Is a Foam Gun that necessary ? Use w/ Opt NR ?

S

s2skimon

New member
I'm trying to get my head around deciding on the necessity or value of a foam gun ?



I rarely use any hoses , Optimum No Rinse seems to be my "go to" washing method a la pesticide sprayer.



How different is spraying the car down with soap vs. dipping your wash mitt into a bucket of soap and wiping on ?



Even when the soap goes on , one still has to rub it in with a wash mitt.



I guess what I need is to know what are the real benefits of a foam ?



Your thoughts ? :nixweiss:
 
I personally like the foam gun because I can get a lot more soap on the vehicle spraying the foam rather than just dipping my mit - allowing for a better barrier and so dirt can be swept away easily if allowed to dwell..I also use it to spray into my wheel wells to clean them really good without the use of a brush or mitt when they aren't very dirty. I think it is worth the money - However in your title it says "Use with ONRW?" I wouldnt use ONRW with the foamgun...because it doesnt create any suds so I dont think the foamgun would really do anything for it except for apply it...Hope you get some more responses to find the answer your looking for.
 
2 benefits to a foamgun:



1.) the foam soaks the dirt off during the pre-rinse much better than plain water. For example, it's amazing how many bugs come off using just the foam gun and a mitt... for most bugs you won't even need bug+tar remover unless they're baked on.



2.) The layer of foam that sits on the car when you're using a mitt lubricates the mitt sliding across the paint. If you just have a mit soaked in soapy water, you're not getting optimum lubrication. You can REALLY feel this when you spray a panel down with foam and then wipe it down with the mitt as compared to a soapy mitt and no foam on the car. Result: less marring.



Obviously a foamgun isn't for use with no-rinse....
 
I'm beggining to wonder if the more you rinse the car the more likely you are to damage the paint.

the Foam gun will produce tons of suds which will require allot of rinse water to clear.

And if you don't remove the nozzle to flood the paint more marring.



Now that I too have been using the No-Rinse with pesticide sparyer (2 gallon)

its less "invasive" function leads me to believe that if you really soak the car well with ONR and keep even a small one quart rinse bucket on hand, your are less likely to marr the paint than with any other method.



and use the least amount of water, and have the quickest clean up.
 
racingbeat said:
I'm beggining to wonder if the more you rinse the car the more likely you are to damage the paint.

the Foam gun will produce tons of suds which will require allot of rinse water to clear.

And if you don't remove the nozzle to flood the paint more marring.



Now that I too have been using the No-Rinse with pesticide sparyer (2 gallon)

its less "invasive" function leads me to believe that if you really soak the car well with ONR and keep even a small one quart rinse bucket on hand, your are less likely to marr the paint than with any other method.



and use the least amount of water, and have the quickest clean up.
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I've been doing flood/sheet rinses now, and I'd never go back to a nozzle rinse. I think along with the foam gun, a flood/sheet rinse is just part of the procedure. In fact, I'm tempted to say that flood rinsing should be standard procedure for anyone using a traditional wash style.



I don't think flood rinsing is going to hurt the paint at all.



Beyond that, I really think the idea of no-rinse is way too putzy for myself personally. I love the foamgun method and will never go back :bow
 
Marring comes from pressing abrasive material against the paint and then *moving* said material while it's still pressed against the paint.



Rinsing shouldn't mar paint. It's just water and a) the dirt oughta be off the panel by the time you rinse, b) unless you rinse with a pressure washer you won't be pressing the dirt against the paint hard anyway.



The *only* way I can wash a *very* dirty vehicle without marring it is with a BHB and the foamgun. Even the slight difference from using a mitt will increase the chances of marring. I can use the foamgun with mitts on cars that aren't too dirty, and there's always my "mitt-balloon" technique. But I consider the foamgun indispensable.



I basically don't have any wash-induced marring any more. If somebody can wash their way without marring the paint I'm glad for them, but I have to do it the way I do or else it won't stay perfect.
 
Is a BHB a boar's hair brush? And is your technique with such brush (if that's the case) to dab at the dirt, or use actual strokes?



And can you explain the "mitt-balloon"?
 
so you wash with the foam gun and then remove the nozzle to rinse off the foam?

I thought most foam gunners would just cut off the foam supply and spray the car down with

the nozzle sitll attached.

If that's the case then I think you are definitely marring the paint. I'm convinced that you don't get all of the debris/dirts/soil/sand off of the car BEFORE the rinsing occurs.

Adding any amount of pressure to the rinse phase is more likely to marr the paint than delicately wiping with NoRinse.

