You guys use what you want, my painter preferred windex over the any wax/grease remover. He's used it on big money boss mustangs to your daily driver. I'll take his word for it.... And I had the wax/grease on hand.
It's probably just a cost thing trying to save a buck .I can tell you there is a big difference in price. I've known lots of painters and I've never heard of that.
It's an old school trick painters trick used long ago and not just for autobody work either. There are only certain types of Windex formulas that will work though.. and I can't rightly remember which ones they are. Google is your friend here.
I wouldn't expect you to know that since your not a painter. Water and dish soap work great as well prior to the original windex. Remember to use a lint free rag and not your regular paper towel.
I've seen my Dad use water for brake fluid, oil and diesel fuel for hydraulic fluid '' hard on the seals'' he would say just to get by when times were hard so i guess you could use windex just like you can use a pencil for a guide coat to sand by or charcoal ground up as a guide coat it's all up to you myself I use matching products that way I know they are compatible with each other and later the paint won't lift and peel away .I also saw him drive a b model mack 200 miles through heavy traffic in two different big cities to a well site one time with no brakes while i stood on the front seat watching out for stray cars he couldn't see ,one of the mirrors were cracked ..man I miss ''the good old days''
A bit out of context there. The main point was to research for best Windex formula to use and it surely depends on the source and their experience level. I've seen it done on residential and commercial paint prep as well and know for fact it works without fisheyes on solvent based paints. Would I use Windex myself? On anything paint prep related? Hell no. If it really was that effective and without any liability?.. then you can be damned sure that the spin doctors in the advertising department would be adding a "special paint prep formula"(also likely using a different colored dye) into their lineup. Doesn't mean that I begrudge anyone else who uses it or discounts its credibility for a final wipe.. just that I myself am much more scientifically oriented in the whys and hows of anything I'm using. But.. if something does work and comes with a major cost savings to potentially pass on to the customer(which is very rare as most will just use it to better line their pockets) and improve profit margin?.. I'd be all over it and digging deeper to flush out why the potential gain is there in the first place. Here's the thing though. I would be researching and finding out where this voodoo magic was coming from and looking to replicate it at an even cheaper price, and without the added surfactants and dyes being added to make me feel like I'm buying and spraying something more than about 98% water out of the bottle. In this case a simple MSDS lookup is all that it took to jog my memory. The original formula is primarily water with a touch of alcohol and some pretty blue dye. I can and have made similar final prep formulas many times in the past. Hell, even regular old tap water adds contaminants into the mix and mission critical jobs are typically better prepped by other means. I have some time to spare and this may not be completely relevant but I'll toss it in here anyways. We(painters) have also used straight denatured alcohol to improve flash/dry times for water soluble paints(especially useful for improving cold weather paint flow and dry times at the beginning and end of the season when nighttime temps are falling down near freezing) and many manufacturers also use it for similar purposes today. Many quick-dry water based stain blocking primers also use alcohol/shellac bases to allow the products to more effectively seal stains(creates a quick drying shiny shell to encapsulate the stains) and reduce recoat times. Alcohol is also very useful for prepping plastic/rubber/vinyl since it degreases yet doesn't attack as quickly due to quicker flash time which reduces the likelyhood of further damage. The thing that I relearned more recently when used on my Comets plastic taillight lenses is that alcohol causes severe temperature changes and "shocks" the surface as the stuff flashes away. This is very obvious as you get it on your skin and get that ice cold feeling that quickly goes away. Unfortunately, I used too much of it and applied it too quickly and it left hairline cracks on the 45 year old highly brittle clear backup lenses of my lights. I knew better that delicate parts call for delicate measures and I just overdid it while trying to hurry the process up. Seems like live, learn, forget, relearn is a never ending process even for those who have done it hundreds or even thousands of times.
Ok hope I found the right shop!! Dropped my Maverick off last week for a full paint job with engine bay painted E code with matte black grabber areas
Too lazy to read all this, but the paint shop is in business to turn money and our projects are nothing more than fill work when there is nothing to finish. I couldn't ever see leaving my project with an open ended contract, so I paint them myself and sometimes they look like it too.
They are working it in He is right the do all the insurance jobs first because that's where they make money and the full jobs as time permits
