Setec Astronomy

I just was looking at the Optimum store at Amazon and saw the Opti-Seal suggested for interiors--Ron, would that just be for vinyl/plastic/wood/chrome, but not on the leather seats? I'd imagine you'd slide right out onto the floor if you used it on the seats. Although there is another WOWA interior product that says you can use it on leather, also, which I think I have done. I don't think I even would have bought that if I realized you can use Opti-Seal on interiors.

Usually when it warms up people come to the forum to ask questions about detailing their cars.

Welcome to the forum! Nice to see some activity here, it's been very quiet.

Do we know what kind of "dirt" that was?

Yeah, that was kind of freaky. To be fair, I'd have to ask what kind of "dirt" that was, and also point out that even though it said it was 1 ounce of ONR, it looked more like an ONR cap, which is 1/2 oz, which is normally what is used in a gallon of wash mixture, being put into what looked like a 500ml beaker, so about 16 oz, or about 8 times the amount of ONR that would normally be used.

Why did you have 3 different types of wash media? Do you prefer a specific type for specific areas of the vehicle? Or was that just to demonstrate different types for the purposes of the video?

Are you talking crickets here, specifically, or "the forums" in general? Forums aren't what they used to be, anywhere. This forum was always pretty slow besides some spurts of activity.

I kind of forgot that Opti-Clean was recommended as a pre-spray. I'm sure I've done that in the past but it's been so long I don't really remember how it worked. I've been lucky the last few years to not have huge salt messes on the cars or I've been able to wait until hose weather and do a conventional wash.

Old smell but new ingredients? I thought the offensive smell was due to a new chemical additive to assist in removing water spots?

Since pre-spraying seems to have become an almost universal part of rinseless washing, maybe that's a product niche that Dr. G wants to look at--some sort of ONR-compatible pre-spray. I can tell you there is intense interest in "snow foams" on other forums, products that you spray on before washing to loosen/remove dirt. In some cases people use these before washing, in some cases instead of a wash (think winter when you just want to get the bulk of the contaminants off). Apparently the only products that actually work seem to come out of Europe, not sure if there is some environmental restriction here that drives that. One of the products mentioned a lot is Bilt Hamber Touchless. But these are not "no-rinse" products, they need to be rinsed off. I personally have never found pre-spraying for rinseless to be of much value, but most of the time I was trying it on crusted-on salt/brine residue that just laughed at the prespray--if I feel the need to do it now I use a Harbor Freight airless paint sprayer which works kind of like a mini pressure washer to blast off stuff. Although I think when I did a pump-up sprayer pre-spray I may have been using the normal ONR dilution, a lot of people use a more concentrated dilution for pre-spray. Maybe that's what Dr. G will recommend.

AutoLabTN--You need calcium to neutralize HF. Calcium gluconate is the recommended first aid treatment if you get HF on your skin, you should be able to put that in your gallon. Fortunately it's available as a body-building supplement so you can get it on Amazon, etc. There is another calcium compound that's cheaper for just doing neutralization (vs. skin exposure), but I don't remember what it is. If I'm remembering right the calcium gluconate will form a salt with the HF, then you can pour the water off and let the salt dry and throw that out. But I don't know what else is in Wheel Brightener which might complicate the disposal. Meg's is pretty good with SDS's, you can look at that, it should also have some disposal info, which of course in today's world will say "dispose of in accordance with local regulations". They would hopefully tell you on the phone how you should dispose of it. To be fair about this I'm sure the HF content in wheel cleaners is pretty low vs. industrial uses of HF.

I completely agree with Dr. G that HF wheel cleaners should not be sold to consumers, and I would argue that they shouldn't be used outside of a controlled industrial environment, meaning I don't think even a professional detailer should be using an HF based wheel cleaner if he's going to use it say, at a customer site. I guess it could be argued that if you use it in your detail shop, and you're hosing it all down the drain carefully after using, it could be used safely, but I would only want to use it, say in a sink where any effluent could be controlled. (And at this stage of my life, I don't want to use it at all) All that being said, there are other acid wheel cleaners that are non-HF, that work well. Arguably the availability of iron-eating wheel cleaners like FerreX may mitigate the need for an acid wheel cleaner. PS The whole subject of acid wheel cleaners is muddied by the use of ABF. I remember a detailer on another forum going ballistic when he found out his non-acid boutique wheel cleaner that worked so well was really an HF cleaner, but the boutique supplier thought/called it non-acid because ABF is a salt, not an acid...until you mix it with water to make a wheel cleaner and it becomes HF. PPS These arguments sometimes sound silly when people are exposed to dangerous chemical in the supermarket, things like bleach and drain cleaner and insecticides. And of course you can go on Amazon and buy concentrated H202 and vinegar (acetic acid). Not to mention the HF wheel cleaners on the shelf at Target and Walmart. Not to be long-winded but many years ago I was in the auto aisle in Target and it was at the end of a row, and they had a long carpet runner in front of it because I guess people would drop bottles of oil etc. and the floor would get slippery. So I'm looking at a bottle of wheel cleaner, and it's got HF or ABF in it, so I put it back. And I'm thinking I wonder if anyone ever dropped a bottle of this stuff on this carpet mat I'm standing on, that people's kids have probably crawled around on...

The blurb for that applicator says the neoprene side is for OCW or Tire Shine, and the soft foam side is for Opti-Seal (the application of which is similar to Gloss-Coat). Glad you got the application worked out.

It really has taken a long time even at the other detailing forums for people to embrace rinseless, even though by nature most of the people who come to forums are fairly open to new ideas (except for the odd Kozak user).

Holy cow, I was just looking on another forum, that was 10 years ago when TW was selling that wash, pretty funny some of the comments regarding ONR. What did Dr. G do, Ron, fill up a tank truck with ONR and send it off to TW?