1969 Corvette Stingray - Cobra Clay Mitt Review

[Mike Phillips]

1969 Corvette Stingray - Cobra Clay Mitt Review


A while back I had this old 2-door Chevy to detail. Nick gave me the new Cobra Clay Mitt to test out. As a professional best practice I don't wash muscle cars, classics or antiques using the traditional wash method of using a bucket and water hose.

The reason why is I don't introduce water to places where rust can be an issue. Instead I use a waterless wash for most of my detail work.

Couldn't use the Cobra Wash Mitt the way most people would use it but that's not a problem I'll just use it with some clay lube.


1969 Corvette
This Corvette has a long history as a race car but the current owner tamed it down and now just cruises it to car shows.





Problem was... the dreaded holograms...











Bonded Contaminants
Besides horrible holograms after doing the Baggie Test I found the paint was also contaminated. Due to the amount of contaminants my guess is there was clear overspray paint plus who know what else. I used some detailing clay to gauge how bad the contamination was.

The contamination you see below was collected off the paint after claying only one half of the deck lid.





The Cobra Clay Mitt
Here's the Cobra Clay Mitt. One size has a polymerized rubber face. This is the side you use to decontaminate paint.





The other side is soft plush microfiber with a short nap.





Cobra Clay Mitt Review
The Cobra Clay Mitt worked superb for removing all the contaminants off the paint, glass and chrome trim on this 1969 Corvette. I didn't place my hand inside the mitt but instead simply gripped the wash mitt from the microfiber side and then rubbed it over the surface using a generous amount of clay lube.

It was fast and effective. It was as easy to use and unlike clay if you drop it on the ground you can rinse it off and continue using it.

I'll definitely use it again.



Results
No pictures of the process for doing all the correction, polishing and sealing from this project as I started at 6:30pm and had to hustle to get her done before midnight.









On Autogeek.com

Cobra Clay Mitt

[Joe@NextLevelDetail]

Amazing results for 5 and a half hours mike.

Great job, was it single stage or base coat clear coat ?

Did you have help or you did it all by your self, what percentage correction wise would you rate it.

And what machines did you use.

Amazing job 👍

[Hoytman]

Wow that looks great!

I don't think I could make it look like that in that amount of time, Mike. Not with moving a DA polisher around 1" a second...even if I used my rotary for the compounding step. I might be able to do the two steps with my rotary and a final with a DA, but that's probably 1 more step than you did. I'm not concerned with getting that fast...but ding dang as you say...I would like to speed up things a little bit. Compounding with my DA takes generations it seems. I'm not afraid to use the rotary for that first compounding step and maybe I should.

[Klasse Act]

Mike, you did an outstanding job on the Corvette

You stated it was a race car and the owner tamed it down a bit, was it a Baja racer?

[whavens]

Looks great Mike, doesn't even look like the same car.

Sent from my KFSOWI using Tapatalk

[BrianMcLeod]

Looks good! Does your same principle about washing classics with a waterless wash apply to restored classic/muscle cars?

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Beautiful work Mike! That classic black Corvette looks incredible!

Question, where would this Mitt fall in terms of clay classification? Fine grade, medium grade, aggressive grade?

[Craig Parker]

Excellent work Mike! The car looks awesome, how would you compare the Cobra Clay Mitt to the Nanoskin Autoscrub?

[Mike Phillips]

Amazing results for 5 and a half hours mike.

Great job, was it single stage or base coat clear coat ?

Basecoat/clearcoat.

This Corvette actually has a different paint on it from different stages of it's life but all of it is basecoat/clearcoat.

I met the owner at our local Tuesday night car show. He watched me demonstrate how to use detailing clay and asked me to look at his Corvette. He told me the paint felt rough and that he had tried clay but to no avail.

I felt the paint and then showed him the baggie test but the baggie test wasn't needed as the paint felt like #40 grit sandpaper. The problem was years of contamination and overspray paint from multiple paint jobs.

Somewhere I have an article that explains the MOST common place to get overspray paint on a car is at a body shop. They are always spraying paint and not always inside the paint booth so it's pretty easy to get air-borne overspray paint on your car while it's at a body shop. In fact real common.

Did you have help or you did it all by your self, what percentage correction wise would you rate it.

Knocked it out by myself. I'd say about 95 percent correction.

And what machines did you use.

Flex 3401

I used all the same techniques I teach in my 3-day Competition Ready Training Academy classes. Next class in in January.

Compound = BLACKFIRE SRC Compound with LC 6.5" Orange Hybrid Cutting Pad
Polish = BLACKFIRE SRC Finishing Polish with LC 6.5" White Hybrid Polishing Pad
Wax = BLACKFIRE All Paint Protection machine applied using LC 6.5" Red Hybrid Waxing Pad

Amazing job

Thank you. Appreciate the compliment and this was a fun project.

The night before I knocked out this old car, did it in 5.5 hours too... I don't take breaks when I detail except for a drink of water.


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[damaged442]

That Vette turned out amazing! Would love to know what's going on under that hood! LOL