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b0yw0nder
09-19-2005, 02:39 AM
Disclaimer: I am not an expert/professional and this was my first time using Zaino but I figured I'd post this info because I didn't find all the information in the same place and it was a learn-as-you-go type process. Also, it helps me remember what I did for the next time. Make sure you read the stuff that comes with your Zaino as well, this is only in addition to their instructions.

Right off the bat, "show car shine in a single day"? Maybe if you wake up at 8am and start right then. I ended up doing mine over a 2 days and only got about 3/4 finished what I wanted.

Zaino (www.zainostore.com), I have been hearing about this for the longest time but never had a chance to try it. (Was also bitter because I won one of their packages and they never sent it to me because I lived in Canada) However, I have tried a lot of different kinds of polishes/waxes and applied them by hand and with a random orbit polisher so I'm not a noob at it.

Zaino advantages (as I see them)
-can apply it in the shade or in the sunlight (great for people like me that live in an aparment and may not have shade all the time)
-very easy buff out (easiest I have ever done before)
-quick hazing when it is relatively normal bay area day

Zaino disadvantages (as I see them)
-relatively expensive
-tough to see where you've applied the polish
-lots of steps
-only 3 coats per day
-shouldn't use it with a random orbit

What do you need?
-Bottle of Dawn original formula liquid dish soap
-Spray Bottle (Got mine at home depot for about 3 dollars, its near the cleaning products)
-2 Large White Bath Towels (The Zaino guy says 100% USA Cotton, made in USA white towels and suggests Cannon or Fieldcrest towels....I went everywhere and did not find those anywhere because apparently they do not exist anymore and nothing is made in USA anymore. The softest ones I found were at Macy's (I went to pretty much everywhere...Bed, Bath and Beyond, Linens and Things, Target, Walmart, Sears), they were Calvin Klein Micro-Cotton Towels, made in India for about 25dollars a peice. Micro-cotten is the softest cause they cut the ends of the loops. Get at least 2 of them cause you need one side for each coat. That leaves you with an extra side to screw up or apply the Z-8 Spray if you get it. The other advantage to these towels is that it only had stiching on the edges and no decorative stitching on the edges or in the middle. Some people cut the edges off but I just left mine off and was careful when I was using them. If you fold the towel in half (With the fold parallel to the short side), then fold the sides inwards (so the edges are in the middle, you can roll/fold upwards (from the open edge) and keep using different faces. When those faces are soiled or too wet, you can unfold and do the second folds the other direction and then roll again.)
-Zaino Z-7 Show Car Wash
-Zaino Z-5 Show car polish for swirls and fine scratches
-Zaino Z-2 Show car polish for clear coated finishes
-Zaino Z-6 Ultra Gloss enhancer spray
-Zaino Z-18 Claybar (It comes with 2 bars that could probably do a whole car twice, but get 2 packages in case you drop one like I did...)
-Zaino ZFX
-4 Zaino Applicator Pads (One for each coat/layer and an extra in case you drop one on the ground)
-(Optional) Zaino Z-8 Grand Finale Spray
-(Optional) Pen and Paper (To keep track of where you have scratches and paint chips and stuff)
-(Optional) 3M Fine Rubbing Compound (In case you have some bad scratches that need some real work) Zaino has something like this as well but I am more familiar with the 3M product and I didn't really need it anyways.
-Clean hands (especially if you are clay bar'ing)
-Hands free of jewlery. (And any chains or whatever that might dangle and scratch the paint)
-Clothes that aren't going to scratch the paint. (I forgot to tuck in the draw string on my shorts and put a small scratch in my paint. Don't tuck in your shirt, let it hang! Cover up zippers or anything like that.)
-A towel. (To sit on and stop from dropping stuff on the dirty floor)

b0yw0nder
09-19-2005, 02:42 AM
Order of application (subjective)
1.Hood (careful around the vent cause it stays dirty even after you clean it a few times)
2.Down onto a front fender. (Usually leave the painted edge of the fenderwell till later*)
3.Across the front bumper. (Usually leave the lowest portion and underside of front bumper till later*)
4.On to the other front fender.
5.Mirror on that side.
6.Up the a-pillar and across the top and down the c-pillar
7.Rear fender on that side. (Again, usually leave the painted edge of the fenderwell till later*)
8.Roof on that side.
9.Other side mirror, a-pillar, across the top, c-pillar, rear fender and roof.
10.Trunk and wing
12.Rear Bumper (Usually leave the underside of the rear bumper and around exhaust till later*)
13.Handles on one side.
14.Doors on that side. (Usually leave the underside of the rocker panel till later*)
15.Door handles on the other side then the doors on that side.
16.Both sides door sills, door edges, rocker panel upper edges and interior door frames. (Probably better to do this at a separate time, but the edges of the rocker panels and door edges won't get covered from the outside otherwise)
17.All the way around the bottom of the car and the painted edge of the wheelwells.

