ilogikal1

Glad to be of assistance. I'm lead to believe most of the South Korean microfibre worms are actually escaped North Korean microfibre worms, but that might just be propaganda. I have a couple of tiny suede cloths - most came with the screen protectors for my phone - and they're great for removing fingerprints, dust, etc. from smaller screens (like a phone, for example ). They're also very good for the interior mirror on the car but because I've not got any mansized versions, I've never used them for more than that really. They are perfect for applying coating's though, which is probably why most coatings will come with a few (equally as miniature!) for just that.

What, you wanted beading pictures? Well tough, have some anyway! PFTE Glaze; Hydro Coat; Both; That is all for now.

And now for something completely different the same as usual. In what seems to have become a pattern, I did gone done forgot all about Nanowax. So that might follow at another time. Or it might not. Who knows. Anyway, in the mean time, have some Car Chem stuff. The roof and painted trim that goes from the A pillar to the boot was treated first to Car Chem Pre Wax Cleaner - if you've used Werkstat Prime you'll know how good that is and subsequently the bar that's set for all paint cleaners that follow (in my mind at at least). You may also be aware that Werkstat have gone on an indefinite hiatus so Prime is impossible to get hold of at the moment, so it was great to discover that the Car Chem Cleaner is actually very good. I'll be pitting it head to head with Prime at some point in the future, but so far I'm happy with it. It's every bit as easy to use as Prime is with its simple wipe on, work in, buff off job. It's very easy to work, even if over-applied it's easy to remove without any real effort and it leaves a good, slick finish. Car Chem say; So I duly followed the Cleaner with PTFE Polish Glaze which is an AIO glaze & sealant product. Again, it's incredibly easy to use - apply, spread thinly & evenly, allow to cure & buff. Again it's very easy to spread and remove, even if it's over-applied. It leaves a good finish too, as you'll see shortly. Car Chem say; So for the roof, I did just that; topped it with Hydro Coat (the pillar trim was left with just the PTFE Glaze as the LSP though). As previously mentioned on this thread, Hydro Coat can be applied in two ways - either diluted 39:1 & sprayed onto a wet car before being rinsed off, or as I have done here by wiping it onto the paint (using cotton make up pads), allowing a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 10 minutes to cure & finally buff off. It's very easy to apply & spread. The website says "10 [minutes] maximum", but it was cold so I expected to have to leave it a little longer... and then I got distracted anyway. So 20-25 minutes later I buffed it off with no problem at all. This can also be used on plastics too, so unlike more traditional sealants or wax you don't have to be so careful which is always good news on the 350's roof because of that black seal running the length of the roof on either side as well at the seal at the front and back! Car Chem say; Although both PTFE Glaze & Hydro Coat can be layered, I've settled for just the one of each. This is partly to test out the durability of a single layer and partly because I only want it to outlast winter. Once winter's gone, I'll be doing the summer prep at some point which will inevitably mean stripping whatever LSP(s) are still going so there's little point in having a billionty months worth of protection on now. Anyway, pictures! Reflections;

On the topic of cloths (there is something more interesting on the way, I promise!), I've been asked a few times a "what cloths for what jobs" type question so thought I'd add my tuppence here. This is mainly going to revolve around two sources (Waxybox and Polished Bliss), purely because that's where most of mine have come from and what I have the most experience with, but similar (and in some cases, identical) cloths are available from various sources. I like to try to keep my cloths colour-coded for specific jobs when I can, this just makes it easier to grab the right one quickly and easily, but because Waxybox haven't got a copy of my colour code when selecting cloths for their boxes ( ) that's not always the case. Which drives my OCD crazy. Glass - specific glass cloths make a massive difference when using glass cleaners, there's a couple of variants from the waffle weave type to my personal preference in the flat type. Specific glass cloths of either design make it much easier to get a good, streak-free finish. Polish, wax and traditional sealants - basically anything that is left to "cure" on the paint before removing, 360gsm offers good bite to initially break into the cured product and a good pile for removing it effectively but still relatively safely if you're gentle. These Waxybox ones are good & cheap, I tend to use these Polished Bliss ones (the PB ones seem to last a fair bit longer than the WB ones in my experience) or these Poorboys ones which are also soft enough to buff with. The Kirkland cloths from Costco are also very good for this, especially for the price. QD, spray sealants, etc. - basically WOWO (wipe on/wipe off) or WOWA (wipe on/walk away) see my last post; any of those 5/600gsm cloths. Or one of these at a delightful 1000gsm which, frankly, if they did in human sizes would absolutely be my bath towel as well. Drying - I've got & used this waffle weave drying towel previously, which can hold an astonishing amount of water so it good for the pat dry method. I've also got & used one of these towels which is preferred over the waffle weave if you tend to wipe dry and is also very good for pat drying (which is the more advised method), but relies on the capillary action of the pile more than the waffle weave type. That means it dries best when it's already damp. Interior - I tend to use the aforementioned 350gsm Waxybox ones for the interior. Waxybox also previously offered a "grabby" cloth specifically for interiors which was fantastic but they've stopped selling those now and I've never found an alternative source, which is a shame. Dirty jobs - engine bay, exhaust polishing, wheels, that kind of thing; you want anything cheap and disposable really. Polished Bliss offer these which are a little too harsh for paint (especially soft paint!) but good for dirty jobs, although they used to be cheaper. Amazon Basics are ideal for this, especially in the economical larger packs. I think that's everything in terms of cloths, but I'll amend if anyone spots something I've missed.

