Here's my best effort at getting a SIDE shot of the nap of the PFM towels, here you can make out the
loops of fiber.
The Stoutness Factor
The feel of the towels to my hand are soft but the loops offer a level of stoutness you simply don't find in microfiber towels. The word stout means
thick and strong and that's the feature I like about the nap of these Griot's PFM towels. Sometimes you want a towel that's soft as silk but other times you want a towel that is stout.
When it comes to wiping off compounds I like a stout towel. In the past the only stout towels available were normal, household hand towels made out of cotton terrycloth. The stoutness these types of towels offer help you to wipe off compound residue faster and easier than if you were to use your finest and softest towel reserved for the final wipe after removing the majority of a coat of wax just applied to a car's finish. The issue with cotton terrycloth is it's not as gentle to delicate, scratch-sensitive surfaces like modern clearcoat paints. That's where this new Griot's PFM Towel really shines. It's stout enough to make wiping compounds and polishes off fast and easy without leaving toweling marks like old cotton towels.
As soon as I felt the stoutness of this new microfiber towel I instantly knew it was the towel I've been searching for all these years for use when restoring antique single stage paint using the #7 Rub Down Technique. More to come on this perfect match-up in the future.
The Wax Factor
So while I like this towel for the stoutness factor Griot's claims its intended use if for removing waxes, sealants, spray waxes and spray detailers. Towels for these steps need to be very soft so as not to induce any toweling scratches as these step are normally performed to perfect paint. While the towels have a heavier weight to them than most super plush microfiber towels you would normally associate with wiping off waxes these towels are microfiber and the characteristic about microfiber (as compared to what we used to use in the old day, terrycloth, teeshirts and diapers), is that it's strong but gentle to scratch-sensitive surfaces.
The Wipe-off Factor
Another benefit touted by Griot's for this new towel is the one-pass wipe-off ability it offers. That is, supposedly you can make one pass with one side and this one pass will have removed the majority of the wax so that you can simply flip the towel to the other side to make the final wipe leaving a residue free surface. I pretty much already trusted and believed this to be true about this towel without even using it BECAUSE that's the characteristic of a true nap. The word nap means tiny loop of material. Again in the old days it meant cotton terrycloth. Just look closely at a bath towel or a beach towel sometime and you'll see the surface is made up of tiny loops of cotton. These new Griot's towels offers a true nap, that is tiny loops of microfiber with both stoutness and softness at the same time.
What can tiny loops of microfiber do for you?
I know some of you are reading this and wondering,
What's the big deal about the nap or the tiny [closed] loops of microfiber?
Well here's the big deal..
The loops (unlike open ended fiber strands), with their stoutness, when
pushed against a layer of wax or any film residue, will
SLICE into the film breaking it up and making it easier (and safer) to wipe-off.
That's what the big deal is and the cool feature to these Griot's PFM towels. Of course, all of the above is just talk what's really important is the real deal and that means waxing a car and then removing the wax.
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