The Zen of applying Zaino
All the instructions for applying Zaino polish stress that you should apply it as sparingly as possible. Sounds simple enough. You mix up some Zaino Polish and ZFX in the mixing bottle, probably 1/2 a mixing bottle and 4 drops of ZFX to start. That's about 1 ounce of polish and for most beginners it looks like hardly enough to do the hood of their car let alone the 2 to 4 coats experienced users claim it's good for. So how do I manage to get that many coats out of such a small amount of polish?
First you should understand the current requirements.
Z-2 Pro should be put on thin
Z-3 MUST be put on as thin as possible
Z-5 somewhere in the middle but thin is way better
The technique I use to put on the thinnest possible coats is:
Dampen the applicator as necessary, start with a squirt or two of Z-6 or distilled water and after that, keep a spray bottle of distilled water handy to use as necessary.
Start by applying 3 parallel evenly spaced 1/8" wide lines of polish across the long dimension of the applicator pad. Spread the polish as far as you can. When it's thin enough you should essentially not be able to see the polish. Do not apply more polish to the pad until absolutely necessary, if you can spread it more, keep working. After the first application of 3 lines of polish you should probably drop back to 1 or 2 lines of polish for each additional application. If you notice the pad getting dry and the polish getting hard to spread, a fine mist of distilled water should get the polish spreading again.
That last paragraph should have been rather obvious. Add polish to the pad, spread, add more polish, spread repeat until done adding distilled water as necessary. For those of you with dark colored cars figuring out when the pad isn't applying polish any more is not to bad, you can mostly see where the polish is on the car, you have it easy. If like me you have a light colored car, you might not be able to see the polish on the car when it's applied as thinly as I recommend. For the first year or two, I would move my head every which way trying to get enough of a reflection off something that would let me see the very subtly distortion in the reflection caused by the polish. Eventually I realized that I knew how to apply it and I didn't have to make sure it was there. Part of that was remembering where I'd been and part was learning that the pad against the car feels different as it runs out of polish to spread so I could pay attention to how it feels applying the polish and know when to apply more polish.
Ira
First you should understand the current requirements.
Z-2 Pro should be put on thin
Z-3 MUST be put on as thin as possible
Z-5 somewhere in the middle but thin is way better
The technique I use to put on the thinnest possible coats is:
Dampen the applicator as necessary, start with a squirt or two of Z-6 or distilled water and after that, keep a spray bottle of distilled water handy to use as necessary.
Start by applying 3 parallel evenly spaced 1/8" wide lines of polish across the long dimension of the applicator pad. Spread the polish as far as you can. When it's thin enough you should essentially not be able to see the polish. Do not apply more polish to the pad until absolutely necessary, if you can spread it more, keep working. After the first application of 3 lines of polish you should probably drop back to 1 or 2 lines of polish for each additional application. If you notice the pad getting dry and the polish getting hard to spread, a fine mist of distilled water should get the polish spreading again.
That last paragraph should have been rather obvious. Add polish to the pad, spread, add more polish, spread repeat until done adding distilled water as necessary. For those of you with dark colored cars figuring out when the pad isn't applying polish any more is not to bad, you can mostly see where the polish is on the car, you have it easy. If like me you have a light colored car, you might not be able to see the polish on the car when it's applied as thinly as I recommend. For the first year or two, I would move my head every which way trying to get enough of a reflection off something that would let me see the very subtly distortion in the reflection caused by the polish. Eventually I realized that I knew how to apply it and I didn't have to make sure it was there. Part of that was remembering where I'd been and part was learning that the pad against the car feels different as it runs out of polish to spread so I could pay attention to how it feels applying the polish and know when to apply more polish.
Ira
posted by Ira at 9:42 AM
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