*leave them till later cause they might not be fully clean and track dirt onto other surfaces

Method of Application
0.(Optional) Wash local areas of the paint where you have deep scratches and use the 3M rubbing compound to try to get them out. Buff really well and clean afterwards. I think Zaino has another product that they use for heavily scratched surfaces but I've never tried it. Since I didn't have any of those types of scratches I didn't purchase it to test.

1.Sometime before your application, wash your towels with liquid laundry detergentin Hot water. Rinse them out twice. Dry them in the dryer with no fabric softener sheets on low/medium temperature so they don't have a huge static charge. You can take them out a little early so they are kind of wet and let them air dry. Apparently you can fluff them to make them softer at this point. I shook the crap out of my towels to get all the fuzzy things off them from the washer/dryer experience.

2.Wash the car with dawn laundry detergent. (I'll spare my washing techniques for another night) I used a pretty concentrated mix...like 0.5-1oz per gallon of water. Just make sure there are lots of suds and that you're actually scrubbing the surface with something like a wool mitt. Rinse it really well. I don't have much of a choice, but I prefer the high pressure washes or at least a hose with a good nozzle. The dawn removes any wax on your paint, grease and grime that car soap doesn't always get rid of. Don't make a habit of washing your car with dawn. Only do it when you are going to be renewing your polish layers.

3.Dry the car really well. If you're using a clay bar, it will get rid of any left over water spots but it just means more time rubbing the surface. Right now I am using "The Absorber", but I think I'm going to pick up some more of those

bath towels to dry my car with. The reason being that the absorber sticks/pulls so tightly against the surface of the paint that if it picked up something sharp, it would drag it across the paint and scratch it. The towel has knapp, and that will pull the particle up into the core of the towel instead of dragging it along the surface. I think I've also seen people recommend leaf blowers. There are no plugs anywhere near where I park, so that kind of sucks. However, I saw a cordless leaf blower at Sharper Image that I might pick up.

4.Clay bar time. Try to do this in the shade.
4a.Wash out your spray bottle. Put about 1cap full of Z-7 for every 30oz of water. You're going to use this as lubricant for the clay bar. As long as you aren't ridiculous, 30oz should get you through the whole car. I think I used about 2.5times that and clayed the car twice. I was a little over gratious with the lube as well. The idea of rubbing something across my paint so many times kind of freaked me out.
4b.I wish I would have started this way, but go over the whole car looking for localized deposits. Follow the instructions for 4c. For me, I had some bugs on the front bumper, some tar in the wheelwells, some marks around my rear bumper/trunk/wing and a line on my roof that I could never get rid of through washing. I wish I would have done them in advance instead of in the middle of the process.
4C.Spray down an area and start rubbing! Make sure you pass over a single section multiple times, 2-3 at least. A tough bug takes 3-4 good passes. Use light to medium pressure. If you're fingers start going through the clay bar, you're pressing too hard. I don't think pressing hard does anything anyways, going over it multiple times is more effective. Depending on how much you are pressing, you might have to fold or reform the bar often. If the clay bar starts sticking or the area you are working starts getting dry, just spray it down again.** If at ANYTIME you drop the clay bar, don't use it again on the paint you care about. Use another bar. (That is why I suggest getting 2 orders of the claybar.)
When I dropped mine on the ground, I made sure to only use it on the bottom surfaces of the rocker/bumper, to fold it a lot of times before using it and to pick out anything that I saw after dropping it. Let me be the voice of reason, the bar gets slippery. Once you start getting into a good groove, it can easily stick to the surface and with the sliding of your hand back, make it fall down. Or it can slide right out of your hand! When I was working over an incredibly dirty part of the garage I made sure to put down a towel in case I dropped it.
4D.After some rubbing, take a look at the bottom surface and see if it is soiled. If it is, stretch it out and fold it over itself, remold it and keep going. If you get to the point that when you fold it over it is still soiled, move to another bar.
4e.Once the whole car is done, take a look over it and see if you missed anything. Re-wet the area and rub it down. In the end, I went over the car a second time.

