I used Wax & Grease remover improperly...

S

ssanto

It turns out that I've been using wax & grease remover wrong.

Here's what I've done:

- Some metal was sand blasted, some metal was new panels with EDP coating (EDP coating was scuffed)
- I'd take a blue towel, and douse it with W&G remover. It would be quite damp.
- I'd wipe the rag over the metal in a single sweep kind of like you you'd use a tack rag, but with more pressure
- I wasn't "scrubbing" the metal with the blue towel, just a wipe down
- The towel would be dirty after the application so I'd fold it over to a fresh side or get a new one
- After the wiping, the metal would still be a bit wet from the W&G remover
- Douse the rag with W&G remover and give it another wipe
- Repeat until the rag comes out clean
- Wait for the metal to dry (15-20 minutes in the summer)
- Go over it with a tack rag a couple times
- Shoot SPI Epoxy primer

... so this was just to get the metal protected while I built the rest of the car. My next phase is to hit the epoxy with 180 and then shoot another fresh coat of epoxy. Then onto bodywork and final paint.

Is it terrible that I let the final wipe-down of W&G remover dry on the car? I now know that you are supposed to wipe it off and never let it dry on the car. But on that last application (I did about 3 rounds), the towel came out clean.

Thoughts?


Thanks,
Sal
 
Because you did it 3 times the wrong way, you should be fine.
If you had done it that way just one time, I would be very concerned.
Failure calls where the epoxy lets loose in spots this is normally the reason or using a final finish type W&G on bare metal.
I would not lose any sleep over it.
 
w&g remover floats contaminates to the surface and you wipe them off when drying . this is why using lacquer thinner is just dumb. you melt the contaminates into the surface and it drys too fast to get anything off.
as long as it is clean you should be good to go . i use a squirt bottle like cleaning glass .
 
I apply W&G remover (solvent based) with the USC-70305 sprayer. It's the only one that has held up to using this type of liquid without failing after a few weeks.
 
Using it in a spray bottle is by far one of the best tips I have picked up on here. It just makes it so much easier to wet the panel properly to wipe the contamints off.

Something so simple that I would have never thought of.
 
I'll be in a similar situation in the near future. Please clarify, what is the correct procedure?

Two ways to do it. One is use the spray bottle method like Shine and others have said. Spray it on, wet the surface completely, wipe it off with a clean lint free wipe. This works for waterbased well and solvent also. Or you can do it like this, this works best with solvent W&G remover. Have two sets of wipes, saturate one with W&G and have a dry second set of wipes. Wipe an area with W&G remover then go back over with your dry wipe and wipe the area. Keep working sections until you have it all wiped down. Water based I use a spray bottle, solvent I use the second method.
When you are doing you're final wipe before paint it's best to have as clean a surface as possible before you even wipe it down. Meaning you should have gone over it with scuff stuff or some Dawn and washed the whole thing down. Ideally you should not be able to see any dirt or discoloration on either your solvent wipes or your dry wipes after you have wiped the surface. If you do it's a good idea to repeat the process a second time.
 
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Two ways to do it. One is use the spray bottle method like Shine and others have said. Spray it on, wet the surface completely, wipe it off with a clean lint free wipe. This works for waterbased well and solvent also. Or you can do it like this, this works best with solvent W&G remover. Have two sets of wipes, saturate one with W&G and have a dry second set of wipes. Wipe an area with W&G remover then go back over with your dry wipe and wipe the area. Keep working sections until you have it all wiped down. Water based I use a spray bottle, solvent I use the second method.
When you are doing you're final wipe before paint it's best to have as clean a surface as possible before you even wipe it down. Meaning you should have gone over it with scuff stuff or some Dawn and washed the whole thing down. Ideally you should not be able to see any dirt or discoloration on either your solvent wipes or your dry wipes after you have wiped the surface. If you do it's a good idea to repeat the process a second time.

Can the water base be sprayed out of a typical household sprayer? I got the USC-70305 for my solvent base, but pre epoxy I would like to use both. Thanks
 
I have been using these sprayers for both types of W&G remover for about a year. They still work perfectly. $4 each if you have amazon prime.

Zep HDPRO36 Professional Sprayer Bottle 32 ounces
Link:
http://a.co/d/beyfQ2Q
 
you definitely want to spray on and wipe off. soaking a rag in it and wiping it around doesn't really do much except move any contaminants all over the surface. the idea here is you spray the cleaner on, it dissolves the contaminants and when you wipe dry the contaminants are soaked up into the rag removing them from the surface.
 
Do you have any reason to believe that the surface was contaminated to begin with? Were the parts clean before blasting? Was the blast media recycled from blasting grease barrels or something?
 
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