These arrived today. A terribly exciting delivery of microfibre cloths! All of them are laser-cut edgeless jobbies. Now, I wasn't actually expecting either for another day or two as I ordered them (well after business hours) on the 26th and opted for the free (slow) delivery on them, so that's pretty good if you ask me. Starting with the little grey one, which is from here. They're actually the same price as from the Waxybox/Waxaddict shop, but with free delivery over £10 (even though the banner says orders over £35, there's another banner on the home page that says it's orders over £10. This may just be for the "January sale" that's currently on offer though). Anyway, they're fairly well wrapped in tissue paper inside the grey postage bag; (I told you this was an exciting update ). And when you eventually get into them, they look like this; First impression is that they're very soft with a deep pile. Compared to the Waxybox ones - Rag Master on the left, Waxybox on the right; There is a noticeable difference between, visually and well as how they feel. For a start the Waxybox offering is dual pile with a shorter pile on one side to the other - I tend to only use the longer pile side of these on the paint myself, the shorter pile side is okay for glass though - where as the Rag Master one has the same pile on both sides. The Rag Master pile also appears to be a lot "fluffier" which I was dubious might leave lint residue when using it but I've tried it briefly with a QD on my laptop and to my surprise there was no lint at all - it's worth noting that I've not washed the new cloths yet and it's always advisable to wash them before the first use, hence why they won't be going near the Z's paint just yet. Anyway, a close-up of the two for comparison, just to emphasise the difference in pile; The box was from Savers Choice and contained these. There's a moderate saving when buying 1 or 2 at a time, a better saving when buy 3-9 at a time and a huge saving when buying 10 or more at a time. All with free delivery too (like Rag Master there's the option to pay for faster delivery if desired). The box was packaged as such; A little surprised to see "packing" in a box of cloths, I must admit. Under the newspaper was this; Which looks like this when the box is removed; Each individually wrapped in cellophane bags that are semi-resealable (it's that glue that's easy to open but will eventually stop sticking over time, I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about but would go "ahhh yeah, that stuff" if you could see it ), which is ideal for storage until required - I usually keep my other cloths in the zip lock bags that Polished Bliss send their cloths out in as a rule. Being individually wrapped in this case comes with the fairly obvious advantage. Anyway, once opened, they look like; Again a nice deep, plush pile that's very soft & these also have the same pile on both sides. These are closer to the Waxybox ones in term of look and feel than the Rag Master ones, and for comparison look like this; All three feel like good quality cloths and I'd happily use any of them for the right purpose. In terms of cost; Waxybox offers their 500gsm cloths in orange at £4.75 each or in bundles of 6 for £24, plus shipping. Rag Master currently offer thier 500gsm cloth in orange and blue at £4.49 (usually £4.99) each or in bundles of three (one orange, two blue) for £12 (usually £14.97), plus shipping (currently free over £10, may revert back to over £35 shortly). SaverschoiceUK currently offer their 600gsm in "dark" blue at £3.95 each up to 2, £2.92 each between 3-9 and £2.52 each for 10 or more, plus no postage at all. Therefore for 6 cloths; Waxybox = £24 + postage. Rag Master = £24 delivered (currently). Saverschoise = £17.52 delivered. Also, they all offer other cloths of different weights that are more suited to other jobs (I'll get to that shortly) too, but I've not tried (or ordered) some of these yet.

