

Can you lacquer over the Brembo stickers? I seem to recall (perhaps from Brake Caliper Specialist) that the advice was not to lacquer over stickers. If I can find it again I'll stick the link up. It might be quicker to drop them a message and ask them though. ETA - found it; http://www.brake-caliper-painting.com/brake_caliper_decals.html#LacqueringDecals

The original or that travesty of a remake that Nicholas Cage "starred" in? I happen to agree with you personally (although less so about the Marvel films, I find them bad just not that bad ), but if you've not seen the original (and I'm consistently surprised by the number of "car people", and more so "film people", who didn't know that it was remade in 2000), it lacks much of a plot but it's a much (much, much, much, MUCH!) better "car film".

Onto the bonnet then! Poorboys EX-P; EX-P isn't known for it's beading, although it's not too bad the beads are quite flat compared to all of the other LSP's and not quite as consistently round. On the left is EX-P, on the right is Ammo Skin; Ammo Skin; Quite impressive. Consistently small, tight, round beads. On the left is Ammo Skin, on the right is FK Ultra Polymer Sealant; FK854315846843184 or whatever (Ultra Polymer Sealant); Similar to EX-P, inconsist shapes & quite flat. Again though, this is a sealant that's not known for it's beading so it's not a bad effort. More FK; Skin; EX-P; Skin (top), EX-P (bottom); Skin (top), FK (bottom); For me, Skin takes the beading round.

Beads? You want beads? I can do beads! Beads! Some beads then. And by "some" I mean a lot. I might have got carried away again, but I don't care because beading is good. (bonnet beads are in part two. Too many pictures, again!). Dodo Juice Supernatural Infinity... by which I really mean Cure at this stage (complete with bead reflections. ); Infinity topped with Obsession Wax Phaenna in the recess, topped with Cure on the lower part; HubiKote HubiTrim with Car Chem Hydro Coat over it on the badge (and just Hydro Coat on the paint); HubiTrim and/or Hydro Coat and Infinity that's really Cure; Hydro Coat (top) and Phaenna over Hydro Coat (bottom); *Deep breath*... Phaenna, Nanolex Trim Rejuvinator, Cure and G1; Phaenna; Those other three things; Two of those other three things; *Deeper breath*... Wax Addict Candy Gloss Whipped, HubiKote HubiTrim, Gyeon Cure and GTechniq G1 (and a little bit of Ammo Skin Defense Coat); Candy Gloss Whipped mainly; Cure & HubiTrim; Settle in for a few of Cure; Car Chem Origin; Gyeon Prime (that's really Cure); Ammo Skin Defense Coat (top) compared to Gyeon Prime (well, Cure) (bottom);