**At one point, I think I over-saturated my bar. It started decomposing almost. I've written to Zaino to find out if it would still work to full extent like that and I'll let you know what the answer is. My gut-feeling is that it is

better to be over lubricated than under lubricated.

5.Start by rinsing the lubricant off the car. (It's almost like a pre-wash cause the lubricant was just watered down Z-7) Wash the car with Z-7. The paint should be smooth as butter now. Also, it has no protection so keep it away from things like acid rain, nuclear fallout, direct sunlight...etc. It was probably a boo-boo, but I left my car covered in the lubricant overnight cause it took me all day (well, from 2 till dark) to get the car cleaned and claybar'd. Again, scrub the car and get off any left over reminants of the clay bar or any dirt that you missed cause you're gonna be rubbing the paint a lot and don't want to be adding scratches.

*** Rinse it really well. The polishes are non abraisive so they won't even take off waterspots unless you really rub at them hard. Also, it will get your applicator dirty and the dirt could scratch your paint.

***Anyone with a clear bra like me, you're gonna get claybar and polish at the interface. I've e-mailed Zaino to see what the best way to deal with that crud is. I think letting it dry for a few days and then washing it should be the best course of action. I wouldn't pick at it, or scrape it with your nail cause you'll probably just create a scratch along the edge of the clear bra. I'll update when I hear back from Zaino.

6.Polishing. You can apply up to 3 coats of polish in a day (24hrs). If you have some light scratching/scuffing you need to take care of, you probably want to do at least one layer of Z-5 and then you can follow up with Z-2 polish for the remaining steps. My original plan was to do 2 coats of Z-5 and 2 coats of Z-2 but since I did all my polishing in one day, I only did the 2 coats of Z-5 and one coat of Z-2. I'll take care of some other coats on another day.
6a.Shake the polish well and pour about about an ounce of polish into the small containers. (Just under 1/2 of the volume of the containers they send with the ZFX) It says that an ounce can do the car twice but I don't believe that. I don't think I was overusing it, cause I was getting really thin coats that buffed out quickly, but I guess it is possible. About an ounce covered the whole car....down to the last drop.
6b.Put 4-5 drops of the ZFX accelerator in the container and shake it well.
6c.While you are getting your stuff together, let the ZFX activate the polish. You will need an applicator, Z-6 and your polish. After about 5 minutes you should be ready to rock.
6d.Spray down your applicator with some Z-6, it will help keep things applying smoothly. Put 2 thin lines or about a dime size amount in the middle. Spread it out with your fingers across the pad. Apply onto the paint until it gets dry or you don't see it being applied anymore. Put a little more polish on your applicator and start again. About the second or third time you do this, the applicator should be decently saturated so you shouldn't have apply more polish as often. If you get some dirt on your applicator or it becomes too saturated just flip to the otherside, Z-6 it and then put a couple thin lines. Switch applicators either for each type of polish or for each layer. Again, if you keep a towel on the ground you can save your applicator from getting dirty if it falls on the ground.
6e.This is the tough part. Unless you are working with a garage light or in the sunlight, it will be tough to see where you have applied the polish. The Mr.Miyagi (karate kid's mentor) was wrong. No wax-on/wax-off motions. More like the paint the fence motion. Either move across the panel from left to right or up and down the panel. I think it depends on the geometry but Zaino recommends one direction for horizontal panels and another for vertical panels. Changing directions in subsequent coats probably does give a more 3D look to things. The most important thing is to keep the coats light. Don't worry about making them thick because you are going to do multiple coats and otherwise it would mean more buffing required! Follow the order of application I have outlined above. Z-5 and Z-2 are applied the same. You have about 6 hrs to use the polish so you don't have to go super fast.
6f.Once you are done the coat, immediately go and wash out the container you mixed the polish in. Use a high concentration of dawn on the inside and outside with hot water. The Z-5 came out of the bottle really easily but the Z-2 required a lot of work. A pipe cleaner would probably have helped. As long as you clean them out really well and none of the polish hardens, you can use the container again. Mark the bottles so you don't cross contaminate them.