But I could be insane
 
nonono....



you foam down the car as your pre-rinse, and let that sit for a little bit.



then you spray the panel down that you want to wash, and spray the mitt/brush too.



then you use the mitt/brush to wash the panel like you normally would, some people like to spray foam as they are wiping with the mitt, I just make sure I have a lot of foam on the panel and forgo that.



after you finish washing the car, THEN you rinse.



personally I think no rinse would have much more propensity to introduce marring.



when we talk about "sheet" or "flood" rinsing we're talking about low pressure, high volume water being allowed to flow across the panels. I don't see how that could marr the paint in any way, shape, or form. If you don't believe me that's fine, but I don't really understand how you think low-pressure water rinse could introduce marring, even if there IS dirt still on the surface.
 
autobahn said:
nonono....



you foam down the car as your pre-rinse, and let that sit for a little bit.



then you spray the panel down that you want to wash, and spray the mitt/brush too.



then you use the mitt/brush to wash the panel like you normally would, some people like to spray foam as they are wiping with the mitt, I just make sure I have a lot of foam on the panel and forgo that.



after you finish washing the car, THEN you rinse.



personally I think no rinse would have much more propensity to introduce marring.



when we talk about "sheet" or "flood" rinsing we're talking about low pressure, high volume water being allowed to flow across the panels. I don't see how that could marr the paint in any way, shape, or form. If you don't believe me that's fine, but I don't really understand how you think low-pressure water rinse could introduce marring, even if there IS dirt still on the surface.
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yes if the ALL of the rinsing occurs via flooding there is little chance of marring.



I'm not sure if NR will be more likely to marr, well that's based on what some very knowledgeable full time pro detailers on Autopia report. They say they mostly use ONR/QEW etc. now.

If there were any chance of marring a customers expensive car with ONR why would they take the risk? :think:
 
I'm not saying that NR is likely to marr, I'm just saying that if NR doesn't marr than certainly a foam gun and a flood rinse won't.
 
svracer said:
Is a BHB a boar's hair brush? And is your technique with such brush (if that's the case) to dab at the dirt, or use actual strokes?



And can you explain the "mitt-balloon"?
Click to expand...



Yeah, Boar's Hair Brush. The ones I got from AutoGeek work well. I *do* just "dab" at the dirt, or as I'd put it, I just "jiggle" the brush a little. Strokes can result in marring that's long enough to notice if you pick up something really abrasive. The dabbing/jiggling might result in tiny, 1/4" marring, which isn't as noticeable. I spray suds at the point where the bristles meet the paint, moving the foamgun up/down along the length of the BHB to evenly distribute the suds. Time consuming and labor-intensive. After I get most of the dirt off with the BHB, I use a mitt, shooting suds at the point where the mitt contacts the paint.



Test any BHB on a CD (with the BHB wet with wash solution, not dry ;) ) before you use it on your car though. Some are softer than others.



Mitt-balloon: A variation on my Non-Marring Wash Technique (see the Hall of Fame forum). Put the nozzle of the foamgun inside a chenille/MF mitt (I prefer chenille for most applications). Use the output of the foamgun to inflate the mitt by filling it with suds and then *very gently* touch the inflated mitt to the panels. The suds seeping out of the mitt provide constant lubrication and flushing and the force of the foamgun's output works very well for me. You can't press hard and if the vehicle's very dirty you have to clean out the mitt a lot. I'm using this a lot less since getting the AutoGeek BHBs, but it's what I've used on the S8 for a long time. Bill D found it didn't work for him though, and perhaps my boosted water pressure is necessary for it to work well. This might be something that only works out OK for me :nixweiss
 
While I am nearly sold on the idea of a foam gun, I have a question. Most of the places I see the gun used and sold are high humidity areas. (Florida, California coast, etc)



I primarily work in areas with low, 10-15 percent humidity and wonder if the water/foam would dry out too quickly. Does anyone else in a desert type dry environment have anything to chime in with? Thanks for your input.
 
outside you MIGHT have problems with the foam drying out, HOWEVER if you re-apply foam as a "foam rinse" of sorts there really shouldn't be any problems at all as long as you keep applying the foam to the panel you're working on. I can't imagine it would just dry up so quickly as to not enable you to actually wipe the area you're working on. That said, the "two handed" foamgun wash technique might work better for you if you have the stamina to hold a heavy foamgun spraying the surface in one hand while mitt-wiping with the other hand.



what I'm saying is dried foam can be easily "re-wetted" with another helping of fresh foam.
 
I've used the foam gun, but I find rinsing out the mitt between panels to be more painful than if I just use bucket method ... any tips how to rinse mitt? can it be done well enough just shooting foam/water from the foam gun
 
webstrive said:
I've used the foam gun, but I find rinsing out the mitt between panels to be more painful than if I just use bucket method ... any tips how to rinse mitt? can it be done well enough just shooting foam/water from the foam gun
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I just use a bucket full of clean water... dip it in there. agitate to loosen the dirt. Then when you are about to work on a new panel, hose the rinsed mitt down with a liberal coating of suds, enough to soak into the mitt.



The point of the foam gun isn't to make washing EASIER really, it's more to make it SAFER and MORE EFFECTIVE.
 
Webstrive- If rinsing the mitt is too big a pain, you might oughta try the BHB/foamgun approach. IMO the best thing about the BHB (and why it works so well with the foamgun) is its free-rinsing nature. Just get a good one that's soft enough. You can *almost* get by without even rinsing it out, not that I'd recommend that; my rinse bucket is never very dirty even after washing a nasty-dirty vehicle.



When I'm using mitts, I use at least two and switch off between them, pitching the currently-dirty one in the rinse bucket to soak while I'm using the other one.
 
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