Before I get to the front bumper, I thought I'd chuck this in here first; Largely for reference of how the sealed exhaust looks before covering any mileage. At the other end of the car is this mess. From left to right is Dr Beasley's Finishing Glaze up to the angle, AM Details AM Glaze from the angle to the badge, Poorboys Black Hole from the badge to the angle, Auto Finesse Ultra Glaze from the angle to the wheel. All topped with Car Chem Origin courtesy of the SuperStu lucky dip method. The bottom centre section has Ultra Glaze topped with FK2685 (pink wax). Aside from the stone chips aplenty, this is the biggest reason why the bumper needs to see some paint soon; On the left is Poorboys Black Hole (which, incidentally, does nothing to mask lacquer peel, in case you were wondering. ), on the right is Ultra Glaze. And here is a lot of stone chips filled with Dr Beasley's on the left and AM Glaze on the right; Then the sun came out. Sadly by that time of day, at this time of year, it's in completely the wrong place to get any decent pictures, so these are the best I can do for now; Trying to give an idea of any differences... ... and failing. Again. So I resorted to artificial light, so at least in the following pictures the light source is consistent in each. Dr. Beasleys Finishing Glaze; AM Details AM Glaze; Poorboys Black Hole; and Auto Finesse Ultra Glaze; Remember, this panel has not been polished at all, there's pictures further back in the thread to give you an idea of what I started with - one day I'll do a proper 50/50 with some glazes, but for now this will have to do. It would seem that all four glazes have masked a lot of the swirls however, for me Ultra Glaze masks the most. I've found one or two that Black Hole hasn't quite filled, similarly with AM Glaze and Dr Beasleys - I really can't choose between the three there. In terms of finish... again I really can't distinguish which is best. In terms of usage, Dr Beasleys is the thickest consistency so doesn't spread quite as far as a result and requires an extra 0.75% (or something) effort to work but it still buffs easily no matter how much or little you apply, it has a minty scent which, whilst pleasant enough, just makes think I'm using toothpaste. AM Glaze is a thinner consistency but not overly liquid, as a result it spreads fooooooorrrrrreeeeeeeevvvvvvvveeeeeeeer. When you load the applicator, pour out what you think you'll need, scoop half of that back into the bottle. Scoop about half again back into the bottle. You see that amount that you have there? Yeah, that's still too much! Which makes it awesome value. You don't so much work AM Glaze as you do just spread it about a lot. Now that you've used too much (and you will) you'll discover that it doesn't matter because it buffs off with no problem regardless of how much (or little) you use. It has an annoying scent though. Annoying because I recognise it but I can never place it. Ever. It's nice though. Sort of fruity to an extent - since writing this I've discovered the website sates it's a "fruity cherry scent". That doesn't help me place where I recognise it from though. Black Hole is Black Hole. I'll assume you've used it before because everyone has Black Hole. Or White Diamond. If you have White Diamond, it's like that, but blue. Probably smells different too. Black Hole smells lovely! But for the purposes of fairness, Black Hole spreads well and far, it's easy to work, it's Poorboys so you can use it in direct sunlight and you can apply it in any quantity and it'll still be easy to buff. And it smells lovely too. No idea what the actual scent is though. Ultra Glaze is more liquid than the others and tends to separate in the bottle when left to do so, so needs a good shake before use (the others it's best to shake too, but not necessarily essential if you've not left them for long), it spreads well with a decent work time, it's somewhere between Black Hole and AM Glaze for this. Doesn't seem to matter how much you use, it'll buff off easily regardless. It smells like... er... some sort of shampoo. The ones you find in hotel bathrooms, that have fancy names that you've never heard of before. It's actually quite pleasant to be fair. All we applied and given a couple of minutes to cure before being buffed, however I know from experience with all of them that they can each be left on for as long as you like without any problems removing, so you can work panel by panel or do the whole car before buffing providing it's in the shade (unless you're using Poorboys which I'm failry sure would work ON the sun... okay maybe not but certainly in direct sunlight). Dr Beasley currently retails at £20.11 for 12oz. AM Glaze currently retails at £10.00 for... some amount, which according to other sources is 500ml. Black Hole currently retails at £14.00 for 473ml. Ultra Glaze currently retails at £13.00 for 500ml. I believe 12oz is 355ml (give or take), assuming it's 'Merican oz's. Less if it's UK oz's. Because the sun came out long enough for me to notice that the sun came out before finding a cloud to hide behind before I could get the camera, have these; EX-P; Skin; FK... whatever number it was, I'll call it UPS now; And trying to get all of them in the sunlight only to realise the sun is in the wrong ******* place! And just these (after I put the plates back on). Beading pictures may occur tomorrow, even if I have to fake them. Until then, that is all.

I rarely do multiple coats on this thread, so I thought whilst I was using free products... As I understand Ammo's business model, all the products are designed by Larry effectively for his own use and sales, as such production runs are small which means costs are high. With any luck it'll be something like 50Cal (who I slated for their high costs) and as he gets more resellers, he too will be able to benefit from economies of scale and reduce prices with costs. If it is true that he's looking at UK resellers, I'd say there's probably more than a chance of that happening at some point. Always happy to play with new products, especially when I don't pay for them. Having said that though, it's usually the ones I don't pay for that end up costing me a lot... I may regret this! Thanks go to you for supplying the product mate, this simply wouldn't have happened without.

The rest of the car then. The plastic & rubber trim was treated to either HubiKote HubiTrim or Nanolex Trim Rejuvenator, along with the (now) 4 'Z' badges, kickplates and grille. The exhaust was treated to a polish and then sealed with 50Cal Track Wheel Wax and HubiKote HubiRims as previously mentioned. Three wheels are treated to Slick Rims and one to HubiRims. All tyres have Blackfire Total Eclipse Tyre Dressing on. Door & boot rubber seals were given a dose of Einzett Gummi Plfledge. The interior was given a clean and dressed with Auto Finesse Spritz, the seats were given a coat of Dr Beasleys Leather Lock. The engine bay got a quick clean and dressed with Auto Finesse Dressle. On the roof and A pillars resides Gyeon Cure. As I recently did Cure, I decided to go for two coats this time whereas I went for the one last time. That looks like this; Cure is very easy to use, in this case I simply sprayed onto a 600gsm microfibre, wiped over the surface, turned the cloth to a dry side and buffed the streaks out. Job jobbed. The boot lid is currently hosting neat Car Chem Hydro Coat, largely because I didn't give it a chance to fail last time and ended up removing it (with some difficulty!). Again, 2 coats this time. First coat was applied with a cotton make up pad, the second I tried something a little different - I got some new Gyeon Q2M Suedes, so I first attempted to apply the second coat just with one of those. The cloth kept grabbing to the paint and it was a paint in the arse to use that way, so I ended up using one of the small "Suedes" wrapped around the foam block from the Prime applicator set (I used the small "Suedes" because I had earmarked the same suede [but smaller] cloths from the applicator set for the coatings - quartz coatings tend to crystallise on the cloths so it's advisable to dispose of them after use and certainly not to re-use then, however Hydro Coat isn't a quartz coating and doesn't crystallise so you can reuse the cloths use with Hydro Coat). Anyway, once I got all the streaks out of that, it looks like this; And that's it for the sealants. Moving onto the coatings; the plan was that the skirts would get a coat of Gyeon Prime whilst the rear bumper gets something else. This changed when, after doing the driver's side easily enough in the garage, the remainder of my Prime leaked. So the passenger's side skirt got the other coating. Apparently I forgot to get pictures of Prime, but you can see it in this picture; The other coating was... ...Dodo Juice Supernatural Infinity. There's not of information available about this, it seems that Dodo Juice don't do marketing these days. So armed with information from the one and only person in the whole entire internet to actually have used this I... pretty much made it up as I went along. Despite the warnings, opted for a well ventilated garage instead of a mask, not pouring it in my eyes instead of safety glasses but opted for the gloves still - to be fair, the instructions are much more realistic than the panicky packaging my sample came in. As my sample came without any applicators or anything (literally just a bottle of product and an small sheet of "instructions") whereas the actual product comes with an applicator and 2 A4 pages of instructions (apparently), I opted to use the Gyeon applicator set which I had spares of. Having gained experience from applying Prime previously, I essentially used this in the same manner but heeded the timings given by Dodo Juice - essentially the method is to wet the applicator, apply to a section in a cross-hatch pattern until the product is well spread and there's no sign of bubbles and minimal smears, then buff with a microfibre cloth until all the smears are gone. Repeat for all sections. Prime is remarkably easy to use, it's great for coating novices and it's very forgiving. Dodo Juice Infinity isn't much different but I'd say it's probably one (small) step up from Prime as it has lower working times which make it easier to get wrong - when applying coatings, timing is everything; buff too late and you're left with smears that need