| Can I use craft clay as clay bar?

Can I use craft clay as clay bar?

Explosion Dude asked:


I read on this forum that you can use craft clay as a clay bar. Can anyone give me reasons not to?
Posts made by carguy123:
“Clay is great, but you don’t need to spend megabucks on the kits, do it the Grassroots way!

Go to your local craft store or even the craft department of Wal Mart and buy a package of their synthetic clay. It usually comes in a package of colored strips. Now you have a large amount of clay so you can make a good hand sized wad that is much easier to work with than those stingy little balls they give you with the kits.

The liquid that comes in the kits is simply a detergent/water mix to make it slippery. You can use a car wash/water mix or a Dawn dishwashing soap/water mix. I prefer Dawn. The experts recommend washing with Dawn occasionally to strip the old wax anyway.

This will give you several clay kits for quite a bit less than the cost of just one of the Automotive kits. It works great! I’ve done it this way for years and my cars look great.

You are supposed to rework the clay occasionally to work the contaminants into the clay ball and keep them off the surface so they don’t scratch the paint. That is so much easier when you have a large wad of clay than one of those teeny little balls like comes with the kits.

If you drop your ball on the ground, with the expensive kit that comes with only one ball you have to take the time to pick all the little pieces of dirt and grass out and hope you’ve got all the grit out, with the cheap stuff you just toss it.

When you use clay sometimes little bits will adhere to the car and they can be a bugger to get off. This usually happens when you’ve hit too dry of a spot, an extra dirty spot or over a seam. I like to use a contrasting color clay so that it is easy to spot and I can go back over that spot with the bar until I have all the clay off the car.”

“A little update on clays. It seems there has been a shake up in the clay industry :p Several salespeople at the different craft stores I visited said they were no longer able to get all the different clays they used to get. They can’t get the polymer enhanced clay (what I thought was synth). What’s left is a wax based clay, which is exactly the clay you want!

The only reason I liked the Polymer stuff was that it was softer especially in cold weather.

So what you are looking for is a non hardening & reusable wax based modeling clay. I found it at every store I visited. It was always hidden in the crafts section and not in the toy dept. It comes in 2 different color ranges - primary colors and earth tones. You want a color that is different than the color of your car so that you can easily see when little clay pieces have stuck to the body. This is a clue you aren’t using enough lube or that you have an exceptionally rough area that needs more attention.

Little specks of clay left on the car wreck havoc with your waxing as when you wax over them they spread out and leave dull areas on the finish. So being able to use a contrasting color clay makes your job much faster and easier.

I ended up spending $1.97 for enough to do 5 clay treatments. Now I could store the clay and reuse it as the Clay kits suggest and get 10 or more cleanings, but why?!

Also I’ve got big, meaty, hand sized chunks of clay instead of the silly putty size pieces that come in the expensive kits. This makes the work go much faster, you are less likely to drop the clay and it means the clay won’t fill up with contaminants as fast.

So let me see… $18 for Mothers and I can do a car 1-2 times or $1.97 + $ .50 for lube and I can do a minimum of 5 times in less than half the time. Well the choice is obvious, I’m going to spend the $18 because it must be better since it costs more!

I mentioned on a previous post about grit in some clays. Someone else mentioned that clay is supposed to lift the dirt out of the finish and not be a polisher. Be warned some clays are polishers! See the link below. http://www.topoftheline.com/auto-detail-clay.html

If you need a polisher, like to clear up the crazing on your headlight covers or take off overspray buy one of the automotive clays with grit in the clay. If all you want is to clean up your car finish use the modeling clay which has no grit added. I wonder if this would work to help clear up the faded plastic back glass in convertibles?”

Original URL:
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/ever-use-a-clay-bar/1646/page1/
P.S. On page 2, there is a guy who posted pictures of his results.
Sorry bout the long question, but basically it all says that a guy suggests using wax-based modeling clay as a clay bar alternative.

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Filed Under Other - Cars & Transportation |

Tagged With Cheap Stuff, Clay Bar, Wal Mart

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