Glaze War

Hey guys,



I had a few hours spare today and I thought about this. I have always been on the eye out for a Glaze or Polish which hides/masks or reduces swirls without being as abrasive as a polish.

Obviously this lets a few entrants in, in the time frame I had I picked some popular products which you hear mentioned on Autopia and DW.

So lets go,

Swissvax Cleaner Fluid (pre wax oil) the hint is in the name.
AG SRP
Zymol HD
Autosmart Cherry Wax
Poorboys Blackhole
Megs no.3 - so dissapointed with this.


There are two other products not really anything to do with glaze but I had a request from my C1 vs Aquartz test. So they have been included to see if they help to hide anything. The request comes from herehttp://www.detailingworld.co.uk/foru...d.php?t=170993

So onto the test, the side of the panel I chose has some minor swirls and marring from washing. This VW paint marr's so easily !! it is a royal pain in the ass. Black is not a colour it's a full time job!!

I washed the car and then proceeded to do a Klasse AIO polish of said area and then an ISO Alchohol wipe down.

This left us with an area ready to mask - school boy error I ran out of blue masking tap and had to use the white stuff it was rubbish!!!

I taped everything up and then proceeded to name the areas, I didn't get round to testing every glaze/polish etc, helped when I was photographing them.

First up was AG SRP.

The before picture actually looks quite horrendous which I suppose it is ! I used SRP with the rotary at speed 900rpm as many of us on this forum would use it via machine. I would have done it by hand but to be honest I don't think a lot of people use SRP by hand once they have been on DW or Autopia for a while.

In addition, most of Joe public wouldn't use these products until they knew a little about detailing. So I presumed this would be acceptable.

Quite staggered by the finish, I stopped half way and noticed circular clear coat damage from the SRP so this is certainly more aggressive than I realised it has since been upgraded to sit next to 3m UF.

The good thing about SRP is that it leaves a protective finish, the bad thing is that it reminds of all the car shows I used to goto when I would rather be in my bed

Before


After




So next up is Aquartz

Obviously this is not a glaze but I had to include it as this test stemmed from my original post. Aquartz did what it was supposed to do, left a noticeable layer, I could spot this as I stopped polish to the tap as I was dragging the cheap glue from underneath. There was a certain difference on the coated and non coated area.

Very happy with the results did what it was supposed to do, funnily enough in the detailing world sometimes this is hard to find.

Before




After


C1

This again was just added to compliment my other test. This appeared to actually fill some minor marring
Before


After


Megs no.3

This is a paintable glaze. It really cleaned the paint up but it didn't leave any "glaze" behind as the name suggests. EPIC FAIL.

Before


After


Zymol HD Cleanse.

I have always rated this product, it leaves behind a heavy glaze and also smells pretty tasty. Possibly one of the best performers, the pictures are pretty ****ty though.



Poorboys Blackhole

This is a product I have tried umpteen ways. I tried by hand today to see if it helped any !! This with a doubt leaves a very smooth finish but I really don't think it is worthy of such a good reputation.

I have tried via, Rotary, Hand and PC. Everytime it does the same thing, masks the light marks but somehow makes the larger swirls seem worse. Exactly like this.
Before


After


At this stage it was time for PIZZA



Next up was the Swissvax Pre Wax. I thought this would be similar to zymol, it is NOTHING like it. Very runny, very oily, long work time.

I actually wouldn't mind trying this on the whole car to help feed the paint, its a great wee product. Masks some swirls not much but I just liked the high oil content especially the fact I snowfoam the car every week.

Before


After


I apologise for the lack of quality in the pictures it is exceedingly difficult to capture some of the marring in the light I was dealing with. I had two 500w halogens and my brinkman but I just couldn't hold my brinkman and focus the camera lol!!

My overall thoughts are this.

Zymol HD is the clear winner by hand

AG SRP is the clear winner by machine, however it is far more aggressive than I thought.

Swissvax is a lovely wee product, great for feeding the paintwork, very impressed. I imagine this and Best of Show or Souvern would make a great team.

Any comments feel free, I tried to conduct this test as fair as possible and by trying to think how others would use the products, bearing in mind this is a post by a member for members.

I imagine most Joe public's would struggle to tell the different in finish, so I catered this more for the intermediate detailer.

Finally NO waxes were added and since I was pushed for time not every product pictured was used.