Flash's Brown Royal: Initial Thoughts

G

Glozz

New member
After searching the word "clay" I found that there were far to many threads about clay bars. I am in the market to get a very good, high quality clay bar for detail work.



I'm not interested in Mother's or Meguiar's brand (these seem to be used a lot on this board). My interests have been piqued by Pinnacle's and a brand called "Clay Magic". I see that Clay Magic has a red and blue clay depending on how badly the surface is contaminated. Its not important to me if I have to wait to order rather then go to the local auto parts store to get it. Thus my choices so far.



Has anyone used either of these products and could you share your experiance in regards to them?



Thanks much.
 
Hiya Jazzy, I live in Washington state too, and although this is straying alittle from your intended audience, I've used Griots Claybar, they are located in Fife, near tacoma, right across from BMW Northwest. Excellent car finish products, and the Clay runs about $19. Incidently, the owner also uses Griots on his BMW, as well as all his antique cars that's he's won many concours with.



Cheers from Sumner.
 
I have used the blue Clay Magic before. It works good. I did not have any smearing or breaking down of the clay, and it glided over the surface nicely. Zaino clay is also good.
 
I have used the Mothers, Griots and Zaino. Both the Griots and the Zaino worked very well, but the Mothers wasn't nearly as good.
 
They all work great. I would not use the RED clay magic bar, for it is harsh. If your paint is that bad, use a paint cleanser first. If you are going to use quick detailer, mothers works great, if you are going to use car wash or dawn as lube, go with clay magic or Zaino. What ever you do, stay away from meguires clay, it makes a mess....
 
I used both, when I used Mcguiars it gummed up and stained my car, called their help line and they were no help.

Just tried Mothers and was very very happy with the results.

Bob

Stockton Ca
 
I have only used Pinnacle Poly Clay, so I have no basis for comparison, but it works well for me, with no residue at all. I use carwash soap solution as the lube. The product was less "pliable" than I expected, but that is not a problem.
 
I think you'll find alot of similarities between the MOTHERS®, Zaino and Pinnacle clay bars.



I'd be real surprised if a person found a difference in the 3 after using them.



The Clay Magic red bar is very aggresive, and will require you go back over he paint with a ight polish and a machine to remove the micromarring it leaves in the paint. The blue is much milder, like the rest of the bars out there.



The CM bars do not respond real well to the use of a cold water/car wash solution - they may fall apart. It's not a problem of the bar, though, since they're made to be used with a proper lubricant like a detailer spray.
 
I was also very happy with the mothers bar. The problem was with storage. I put it in a plastic baggie and it completely melded with the clay bar. I couldn't save the bar and it was destroyed.



Where do I find just the bar? I previously bought the whole clay bar system and now I only need the bar.
 
mr. dove .. i bought the mother kit and used it and store the bar in a plastic bag as per instructions and same thing happened to me. i took back the kit with the receipt to pepboys and got a whole new kit, 44 days later !



i now store mine in a tupperware container ....



mother rules for local claybar ... works great!



neil
 
Weird - I've not had the stick-to-the-bag problem. I did spray a little detail spray into the bag. I've used the Mothers and Meguiar's FI detail sprays as lubricants. Could you guys be using different ones? Or maybe we just use different kinds of bags? Mine is a cheap Glad sandwhich bag - not the firmer ziplock kind of plastic....
 
Just a quick thread on my initial thoughts of Brown Royal cleaner. Quick and dirty...

My father-in-law got some new-to-him wheels for a Jeep he has. There was some foreign substance on the wheels, and he wanted me to look at them for him. He had bought some Eagle One Aluminum Wheel Cleaner to try and remove it, however when we tried it it wasn't budging. Coincidentally, I had received the package from Flash Detailing Products earlier in the day, so I put the sprayer in the 32 ounce bottle and used it straight out of the container. Other than some really caked on areas, it laughed at what the EO cleaner couldn't remove. There were a couple spots I used some clay on, but I believe had I let the Brown Royal sit and dwell for a while, it might have broken it up a little more. We were very rushed, and this was spur of the moment, but it gave me time to draft some initial thoughts.

Likes: Product is thick, and it allows it to sit on the wheel. Can use it for both tires and wheels (did a good job on both). The color is unique - you can see where you applied it and where it's dwelling. Not very strong of a smell. Busted caked on brake dust and grime very easily. Very affordable. Fast shipping. Friendly customer service. Good sprayer on the bottle.

Dislikes: None so far.

I know, very quick and abbreviated. No pics. Maybe next time I can try it at different dilutions and take some photos and draft some more in depth thoughts.
 
Thanks for the review! I saw the youtube videos, but that just... youtube videos.

To see first hand how it works is great. They say Straight on bad wheels works, as well as diluted down to 8:1. Might go a long way if used heavily on the primary cleaning and lightly on the following.

Did you aggitate the areas? Or just hose it off?
 
Leadfootluke said:
Thanks for the review! I saw the youtube videos, but that just... youtube videos.

To see first hand how it works is great. They say Straight on bad wheels works, as well as diluted down to 8:1. Might go a long way if used heavily on the primary cleaning and lightly on the following.

Did you aggitate the areas? Or just hose it off?
Click to expand...

It did take some agitation. Given the right time, I could have got the wheels 100% clean just using the BR and a brush.

I don't know how I feel about the videos. As far as spraying on and hosing off, I'm just not sure. I was sold on Poorboy's S&R for that very reason, only to not have it work well for me, even when I used a brush. Don't know what I was doing wrong, but my afters using S&R were never like some of the photos I've seen posted on the web. That's one reason I was leery about getting the BR. If I need a wheel cleaner I have to agitate a lot, I'll just get something at Wal-Mart.

I think using the BR on routinely cleaned wheels will be a big test. I'll most likely use my Tundra as a test bed of sorts, and try different dilutions on each wheel to see what works and what doesn't. I'd think using the BR straight strength, that it would really be a spray on / hose off product on routinely cleaned wheels. I have pretty high hopes. :D
 
Thanks again for the review!

Something I am looking for right now is a strong wheel cleaner. I have Meg's Wheel Brightener in mind.

It looks like Brown Royal is an Alkaline... and Meguiars Wheel Brightener is an acid? Just wondering if they perform similarly, but are different due to their pH levels. Or if both should be used in conjuction with each other to 1) clean what the other cannot clean and 2) neutralize the surface.

Just thinking out loud as I really would like to try BR as well!
 
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