F150OL CD followers....

In iight of my posts in regards to the WaffleWeave MF thread I thought it would be useful to post a few photos of my paint after 15-20 washes.

My process is pretty simple, tried and true. I use the two bucket method to wash along with the Gilmore Foam Gun and quality MF mits by both The Rag Shack and PoorBoys World. I also use the Giots Long extention pole and MF wash mit to do the roofs of both of my trucks.

Drying, I use the water sheeting method then use the Rag Shack SuperFlys to dry the surface. In between washes when needed I will QD the trucks or do an ONR bath. So for me to post photos of my paint after 20 washes, its more like 30 when a MF has touched the paint at some point in the process.

To give you a base line....on Sat I rolled 362 milies on my truck round trip out to West Texas, driving in a caravan of trucks down CR roads, in fields etc...my truck was pretty dusty so I decied to give her a nice bath, while I was doing it it occored to me that I should document how my paint looks now based on some of the threads here at F150ol as of late.

So this is a before: (Now, to me as an OCD'er this is murder.)



Notice the Texas pin stripes from running through Sun Flower feilds.



After about 3 hours of work including going to the coin opp to blast the dust off the paint and under carriage.



So after drying here is how the paint looks...again, this is after around 30 or so times that a quality MF has touched the paint.

**Please note, these are not taken in the shade or reflections shots...this is under the Brinkman light, there is no hiding anything on the surface***










So my point is those of you using the WWFM or low quality MF's to dry your paint, your paint WILL NOT LOOK LIKE THIS, and surely not not after 30 times. In the shade or reflection shots, sure it will look good but not like the above.

I just felt like sharing the above so you know at least there is a difference in technique and quality of products used.

I will answer any questions you may have.

Best Regards

RR

 

That truck looks awesome . When are you going to do mine

 

Thanks KRC....Drive it on over, and bring some Mickalick (SP) Sausage!

 

WOW!



I doubt that mine has ever been that dirty yet.

Impressive that you were able to bring it back is only 3 hours.

Take Care ....

 

tbear853, thanks man, but this was just a wash, no polish, no correction, no LSP....took me a total of 3-4 hours to get it back including the engine bay, trim, undercarriage. I ended up touching the surface 3 times on this go around...

1. Wash
2. Dry
3. QD after HD over spray.

So I guess now its more like 33 times....

 

what? too short to reach all of the roof?

Nice work Jason!

 

Not all of us are blessed with height Patman....LOL ...or hair for that matter!

Thanks....

 

I visited that Rag Shack, good prices .... are you of the opinion they have better products? Super Flys is a polishing rag they say, they have drying towels too.

Just so you know, I didn't ignore your posts, but was trying to understand why the WWMF was bad or if it was just some. I have never used a regular MF for drying because they don't do so well and they will pick and retain stuff so easy.

Also .... I see you mentioned "ONR bath", is that "Optimum No Rinse Wash & Shine" I see on Amazon's site? Does that stuff work in Texas? I ask because while I live in Va., I recall Del Rio very well.

 

Understood, just wanted to be clear that this wasn't a correction day it was a more through wash due to the amount of dust in every nook and cranny. I did leave off some details like shooting QD in the jams to get the dust out or using my compressor to shoot dust out of areas that I knew water would get to. I was about (am still are) about ( ) close to going out to the garage and taking off my crowl to remove the left over dust. I hope it doesn't keep me up knowing its there.

The Superfly is a great all around MF. It is super soft (and will stay that way with proper care, I have well over 150 of them) I do use the larger yellow MF drying towel but I do prefer the superfly's to dry. That may not be the same for you, you'll need to experiment and find what works best for you but to answer your question...quality in an MF as OldDogg and Gipraw have also pointed out makes a major difference. That all being said, I still use the bulk MF's from ADS, but those only touch wheels, glass and jams. I have sorted my MF's by quality, color and nap. I try to buy on only the bulk MF's from Rick at ADS to do odd jobs but I have many MF;s that ONLY touch paint. its my preference to separate my MF's on what does touch paint and what doesn't touch it. For my paint MF's I have many different ones, and I use them based on the type of surface I am working on. Like the ShagRag, that only removes LSP's. But for the most part, my SuperFlys do the majority of the work on paint. Again, I take care of them...they get treated with MicroRestore around every 3rd washing and I run 2 to 3 cycles of soak in the wash etc.

When you say regular MF, what do you mean by that? If a MF is not holding water something is wrong, it is marring something is very, very wrong. I hope you are sitting when you read this.

