This stuff really works - WOW!!

ozover50 · Post by **ozover50** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 1:20 pm

I was as nervous as you are now, Kevin. These products are so good that it's virtually impossible to mess it up. Even with the Scratch-X you'd have to rub for ages in the one spot to do any visible damage.

Ron was extremely helpful and there is definitely a wrong way - don't attack any more than 1/4 of the body at one time - both with the Scratch-X and the Zymol. And use a backward and forward motion in the same direction - don't use a circular motion - you can when buffing the Zymol, however. You may need to use the Scratch-X two or even three times to remove some of the deeper scratched.

These are all instructions given by Paul many months ago, BTW, so there is nothing new here.

We removed the strings, tailpiece, bridge and bridge plate. We lifted the guards and with plenty of excess pup cable available were able to place it on the other side of the guitar on a soft cloth when doing that side. We removed the pups, wrapped them in cloth and moved them to one side also - again thanks to the excess cable.

I also cleaned the fretboard with Dr. Stringfellow and it was surprising how much gunk came off - considering it looked very clean in the first place.

Don't forget to do the neck as well. This was one of the side benefits of the job. It's now silky smooth with none of the 'stickiness' that was there before. I love it!!

Now for the intonation.......

winston · Post by **winston** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 3:32 pm

Perfect intonation is the heart and soul of a making great guitar sound incredible.

I spend a lot of my time getting it just right on each of my guitars. The side benefit is that they rarely go out of tune.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 3:59 pm

I discovered Scratch-X, or I should say, one of its lesser-known predecessors, back around 1997 when I used to build show cars for the manufacturers. I was working on a car for Mazda and at the time owned a Roller that I had painted a very dark non-metallic blue, almost black. It had two Frisbee scuffs on the bonnet that drive me nuts. I had a small collection of nice cars at the time (now it's Rickenbackers) and had, over a fifteen year period, acquired five file-sized boxes of wax products that I had tried out on them, looking for the way to get them just right. To me, "just right" meant looking like the paint was still wet--no swirls, no texture at all--smooth and wet-looking.

My friend Gary, who was Mazda's painter at the time and knew all the tricks, gave me a small, unmarked plastic bottle of some stuff and told me to rub hard. I tried it on the Roller's bonnet and within five minutes, both scuffs were gone completely.

Flash forward to January, 2005. I was wax-shopping again for the RickenSAAB, and saw a tube of Scratch-X. A light bulb went on and I surreptitiously opened it up for a sniff. Yep. It was the stuff I had used on the RR. My newly-purchased brand new MB 660/12 had arrived from the shop with some minor buckle rash. (Some old-timers might remember my very first post being on this topic!) I had planned to color-wet-sand the paint, but decided to try the Scratch-X first. It did the trick.

Prior to discovering Zymol back in about '95, I was a big fan of Klassé products. Before that, it was The Treatment, which went back to 1968 with me! (now defunct).

Today I paid to have my car detailed. Life stages, I guess.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 4:10 pm

A clarification.

The company that made The Treatment, Thompson's Products of Chicago, sold their waxes and rubbing compounds from a shopping cart to exhibitors, at every Rod and Custom show in the East and Midwest. The Treatment Guy would come around wearing his bright yellow t-shirt with red lettering, the day before the shows opened. It was the BEST darned wax I ever used up until that time.

In the mid-1980s, Joe Hrudka (Mr. Gasket to you hot-rodders) discovered The Treatment, bought the company and promptly began to run it into the ground. By the early '90s, it was defunct.

So, it is The Treatment that's defunct. Not me.

Not yet.

jwilli · Post by **jwilli** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 4:17 pm

Paul is now "The Treatment", lol. But he won't run himself into the ground.

harvey49 · Post by **harvey49** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:04 pm

Thanks for the insight in how you came across these products Paul. This stuff is always of interest to me!

rhampshire · Post by **rhampshire** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 6:48 am

I've never tried Zymol, but I've been using Zaino show car polish on my vehicles for years:

http://www.zainostore.com/

It's a polymer and contains NO wax, it actually bonds to the finish... I polished my '72JG some time ago and it came out awesome, although I don't have any pics.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 8:31 am

Rob, repeat after me:

"Zymol...Zymol...Zymol...etc."

Polymer finishes are what finishers call "Zombie-shiners". They will give you gloss, but most of the molecular mumbo-jumbo you read about them is sales claptrap.

They were developed for people who want their vehicles to sorta shine but not have to work to accomplish it.

Sorta work=sorta shine.

I built and painted show cars for years. These cars cost the manufacturers $2-4 million EACH. The wax materials used to get them shiny and keep them shiny is a laborious multi-step process, the final step of which is Zymol, at least for me. (Every painter has his preferences, and a lot of them know little beyond the actual painting).

My ideal is a finish that looks as if it never dried--as glossy as a sheet of glass. Not "like glass"--glass.

I have yet to find a polymer coating that does this, and I've tried lots.

rhampshire · Post by **rhampshire** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 8:55 am

Paul, teach me more!

Maybe I'm falling into the "sales BS" trap, but they claim it's 99.999% optically transparent. Applying it is a five-step process, and it's looks so wet when you're done that it's not even funny.

Two questions:
Have you ever tried Zaino?
Does Zymol contain carnuba or any other type of wax?

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 9:46 am

Zymol is water-soluble and 100% organic ingredients.

It contains high-grade natural oils and lots of carnauba. The formula is proprietary, but its effect on JG is magical. Instant depth. It contains no abrasives, so rubbing out the finish to remove scratches and levelling the surface is accomplished with other materials.

This "optically transparent" nonsense, is typical sales bafflegab in the car wax business.

Water is 98.7723785% optically transparent. Would i use it as wax? Could I tell the difference to the umpteenth decimal place?

(grumble)

Never tried Zaino. Are you on commission?

Seriously, I have tried at least a dozen so-called polymer coatings (these are not waxes, incidentally--they are coatings).

Polymers don't even show up on my radar...

rhampshire · Post by **rhampshire** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:28 am

"Never tried Zaino. Are you on commission? "

haha! Nope, I just *really* like the stuff... it goes on easy and thin and comes off even easier. Super slick and shiny as heck - and it smells great! I've got about 30 coats of it on my ram-air pontiac formula.

I'll give some Zymol a try one of these days, though...

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:45 am

It's a Pontiac coating, Rob.

For Ricks, you gotta try a real snob wax.

britye · Post by **britye** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 1:20 pm

Paul Do you recommend using Zymol on all finishes or just jetglo or darker finishes in general? Dittos on the diapers

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 5:29 pm

All finishes! Guitars of all colors! Cars! Airplanes! Rickentables!

Try it! You'll like it!

Diapers on everything, too!

The fact is, the difference shows best on dark finishes, but Zymol is good on all colors.

And when something better comes along, I'll be just as wacko about the new stuff, whatever it can be.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 5:30 pm

Did I mention boats?

No?

BOATS!!!