Hey guys, welcome back to Chemical Guys. So today, we're gonna do step two of the
detailing process which is clay barring your car. So we're gonna show you the
five steps to easily clay bar your car. We already washed the car so you always
want to make sure that you wash it first before you get into this step, so click the
link below so you can watch the first step if you like. We're working on this
red Honda S2000 which I just got. Before we get started on the first step
I wanted to talk about making sure that you have the right tools. I have here
the different types of clay bars (different grades), a Clay Block, Clay Luber
and some towels. To kind of go over what each of them are: a Clay Block is a
alternative to a clay bar. It's very easy to use. It's used the same way as a
clay bar but one highlight of it is you don't have to worry about using the clay,
kneading it, and we'll go over that in a second, but also if you drop it on the
ground you can rinse it right off and keep going. Then we get into our clay
bars. Our clay bars have different grades the biggest tip that I can give
is not to start off with the most aggressive. We always want you to start
with kind of a mid-range and then if it doesn't take out all the contamination
then you can always work your way down or up depending on what results you get.
A light-duty clay bar, for example, is maybe I just clayed last week
or two weeks ago and I know there's not that much contamination so I don't need
anything that heavy-duty. I'm gonna start today with the original. It's like that
medium to light so it's in between. It's not too aggressive and it's not too
light. I don't know what's on the surface of the car. I don't know how much
contamination but if I start here, I can always again work my way up or work my
way down. When you're clay barring, you want to make sure that the surface is also
very lubricated. You don't want to cause any marring or scratches in the surface
so keeping it lubricated make sure that that clay is gonna glide really nicely
over the surface and we're also gonna have microfiber towels just to wipe away
any residue. I'm gonna come on over and I'm gonna explain to you the first
step. What is a clay bar why do I need it? What does it do? A clay bar is going to
remove all of the contamination that you can't see so kind of like exfoliating
your skin and getting that that's what its gonna do. It's gonna pull
out anything that's on the surface of the vehicle. It can work on the paint, the
windows, the headlights, your wheels to pull out all that stuff. That's a
great step before you're gonna apply a wax, sealant, and even before polishing.
If you want your wax to last longer, make sure to clay bar it. If you're gonna
do a polishing job, you need a clay bar. The easiest way to find out
if you need a clay bar is rubbing your hand against the vehicle. Yes, some may say
that's gonna scratch just by rubbing it if there is stuff on it. It may, but I'm
gonna do paint correction anyway but I wanted you to know that when you rub on
the surface you're gonna hear that it's rough. Right now to me it seems smooth
but once I clay bar you're gonna see that it's gonna actually be even softer
and even more smooth. What you want to do is work in a 2x2 area and then I'm
gonna show you guys with the clay bar and the clay lube what to do. You don't
need to be scared of clay barring the car. It's very easy to do. The clay bar
is a square. I'm cutting it in four so you don't need to use the whole piece at
one time. I already precut it in four. It is similar to like when you play
with playdough and then in the container you can always put it in to store it.
What you want to do is just knead it into like a flat disc.
Basically so it
fits on your fingers and I'm going to spray my Clay Luber on this and then on
the surface.
Now, keeping it really lubricated is what's gonna help it glide
and remove all of the impurities and contamination that's on
the surface. Then, what I'm gonna do very simply I'm just gonna glide it over
the surface lightly back and forth. Now, a back and forth motion is what you want
to do because should you pick up any contamination into the clay bar it's
gonna stay in the clay bar and if you do circular motion then you may cause
marring into it if you pick up something on the clay bar.
So with your pressure, you want to do just light pressure you don't have to go
too rough and like I said back and forth motion. One question we always get is
how do I know when to stop? How do I know to not do that surface again?
Well, you're gonna feel it you're gonna feel the gliding start off a little bit
more harder to move and then over time as you keep going over the surface, it's
gonna glide easier so that means that you can keep moving on that that
section is pretty much ready. You can keep applying your luber to make sure
that it is properly lubricated and gliding along the surface. So far from
what I can tell, is that this car probably was clayed or it's been in a
garage so maybe it was under a car cover and it didn't really have much
contamination or exposed too much. It does have, for what year it is, it has
low miles so it wasn't driven as much as most cars but you can clay bar your car
as often as you'd like to remove the contamination. I always recommend
doing it before you are going to apply a wax or a sealant, which is going to help
make your wax and sealant last longer and adhere better to the paint.
Alright, so after I finished that section, I'm gonna get a microfiber towel
and I'm just gonna wipe away the Clay Luber in one direction so that we can
take off that excess. Like I said, you can work in a 2x2' area and then keep working
your way into different sections. You will see that your clay bar has dirt and
all the contamination that's pulled out. This area wasn't too bad, but once you
start seeing that it has some contamination like here I already found
that it picked up something a little bit harder, you want to bend it over and
knead it to a new section. That's what the clay bar is doing it's picking it up and
so you want to make sure that you're not getting that whatever it's picked up and
the contamination and moving it on to another section and then creating
marring or scratches or swirls. One big misconception about clay barring is that
clay bars remove scratches and swirls. It doesn't. It's just removing the
contamination to get you ready, like I said, for waxes, sealants, or for your
polishing. We're gonna do a full polish on this so I want to make sure that I
remove all of the contamination and get it ready. I'm gonna work on this area.
Again, if I notice that the clay bar wasn't picking up as much as it needed
to, then I would have switched to a heavier grade clay bar. As you can
see, it's very easy to do. You're basically just going in back-and-forth
motion. If you played with play-doh, it's pretty simple.
Alright, I'm going to wipe it again
Like I said, the reason you'll know that you can start moving on is because the
the clay bar is gliding much easier off the surface and
it's there's not as much friction to get it away so that's when I know it's
working. So again, you can do this on your glass, you can do it on the paint, you can
do it on the headlights, on the wheels... so I'm going to do the whole car and then we
are gonna make sure that this is decontaminated and
contamination free and then we're gonna do a full polishing so we're going to
show you how to remove the scratches, the swirls, and really bring back the shine
and take off all the imperfections or at least as much as we can. So, check back on
our next video where we show you how to polish this whole car and if you have
any questions about how to clay bar feel free to drop a comment in the comments
below we'll be sure to answer them and if there's any other videos we can make
for you. We'll be sure to do them so give this a thumbs up and subscribe and we'll
see you next time.