S
Sharpline Detailing
Guest
In the middle of October 2014, I did a full correction on my 2001 Honda S2000 followed by CQUK. This was my first time using CQuartz (Jason @ Detail 2 Correction turned me onto CQuartz, thanks) and I had to put something on the paint because this car is daily driven, not parked under a car port or garage, and we see some snow here in Southern Illinois/Indiana. Jason has told me a lot about CQuartz and upon finding out that it has great scratch/swirl resistance, I was hooked. This Honda paint is stupid soft; if you look at it the wrong way you'll put swirls in it.
My process:
-Wash with Iron X/Dry
-GG Paint Prep
-Clay bar
-Adams Swirl & Haze Remover
-Adams Paint Finishing Polish
-Eraser wipe down
I had tried using Fixer and Reflect but was finding it difficult to get the results I wanted and was much happier using Adams on my Porter Cable XP7424.
When I applied CQUK, I did one thick coat all around and two coats on the hood, roof, and trunk. When wiping UK off, I had a friend help me and we used regular blue microfiber towels, only using the short knap (or whatever you want to call it) side. After coating the car and letting it sit for one hour, I applied Reload. Had I known then what I know now, I would have waited as long as possible to apply Reload. In textbook fashion, after two days it of course rained. I was in love with the water beading though. From only ever having used a sealant on the car before..I was blown away by the beads; it's a totally different class from sealant. The best way I can describe it is that beads aren't really sitting on the surface at all, they're bubbled up.
With it being winter and very cold, the car went 5 months without being hand washed. Once in a while, I would take the car through a touchless car wash, never paying for their wax option; only wash and rinse. Here's a picture taken December 4, 2014, to show how well the car is still beading water. At this point, the car had been ran through a touchless wash maybe 3 times total:
At the end January/beginning of February, we got hit with 4+ inches of snow on two different occasions. The following two pictures were taken March 10, 2015 and show lack of beading on the paint. At this point, the car had been ran through a touchless wash a total of maybe 7/8 times.
With it finally warming up enough to hand wash again in the middle of March, I washed the car with Reset, using a foam gun and two buckets with grit guards. No Reload or quick detailer was applied following the wash. I flooded/sheet rinsed the car after washing and then dried the car with a Dry Me Crazy towel. I could tell right away that the car was beading water once again, but not anywhere near how it initially was. While sheet rinsing the car, I noticed in a few spots, most notably the roof, the water was falling off the car like it had been after coating. On other parts of the car, the water wouldn't bead, rather it would form a sheet and then dry up - definitely not what I experienced the first time washing the car after coating, which was at the end of October (I waited 10+ days to wash). Unfortunately, I do not have pictures/video of this behavior. What I do have, is pictures of the car with rain on it, 11 days after washing with Reset. You can see water beading in spots where it was not before, but not beading like it was in the first two photos I posted:
So here we are today, April 2nd. It's been 3 weeks since the car has been washed and no Reload has been applied. It rained today so I decided to take some pictures to show that water is still beading:
Although the water does not bead like it did upon first coating the car, it still beads decently. You can see that the beads even look different, they appear to actually be sitting on the surface, opposed to just floating, like in the very first picture I posted. Water does not fly off the vehicle with as much ease as it once did. I'll be washing the car again this weekend and applying Reload once it's clean. I'm curious to see how much of a difference there will be when it comes to water beading. I can't help but wonder if I would have been better off not even running the car through a touchless wash, or maybe only going through it once or twice...
My process:
-Wash with Iron X/Dry
-GG Paint Prep
-Clay bar
-Adams Swirl & Haze Remover
-Adams Paint Finishing Polish
-Eraser wipe down
I had tried using Fixer and Reflect but was finding it difficult to get the results I wanted and was much happier using Adams on my Porter Cable XP7424.
When I applied CQUK, I did one thick coat all around and two coats on the hood, roof, and trunk. When wiping UK off, I had a friend help me and we used regular blue microfiber towels, only using the short knap (or whatever you want to call it) side. After coating the car and letting it sit for one hour, I applied Reload. Had I known then what I know now, I would have waited as long as possible to apply Reload. In textbook fashion, after two days it of course rained. I was in love with the water beading though. From only ever having used a sealant on the car before..I was blown away by the beads; it's a totally different class from sealant. The best way I can describe it is that beads aren't really sitting on the surface at all, they're bubbled up.
With it being winter and very cold, the car went 5 months without being hand washed. Once in a while, I would take the car through a touchless car wash, never paying for their wax option; only wash and rinse. Here's a picture taken December 4, 2014, to show how well the car is still beading water. At this point, the car had been ran through a touchless wash maybe 3 times total:
At the end January/beginning of February, we got hit with 4+ inches of snow on two different occasions. The following two pictures were taken March 10, 2015 and show lack of beading on the paint. At this point, the car had been ran through a touchless wash a total of maybe 7/8 times.
With it finally warming up enough to hand wash again in the middle of March, I washed the car with Reset, using a foam gun and two buckets with grit guards. No Reload or quick detailer was applied following the wash. I flooded/sheet rinsed the car after washing and then dried the car with a Dry Me Crazy towel. I could tell right away that the car was beading water once again, but not anywhere near how it initially was. While sheet rinsing the car, I noticed in a few spots, most notably the roof, the water was falling off the car like it had been after coating. On other parts of the car, the water wouldn't bead, rather it would form a sheet and then dry up - definitely not what I experienced the first time washing the car after coating, which was at the end of October (I waited 10+ days to wash). Unfortunately, I do not have pictures/video of this behavior. What I do have, is pictures of the car with rain on it, 11 days after washing with Reset. You can see water beading in spots where it was not before, but not beading like it was in the first two photos I posted:
So here we are today, April 2nd. It's been 3 weeks since the car has been washed and no Reload has been applied. It rained today so I decided to take some pictures to show that water is still beading:
Although the water does not bead like it did upon first coating the car, it still beads decently. You can see that the beads even look different, they appear to actually be sitting on the surface, opposed to just floating, like in the very first picture I posted. Water does not fly off the vehicle with as much ease as it once did. I'll be washing the car again this weekend and applying Reload once it's clean. I'm curious to see how much of a difference there will be when it comes to water beading. I can't help but wonder if I would have been better off not even running the car through a touchless wash, or maybe only going through it once or twice...
It's bad here right now lol