I can dry my F250 top to bottom with 4 SuperFlys. I can dry my wife's EXPY with 6 including the roof and all glass and mirrors. I use the Bulk yellow ADS MF's for jams etc. I use ADS BLUE MF's for wheels only.


When you say pick up and retain stuff what does that mean? Please don't say you drop them on the ground then dry your paint I know you wouldn't do that or we would hang you in public. What I hear you saying is that you have some cheaper MF's and this the quality and weight of the nap isn't there thus you are not really getting the use of a good MF. My advice to you would be to watch the higher end sights like at RagShack or PoorBoys MF site and wait till they have a big sale then suck it up and load up on quality MF's. Do what I did, I buy 25 or 50 at a time so the cost is workable.

Or maybe a better solution would be to buy a few from here and there and test them like most of us did. One of the reasons that the CD section and so many other details sites exist is to save you money on mistakes many of us had made in the past. So for me to tell you that I use the Superflys for most of my paint work is kind of meaningfulness until you get a few low quality towels in your bad then buy a few good ones then the light bulb goes off and you say...."damn, those elders know their stuff" So really we as elders are trying to help by saving you time and money on chit that doesn't work and suggesting the things that are tired and true that do work.

I hope that some of this had made sense to you tonight and that I am not talking in circles. My point was not bag on your WWMF thread but more really to show you a better proven way. Yeah it may cost more but do you want to correct your paint every other week? Hell no.


Edit, just caught your ONR question, yes that is Optimum No Rinse Wash...it is truly a great product, I buy in bulk from Justin at Obsessive Detail (AKA The RagShack) I get all my Optimum Products and Menzerna from him. He supports many forums and his service and attention to detail (Pardon the pun) are second to none) As for working in Texas the product as far as I am concerned works in every state LOL. You can use ONR in various ways but I sure do love to hit an ORN bath inbetween washes and its the only product I use to wash our Fifth Wheel Camper. With 2 Gallons and water and 2 bulk ADS MF's I can wash my entire 34 ft 5er. (washing your camper in parks in a no no so I use this method and my camper always looks better than anyone else's)

 

When you have a quality MF towel the pile is thick. the towel is very, very soft...the cheaper the towel, the less pile it will have and the more likely it may cause paint marring problems. All WW towels have short to no pile and work by catching the water and dirt in absorbent pockets. If you blot the water there is less chance of marring, then follow up with something softer. If you wipe with a good amount of pressure the WW towel itself can marr the paint because it will never be as soft as a good plain MF. If you get any dirt on it you will micro scratch your paint. Good MF towels decrease the chance of marring because any dirt will trap in the thicker pile with more room to spare, and the texture of the MF towel will be kinder to your paint.

In the spirit of less work being better...With proper rinsing techniques and a good coat of wax, you dont need a thirsty towel because there should not be much water left on the surface when it's time to dry. If you blow dry there would be nearly none. With proper technique you can get by with WWMF's but they will eventually cause problems. Faster and worse if your technique is bad.

 

The truck is looking good RollingRock. I wish mine looked that good this summer but just dont seem to have the time this year.

 

Very nice RR!

But I'm sure it's all of your QD that's hiding those swirls!

JK

 

Not directed at me, but I use ONR and live in Texas, so I thought I'd add my $0.02.

I live in Central Texas with extraordinarily hard water. Combined with 100+ degree temps and black vehicles, water spots were always a problem. I decided to try ONR since I could wash and dry a panel at a time. I love it. I use it exclusively now. It's cheap, works great, is very flexible and completely eliminates the concerns around water spots. I haven't tried the 'new' formula, yet - still have a few months supply left - but I'm a big fan of the 'old' formula.

On marring from towels - I've used expensive microfiber and cheap ones. There's a difference, but IME, some marring is just a fact of life on daily driver vehicles. I try to minimize, but rather than obsess about it, I just commit to polishing the vehicle every year - 18 months. Gotta get some use out of the PC, right?

 

Just throwing this out there. I've been drying my Expedition (and other vehicles for that matter) with Superfly towels for a long time now. I used to use WW towels but have since moved to the Superflys and haven't looked back. I never knew RR used that same technique though. Obviously it's working quite well for him. Truck looks great Jason. But you already know that. Haha.

 

Rolling Rock and esf .... We have hard water here, and while it's been a hot summer, I knew how west Texas was growing up which is why I asked. The water spots were / are my conmern with washing as well, if you can get it done there, I can do it here.

Appreciate the insigt all.