Purely out of interest, care to expand on this? What "discussions" have you had with them and in what context? It's just that in the current context, that is meaningless; they've never mentioned it to me either....

Cheers guys. Although I made that comment in jest, I have to admit it does stroke ones ego somewhat that people would even consider asking my opinion when there are a couple of guys that do this day in, day out for a living. Especially given the quality of their work! There should be another update coming shortly involving the Car Chem bits on the last page & Nanolex Nanowax, which I just need pictures for so maybe tomorrow. I also have a plan with the plastics in the grille but I need to apply those products still and Waxybox 21 is due to land on Friday so there's a panel reserved for the new wax and possibly some of the other products in there too. Oh and the m/f cloths too, when they arrive. I know, it's all very exciting.

I can't over sell WetCoat, it really is that good. So you're saying there may be as many as 4 people reading this? Woohoo, personal best! Glad people are still enjoying it though, makes it all the more worthwhile.

Honestly though it's not a problem, I'm always happy to help out (where I can at least). Could do with an index or glossary for this thread really... although that might highlight the fact that I don't usually conclude anything on here. That's the only thing I don't like about Gyeon; I still have no idea how to pronounce it. Aside from that though, their products are actually pretty spot on.

In short; magic. There's a wealth of information here, but in essentially; it's activated by the impact - hence why a pressure washer works better. The water is just the carrier, so it helps to spread the WetCoat about but it's the impact of the water that makes it bond; higher impact = better bond. It wouldn't bond much, if at all, if you rinsed it off with water from a spray bottle, for example. It can be applied over literally anything, it's been designed to be a top-up product rather than a stand alone sealant. Underlying layers don't seem to affect durability that I've noticed.

And here was me thinking you were one of the three people who actually read my thread. You won't regret it, it's impressive stuff.

Yeah, if only there were someone here who was way ahead of you there... Seriously though, I'm on my second bottle of this and it's truly epic stuff. It would have been deal for the last several week since winter arrived. It does have a couple of competitors though in the form of CarPro HydrO2 - which is the same thing but in concentrate form - and slightly newer to the scene is Car Chem Hydro Coat - which is slightly different in that it can be physically applied neat (wipe on, wait 15 minutes & buff off) or diluted and used like WetCoat & HydrO2. So far I've tried WetCoat and HydrO2, but not Hydro Coat fully yet (see above ). WetCoat is as simple as it gets; it's ready to use, so it's a case of wash the car, rinse, mist WetCoat onto the wet car and pressure wash off (also works with a hose but with slightly less durability). It's a very similar brand of magic as Bathe+ is, it adds a really slick, glossy finish with epic beading and sheeting. It's recently become available in 4 litre size too for better economy - I can't see it on i4d, but I'm fairly sure they announced they did/will stock that size on DW. HydrO2 is a concentrate, so wash the car, rinse, mix HydrO2 at 3:1, mist onto the wet car and pressure wash off (again, works with a hose for slightly diminished durability). Also adds plenty of gloss, a slick finish and epic beading and sheeting itself. This should be stored neat though (after a period of time it becomes less effective when pre-mixed), so it's important that you only mix the amount you intend to use. Also, it's actually more expensive than WetCoat too (even when diluted ). Hyrdo Coat for this purpose has a dilution ratio of 39:1 (25ml to 975ml of water), and then wash, rinse, spray, pressure wash off. As I say, I've not tested this (I've only used it by physically applying it so far), but as you can see I do have plenty and will be trying it out at some point. It does work out at £13.50 for 10 litres at that dilution rate. I genuinely don't know about storing this pre-mixed though - I'll ask Ste if I get round to it. I've already done the HydrO2/WetCoat comparison but I've now run out of HydrO2. I might do a WetCoat/Hydro Coat comparison in a couple of weeks though - the Impreza could do with a wash I guess.

Yeah, I still get mine. Not sure I'd bother with the retro boxes every other month if I wasn't on the Elite subscription because of the repeat products, but the edition boxes (like this month's) are usually pretty good still.