7.Buffing and Z-6'ing****. The polish should haze in about 30minutes to an hour. If humidity is high or its cold, you might have to wait as long as 2-3hours or more. If you really want to, you can leave it over night. It's pretty easy to test, just rub your finger along a surface, if you have some white powder on your finger and the surfaces is clean, it's probably hazed over sufficiently. The Z-6 is used to increase the 3-dimensionality.
7a,Using one face of your folded towel start buffing away the polish. It should only take 1-2 motions to buff away the polish. Again, I would follow the order outlined above and use either across the panel or up and down the panel motions. Every once and awhile, feel the surface of the towel. If it physically feels like its covered in powder, switch the face. If you shake the towel, most of the powder will blow away anyways.
7b.Once everything is buffed away, use the Z-6 to get rid of any left over powder residue or areas you forgot to buff. ***** Spray on an area of the paint and use a fresh face of the towel to move it around. It will evaporate/dry on its own once you get the right thickness. Use the spray sparingly, apparently 1oz can do a whole car more than once. You can move it around pretty well and once your towel is a little saturated with it, you can just spread it around without spraying. Once it starts streaking or your towel gets too wet, you should move to another face of the towel. For the door sills and door edges, I sprayed a corner of my towel and then rubbed on the surface instead of getting a whole bunch of overspray. At least Z-6 isn't greasy, so it doesn't make grease marks on your windows or trim, but try not to overspray it too much.

****You can also use Z-8. Refer to the instructions that come with it because I haven't tried it yet. The difference seems to be that you do not want to let it dry on the surface on your own. You want to make sure 100% that you are drying it off with the towel. If it drys on the surface, respray that area and wipe it down again.

*****The Z-6 also helps getting rid of polish left at the interface of clear bras.

8. No waiting...once Z-6'ing is complete. You can start 6 and 7 again with the next coat of Z-5 or Z-2.

9. Wash your towels and applicators. I wash once with liquid detergent and then rinse at least once more time. Not sure about if I will use the applicators again. They still look pretty dirty/covered in polish. I might try washing them again but will probably just end up getting new ones.

Conclusions

Damn...it took a long time. I think if you are more focused than I am, you could probably do it in a day. Over a weekend is probably best so that you can do a couple coats of each and a last coat of Z-8.

Timewise, it took me about an hour to 2hours to clean the car including a good wash, good rinse and drying each time. Clay bar'ing took about an hour to 2 hours for each application. Each polish application took about 30minutes to an hour depending on how thorough I was and the buffing and Z-6'ing took about 30minutes to an hour together. I think most of these are overestimates on time. The lower values are probably more realistic for most people.

Total time spent was about 2 afternoons. This factors in time driving to the car wash where I wash my car. (I bucket-wash with no fear!)

Sometime soon, I'd like to go over the edges of my clearbra to get rid of any left over polish or claybar.

My plan is to put at least a couple more layers of Z-2 on my car with a coat of Z-8 between them and a coat of Z-8 at the end. This coincides with a recommendation to follow up an initial application with another couple layers after

2weeks to a month. The application should last 6-9 months easily. I may just put another couple layers at 6 months and wait till at least a year from now to do this all over again. Especially considering I still want to do: My wheels, the trunk sill, engine bay area (there are some faces that are exposed to bugs and stuff just below the hood) and the interior a little bit better.

Overall, I am pretty impressed by how thin it goes on and how easy it is to buff off. Sun and shade application is HUGE for someone like me that lives in an apartment and doesn't have a fully covered parking spot. (Or even worse, has to park in the street) Wish I could do more than 3 layers in a day, but by the time I was finishing the last Z-6 layer, it was already too cold.

Anyways, thats it for now....I'll add in some stuff about washing the car and anything else I learn.

wilson1
09-19-2005, 09:44 AM
wow!

When are you available? :lol:

b0yw0nder
09-19-2005, 11:51 AM
lets just say, it would be expensive if I was gonna do it for someone! ha

Matz
09-19-2005, 02:39 PM
lets just say, it would be expensive if I was gonna do it for someone! ha

How expensive? :lol: thanks for posting the steps. I'll look into doing this as well, but it sounds like a huge PITA and maybe I should just stick to normal wax.

earlyapex
09-19-2005, 02:41 PM
that sounds like the biggest PITA ever.

You have any photos after all that?

b0yw0nder
09-19-2005, 03:27 PM
it was dark when I finished....and my car has been parked in the outdoor parking lot all day so it is probably covered in bird poop and stuff from the trees.

it all depends on what you want. zaino is probably a lot tougher than any wax. and like the guy said, its optically perfect. I have never seen so much silver flake in my paint before.

I could take pics but it probably would not do it justice.

As for how much I would charge someone. Not sure.....I wouldn't be as anal as I was for my car, thats for sure. I would probably have the person buy the stuff and do it with me so taht they could learn, so they could do it themselves the next time.

turbotiger
09-19-2005, 03:59 PM
Here's some tips.