to be polished out - but it's not so difficult that you're likely to mess it up (unless you completely ignore the instructions of course). Prime adds a bloody tremendous level of gloss, get it right and it really is like there's a layer of glass on top of the paint. Infinity is a little odd in that when it's applied it appears to dull the finish somewhat - comparing it to Hydro Coat above it, the reflections from Hydro Coat were noticeably sharper than Infinity was - however that seems to have subsided now and whilst it's still not as glossy as Hydro Coat, it's not as dull as it was at first. I'm not sure at what point since it was applied that it changed but it does appear to become glossier as it cures. Also every other coating that I know of has a "topper" product to go with it that is designed and used to protect the coating from water spotting whilst it cures fully. In Gyeon's case that topper is Cure. In GTechniq's it's Exo. In Car Pro's it's Reload. And so on. However Dodo Juice have no such product and on the one thread on the interwebs that I've found on Infinity they even go as far as to say that it doesn't need one "but you can use Acrylic Spritz if you really wanted to use something". They later go on to say that it's best to wipe away any water with a QD as soon as possible to avoid water spots, however I have no real desire to spend rainy days wiping water off the car, so I topped both with a single layer of Cure - I want to try to treat both coating identically to give as best a chance as possible for a fair comparison - however with Infinity I only topped the top and sides of the given panel, leaving the undersides alone to see if waterspotting does occur (because I can't see it without specifically looking for it, it's okay. Prime has a life expectancy of 12+months, Inifinity has a life expectancy of "something like 1-2 years probably". Gyeon Prime currently retails at £43 for a 30ml set (which was plenty to coat an entire SEAT Leon, a 350Z side skirt and door shut with enough left over to spill). Dodo Juice Supernatural Infinity retails at £34.95 for a 30ml set - my sample was 10ml, that was plenty do the rear bumper, one side skirt and door shut of a 350Z with enough (2-3ml perhaps) left over not to know what to do with. When it's topped with cure it looks like this; And there's almost even a Hydro Coat reflection comparison here; Now I said that's what it looks like topped with Cure, but that's not strictly true. Most of it is, however the number place recess got a coat of one of the waxes... I think it was instead, but I can't actually rememeber now. Anyway, the recess and the spoiler got a coat of Obsession Wax Phaenna, which is a show wax (so less durability, more deep, wet, shiny flake popping looks) and the driver's wing mirror got 2 coats of this. Which looks like this; I'll get a better picture of it some other time with a proper light source on it. It'd look great if the sun actually ever comes again. Until then, take it from me, it looks better in proper light. Whilst I did really like using this wax, it taught me three things; I'm not too keen on passion fruit as a scent, topping coatings with this wax is a good idea and topping Hydro Coat with this wax is not a good idea! Whilst Phaenna was remarkably easy to use on bare paint and on Infinity, it became a **** on Hydro Coat and left an oily residue that I'm still not convinced I've fully removed now! That aside, Phaenna has ignited a desire to try other Obsession Wax waxes now, which doesn't happen often. It's a good thing they only do three. On the other mirror I have Wax Addict Candy Gloss Whipped. Largely because I realised I've never actually used it until now. Slightly more tempromental than Phaenna to use in that has a 5-8 minute window to buff, after which time it becomes difficult to remove oily residue. That, in equally poor light as Phaenna looks like this; Again, this is a show wax, so durability won't be all that, and again it looks better with a proper light source which I may get a photo of at some point. That just leaves the front bumper...

A little preview of what was used to bring you the following update(s); So yeah, just a few products. I'll start with the one that Stu's interested in and the sample that he very kindly provided for the "ilogikal1 product testing procedure". This essentially started when Stu, on his build thread, said, At which point I pounced and bullied him into giving me some of his new toys. Discussions commenced and a couple of products in my armoury were selected for comparison (then another was added later when I remembered that I actually had it ), and before long I received a bottle of yellow in the post that had my name all over it; Stu also kindly provided the description and instructions from the proper bottle's label, including the advice not to consume the contents on threat (warning) of (possible) death. Which was good because the website offers much less information than the label. So, presenting Ammo Skin Defense Coat; On the basis of that description, the contenders were agreed to be Poorboys EX-P and Finish Kare Ultra Polymer Sealant (#2180). Both of which are very similar products, the latter in particular is very much FK's version of Skin. Or Skin is Ammo's version of #2180 if you prefer. With that, the plan was formed that EX-P, Skin and FK2180 would share the bonnet. And so it was. EX-P on the driver's side, Skin in the middle and FK on the passenger's side; Starting with application; they are all quite different in some ways but similar in others. EX-P spreads quite well but it really doesn't matter whether you get it thin and even or just slap it on and wait really because it's always easy to remove (although thin layers are always best as it just wastes product otherwise). It can be applied in direct sunlight too you just need to make sure it doesn't bake on if applying a thick layer as that may require a QD to buff off. Once spread over the paint, it needs between 15-30 minutes (or more) to cure before buffing - you can leave it forever if you wish, it'll still come off easily anyway, but ~60minutes gives longer durability. Buffing can be a bit dusty if it's over applied, but otherwise it's fine and remarkably easy as a rule. EX-P has a coconut scent to it when applying but by time it's cured that's long gone and smells almost chalky. Ammo Skin however is best applied thin and even; if it's over applied it requires a much more effort to remove, get it right though and it virtually wipes off with very little difficulty - the only issue I had with it is that it can leave an oily residue when the cloth becomes saturated (which seems to occur at random in my case) but is easy resolved with changing buffing cloths. Skin is very easy to work, it spreads far and easily, so getting it thin isn't an issue providing you're paying attention. It advises to leave a 1-3 minutes before buffing, which I did for the main part, however I experimented a bit leaving it up to 10 minutes (ish) and only found that any over-applied bits were a difficult to remove (to the extent that I ended up reapplying more to get it off) so don't do that. Although I can't quite place it, Skin's scent is quite familiar. It's a bit cologne-like and I thought it was quite pleasant and different to the usual fruity scents that LSP's tend to lean towards, it was quite strong (although not over bearing) so it left the car/garage smelling quite pleasant for an hour or two as well. It does tend to dry out and bake on in sunlight though. FK2180 is a little more forgiving than Skin in terms of applying in thin layers but not quite as forgiving as EX-P, it'll let you get away with mild over-application or not getting it quite as thin as it can be but it'll punish you for just slapping it on to the point where it'll take a fair bit of buffing and probably a QD too in order to remove it. It does however forever and a day, so it's very easy to get it thin enough once you learn at which point it turns against you. The thing with FK is that the first layer seems to disappear into the paintwork as you're applying it so it requires a systematic application process to avoid wasting product going over areas you've already done, the flip side to that though is that there's actually less to buff off on the first layer. The second layer doesn't do this as much unless you missed bits on the first pass. Curing times are basically made up as you go along; providing it passes the swipe test it's ready to buff, otherwise leave it a few more minutes. In my experience it only takes a couple of minutes to cure but it can also be left indefinitely without any adverse effects. Buffing the first coat is little more than a wipe over really, the second coat is more a typical buffing technique though. It does however dry out and become dusty in direct sunlight, so apply in cool, shaded areas. It has no added scents that I've noticed and smells a little bit chemically. FK don't give any sort of application advice anywhere it seems, however I have applied additional layers of 2180 within minutes of buffing the previous layer previously without incident. Poorboys cures before buffing, so layers can be applied immediately again although like waxes it's usually advisable to give it a few hours at least before adding layers. So partly because of that but mostly because Ammo stated a 24 hour curing period before adding layers of Skin, I gave them all the same and applied a second layer of each the following day. In short, for application; EX-P you should apply to the whole car, go and have a brew, maybe a spot of lunch, have another brew, have a nap, have another brew and then buff off. Skin you should apply panel by panel and buff sooner rather than later but have a lot of cloths to hand. 2180 you can do whatever the hell you like, frankly. Sadly the sun is currently grounded or something because it's not come out to play yet today, hopefully it will later and I'll be able to capture the difference in finishes across the three, so far this is the best that I managed to get; EX-P; Skin; 2180; I'm told that there's a sun behind all that cloud. In terms of finish, Skin offers a little more depth to 2180's slightly more sterile finish whilst EX-P provides more flake pop than Skin (with 2180 between the two). All three give good gloss but I'd say 2180 offers marginally better clarity, followed by EX-P. Here's a terrible photo that shows none of that. So I tried to capture some if the differences better... ... and largely failed it would appear. You can sort of see a small difference here between Skin and the two either side of it (at least I hope you can and I'm not imagining it ); With the test panel sorted, it looked like I'd used next to nothing of my sample so I decided that the rest of the car (without a nominated LSP already) would get the same 2 layers of Skin. That left me with shininess like this; And this. So yeah, it's not bad. For my first time using any Ammo products, I have to admit I'm quite happy with Skin. Having then given the both front wings, both rear wings and both doors 2 layers of Skin, I'd guestimate that I've used about 20-25ml of product. Whilst it's arguably the more fussy sealant of the three, I actually quite liked Skin and could see it easily replacing either EX-P or 2180 in my arsenal. The downside to it however is that there are currently no UK resellers of Ammo products (I've heard rumours that Larry [Mr Ammo] is in discussions with someone over here but I have no idea who, when it might happen or even if it's true) so as it stands you'll have to import the products from 'Merica yourself. I'll leave it to Stu to decide if he wants to share what it cost him, but suffice it to say it's likely that the postage alone would cover the cost of EX-P. Poorboys EX-P currently retails at £13.95 for a 500ml bottle (or 16oz in 'Merican). Finish Kare Ultra Polymer Sealant #2180 currently retails at £12.95 for a 444ml bottle (or 15oz in 'Merican). Ammo Skin Defense Coat currently retails at $65 for... an amount not listed on the website, but Stu tells me it's 473ml (or 16fl. oz in 'Merican). I'll reserve judgment on "value" until I've got some durability data to hand. In the mean time, more LSP's will follow (starting with that other one you were interested in, Stu ) later today, beading pictures will occur in the near future too but I'll leave this with; To be continued...

Several reasons; firstly because Waxybox keeps giving them to me, Poorboys pre-dates my DA purchase and Ultra Glaze is flavour of the month so I had to try it for myself. Also there's only a finite amount of top coat one can to remove; whilst I can correct it's not really advisable to continually correct all the time unless you budget for a respray at some point, so the general plan is to reduce the amount of correction I carry out without letting the finish suffer too much for it. Glazes are also a great way to achieve a dripping wet look even on perfect paint. But all of that is really a side note to the reason for using them this time round - the front bumper is (still) in desperate need of paint really between the stone (or boulder) chips, the odd scuff and a patch of peeling lacquer which is now getting worse, and I hate machine polishing the lower panels so I didn't bother with the front bumper again this time and decided to test out some of the glazes I have for a side-by-side comparison. I just need the sun to appear now. You'll be glad to know that the car is done, some pictures have been taken and I've got a free afternoon to do the write up. Expect an update shortly*. *Disclaimer; I may be using the term "shortly" quite loosely.

In short; no.

I WILL spend more of your money for you...

Get some Wetcoat on there and let the rain rinse it for you.

Fake beads, huh?

That's just not true! It's only 58ft. If it were 60ft, I'd have room to fit my fat a**e in there too and get the front bumper done today.

In theory, the licensing people have a national database to tell if you've got a licence at all (I presume this would be difficult to check without DVLA information too), enforcement officers and detector vans. In reality, it's the same as watching TV on your phone, computer, etc; unless you're unlucky and/or stupid enough to watch TV in front of an enforcement officer you're incredibly unlikely to actually be caught. I'm led to believe the detector vans can only ping a general area and aren't specific enough to be of any real use, but I have no idea how true this is (and only applies to TV through an aerial). TV through the internet, I presume, can be traced through IP addresses but I don't know if the licensing authority does that.

You're required to purchase a TV licence. The law can enforced in the same manner as having a TV in your front room without a licence; if they can prove it's capable of receiving live TV (whether used for that or not) they can take action by means of a fine.

If it can receive live TV from anywhere, then yes.