Must be the season for it, because I've been looking myself yesterday. I was planning on doing a bit of a write up (which I'll still do) when I've had a chance to test a few new ones I've got on the way, including different cloths for different uses, as a few people have asked me about that. I prefer the plusher 500gsm for liquid products, they don't tend to work so well at breaking through cured products like wax so I tend to use 3-400gsm cloths for that purpose - I've got a massive stock of these from Polished Bliss, but the Kirkland cloths from Costco are just as good and much cheaper (also available from Amazon at a slightly higher cost [but still cheap for 36 cloths!], if Costco isn't an option).

Anything 500gsm is ideal for QD (and for liquid products in general; i.e. anything that's wipe on/wipe off - if it's something that cures before being buffed - wax/traditional sealants, etc. - you'd probably want something with a bit more bite. Right now at this very minute, I'd say either the orange, edgeless cloths from Waxaddict - here, or in bulk here - are great cloths at a decent price. I'd also recommend having at least one of these from Polished Bliss in your arsenal too, at 1000gsm it's perfect for buffing QD's on the soft Nissan paint. That said I'm about to order some that look similar to the Waxybox ones (not found anything remotely comparable to the PB one!) for a bit cheaper to test the quality. If it's not urgent, I should have them in a few days and I'll stick up a post on here to let you know what I think of them.

Judging by the frequency with which the topic is raised on here, that's probably a conservative estimate...

Or the sticker inside the petrol cap with this information on? Or the manual?

Today's new toys - I'm finally getting round to using some of my pre-Christmas bargains.

If you could find another one of the 106 made that was for sale, I think you might struggle to get it for as "little" as £8million. Considering the last one I know of went for just over £10million - that was a low mileage collector piece with just under 4 digits on the odometer, by the way - a couple of years ago and that was a million or so more than a similar collectors piece that sold three months before that. Then again, I'm old enough to remember the days when you could pick up a pristine 2nd hand example for a mere £675,000 on Auto Trader. Sigh.

All taken with a Fujifilm XS-1 - it's a fixed lens but has a manual focus.

This lot aren't the best photos but I was largely just messing about with the camera at this point. Okay, I'll stop... for now.

Have some randomness.

Then it magically rained in my garage. Yep, that's what happened, that's why the panel is not entirely dry any more.... Micro-beading! DJ SAS; Cure; Cure on the left. DJ SAS on the right. Oh and Nanolex Reactivating Shampoo in the middle. Comparison between Nanolex and DJ SAS; Comparison between Nanolex and Cure; Overall comparison; You know I said there were a lot of photos? Yeah, there's more.

No visible streaks; See. No? Exactly! There's not even invisible streaks on this side; More photos to follow...

Okay, I'll get the boring bit out of the way first. Gyeon Cure is now on the passenger side from the door back, excluding the roof and the rear bumper. Dodo Juice Supernatural Acrylic Spritz is on the driver's side. There's also a section reserved for keeping track of the Nanolex shampoo's durability. It's also worth noting that there was absolutely minimal prep by way of a wash and nothing else, both products are currently sitting on top of various others. This is partly intentional but equally because I couldn't be arsed to remove the Plasma Coat, Tough Coat, HydrO2 and... er... whatever was under the HydrO2... if anything. Application for both are simple wipe on/buff off. I initially thought that I'd got a good streak free finish on both fairly easily, however there are a couple of streaks on the DJ SAS side that are only evident when the panel is a bit wet - it's contained on the boot lid, just in front of the spoiler so I dare say it's lack of attention on my part as much as anything and it probably only needed an extra pass or two when buffing. There is absolutely no sign of smears on a dry panel at all. Both are easy to use provided you follow the usual caveat of "less is more" - both will smear of you use too much. It seems both are easiest to use by spraying onto the cloth rather than directly onto the paint, a quick wipe over and then buff until shiny... and then maybe an extra buff too. ETA: If you look really closely, in just the right light, at just the right angle, you might be able to see that the Cure side is ever-so-slightly darker than the Acrylic Spritz side which itself is slightly more noticeably darker than the Nanolex/Tough Coat tape line, although to be honest you'd have to be looking for it to notice it. Now that you've skipped the boring bit a lot of pictures are about to follow. A lot! You've been warned.