Clay bar tips you can save your z6 and just use soap and water for lubrication. Use your sponge and fill it with water and put it above the part you're using with the clay bar, and keep the area wet and soapy.

Wash your car after you clay bar to get rid of the stuff the clay bar loosened up.

I don't think you need the zfx after the 2nd coat. You're not supposed to do more than 3 coats with the ZFX anyway.

I applied my zaino (the old version using Z2 (not pro) and Z1) in January. The stuff lasted for about 7-8 months. I noticed it's mostly gone now in sept. (I used the finger rubbing test) but water still beads. Probably because the paint is still really clean. I do garage the car on a almost daily basis at night, which helps the longevity. I also did 2 coats (1 a day) with the old stuff since it takes longer for the zaino to dry.

One advantage is almost nothing sticks on the zaino. bugs wash off really easily.

b0yw0nder
09-19-2005, 04:17 PM
turbo....i think the old way was to use z6 for the clay bar.....Z-7 and water is what I used.

also....if you aren't using ZFX, you need to wait a long time between coats. The ZFX was created so that you could do multiple coats in one day.

b0yw0nder
09-19-2005, 04:41 PM
Some answers from "Sal Zaino"....

Clay bar questions:

...first off, with the clay bar I have a couple questions
> 1. i have a clear bra on my car, and at the interfaces of the clearbra and
> paint there are some residuals of the clay bar. are those going to dry up
> and fall off or am I going to have to figure out some way to get rid of the
> residuals.

Wash to remove the Clay residue

>
>
> 2. is it possible to oversaturate the clay bar with lubricant to the point
> where it is no longer effective?

Yes...

> i noticed that on the second pass with a
> clay bar and a well lubricated area, the clay bar was almost starting to
> decompose. squeezing the lubrication out and reforming it always got it back
> into working condition though. I just wondered if it was actually being
> effective in the decomposition state
>
> with respect to the polish
> 1. similar to #1 above for the clay bar, at the interface, will the polish
> dry up and flake off/come off with cleaning?

Use a Q-tip to remove excess polish

>
>
> 2. why only 3 coats in 24hr period?

Applying more than three coats of Zaino Show Car Polish enabled with ZFX™ in a
24 hour period will not give any better results..

>
>
> thanks.

Towel Questions:

so with cannon and fieldcrest basically not exising, what are you using for
> towels?

I realize that Cannon-Fieldcrest aka (Pillowtex) is no longer in business...
but there are plenty of there towels still available.
I buy all my Cannon & Fieldcrest towels in the Bath & Linen shops in the
bigger stores in the mall. I pay anywhere from $10 to $20 per towel.

You can also try Linens and Things or Bed, Bath and Beyond...

If you cannot find the Cannon or Filedcrest line.. , then use Wamsutta Brand or
any high quality substitute towel from the above stores is acceptable...

>
>

lqdchkn
09-19-2005, 04:47 PM
Been using this a while now an I believe it's the best product out there. Having said that, when my supply runs out I probably won't buy it again. I finally got this down to a 6 hour application and that's just too long for me. I'd rather use a lesser wax 3 or 4 times than do 2 coats of Zaino, it's just too hard to see during application. ( especially with WW ) The Zaino, does make the surface extreemly slick, which aids tremendously in washing the car.
My application ( I forget the #'s):

Initial Application:
Dawn
Dry
Clay
Wash
Dry
Spray
Wax
Spray
Wax
Spray
About 8hrs

Maintence Application:
Wash
Dry
Spray
Wax
Spray
Wax
Spray
About 6hrs

b0yw0nder
09-19-2005, 04:57 PM
interesting...a spray before application. by wax I'm guessing you mean polish cause I think that zaino guy got mad at me when I said it was a wax.

stingerbtry
07-21-2006, 11:23 AM
Bringing back an old one. I've been using Zaino for years and on several cars and wouldn't use anything else. The first application when you have to dawn and clay is really the only one that takes a really long time. After your initial coats it's a breeze. I put on an extra coat (z8-z2-z8) about every other weekend. I'm amazed that more folks on here don't use Zaino and that this is the only thread I found by searching.

b0yw0nder
07-21-2006, 11:27 AM
ooh, that reminds me, i'm due for a 1 year retarded cleaning

ZK
07-21-2006, 11:37 AM
Zaino is good, there's lots of other good stuff out there as well. It's pretty durable stuff and layerable. Not all users like the reflective sealant look of it and most of the stuff is similar to other sealant systems.

lncrevoviii
07-21-2006, 02:59 PM
Its ALIVE!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA