How to strip sealant?

[HD.Detailing]

Opc


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[Ncs0816]

Thanks everyone


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[Niblick]

With all due respect, I sort of disagree. If your only goal is to remove previous LSP - any light polish or paint cleaner will will work. Compounding (light or otherwise) should be reserved for removing noticeable defects polishing can not remove.

A car that is maintained properly should only need to be compounded once in its life - and that when you buy it. If you buy it with light defects - than that number of times should be zero.

If your paint is stupid soft and mars super easy - polish should be all that is required to correct it. Harder paint will require more aggressive polishes - but will also be more defect resistant. Preserving as much clear coat as possible will keep more of the UV inhibitors in the clear coat and will maintain its thickness for as long as possible.

i would consider a polish or paint cleaner that contains abrasive to be a compound tbh, so I think we're probably on the same page

[CDot]

That stuff won't strip it either.

Hmmm...never used WGDGPS but the review under the product page says it removed it. Maybe it just removed the beading??

[allenk4]

i would consider a polish or paint cleaner that contains abrasive to be a compound tbh, so I think we're probably on the same page

Maybe it is a UK, USA difference in vocabulary

I tend to go with this:

http://www.autopiaforums.com/Todd-He...lish-chart.jpg

[expdetailing]

Try CG Stripper scent. Turns-out, guys have been using it wrong. They've been spraying it in their cars instead of the paint to strip it! Ha, idiots!!!

[PiPUK]

Late to the party...

A half decent sealant should be pretty tough to remove. Dawn is the old school recommendation but I think that I have convinced a great many thoughtful detailers that it is nonsense - a trick played by clever surfactants which confuses people. APCs can do the same trick and I would suggest that Citrus Red is going to be doing the same thing. IPA should really do very little to a sealant of any quality - IPA will sort out light oils, the sort you find in polishes and similar and which will potentially leave you holograms (and hence where Eraser comes from!). Panel wipes will have more chance to remove a sealant but my view is that the sealant will likely need to be heavily degraded to make this work. If you really must remove the sealant, get a bit of mild polish onto your DA and give it a quick going over. Then, do your IPA wipe and you should be back to paint.

[Niblick]

Maybe it is a UK, USA difference in vocabulary

I tend to go with this:

http://www.autopiaforums.com/Todd-He...lish-chart.jpg

Yes, I'm sure that's the case. In the UK, polishing is the process, compound is the product (assuming it contains abrasives). In fact if you scroll down to the Scholls section on that chart, you'll see that scholls S30 in the light polish section says nano compound. indeed if you look at any bottle of scholls that contains abrasive it says compound on it. the other notable term is 'rubbing' (as in rubbing compound) which doesn't appear in the UK detailing vocab. I'm pretty sure the word detailing actually came over from the U.S. too, it was simply known as Valeting over here until relatively recently. Many UK business, including my own now have 'valeting and detailing' in the name, even though they mean the same thing over here. So there are one or two differences in terminology. I shall have to try to be more aware of that when posting
Out of interest, where do you guys draw the line between a polish and a compound?

[PiPUK]

Yes, I'm sure that's the case. In the UK, polishing is the process, compound is the product (assuming it contains abrasives).

Depends on where you get your terminology! DW has some very strong personalities who don't necessarily match up to the actual manufacturing/chemistry (we are a UK based manufacturer - forever being told how we are wrong because of something written on DW!). From a manufacturers perspective, we do differentiate between polish and compound. The distinction between the two is a bit vague but a compound will generally be something to use by machine and which is unlikely to give ideal results, in isolation. A polish is something much more suitable for manual use and which can very often be used as a one step process.

[Niblick]

yeah, when you start to break it down theres a fair bit of crossover in terminology really and i should probably have added the phrase 'generally speaking' to that sentence.
Differentiating between hand and machine use is probably as good a place as any. i often think of the difference as being between those designed for professional use or those suited to amateur use, which i suppose is a similar boundary. I also think the word 'polish' sounds more user friendly than 'compound', and so psychologically appeals to a wider audience from a sales point of view. Dodo Juice Need for speed for instance contains a 'polish', and they don't currently manufacture a straight compound per say. But then you look at products like their Lime prime (which is essentially a cleaner/glaze but contains quite a significant abrasive), and the new Lime Prime Plus, which contains an abrasive that can be aggressive enough to require finishing with a different compound or polish. Again, they're classed as suitable for hand use, but i would consider particularly the LPP to be more suited to machine use and should perhaps therefore technically be considered a compound. And then there's products like Scholls S40, which many would consider to be a very fine grade finishing 'polish' and yet Scholl's themselves use the word 'compound' on the bottle. it's certainly something of a grey area, which is why i think classing products that are primarily intending for use as abrasive as 'compounds', is quite a sensible differentiation. That said, the use of the word Compound is perhaps a slightly odd one for the purposes of labelling this type of product, itself meaning simply a combination of two or more elements. its therefore true to say that all polishes, indeed all products, are compounds and so it may be more suitable from a linguistic point of view to remove the word 'Compound' all together and consider all abrasive products to be 'polishes'.

Just to return briefly to the point that i was making originally, i would recommend that the OP use a product that will abrade the sealant if he wishes to ensure its complete removal. theres no guarantee that using chemicals to strip the sealant would be 100% successful, and there is certainly a risk to areas of trim on the vehicle in using products that would be aggressive enough to dissolve such a product.

gotta love those guys on DW, i don't go near the site personally but i guess as a manufacturer you probably have to. Are we allowed to know who you work for?