Dry.... car.... with... hose?

[Mario]

Come on man... you just left us hangin. :( How do you do it? :D

[Steve_C]

after your done washing the car, your suppose to take off the nozzle and turn down the water. since water has a slight negative charge, they tend to "stick" to each other. don't believe me? get a penny and a eye dropper and slowly add 1 drop at a time on top of the penny. the water will actually form a dome. that is because the "skin" or water tension i believe keeps the water droplets bundled together. well back to the hose, just let the water stream out of the hose at a low pressure and the droplets will actually sheet off your car. feel free to this, i think i might have forgotten something

[Mario]

Take off the nozzle and turn the pressure down? Then just let it drip over the car? :confused:

[Steve_C]

yup, when your initially rinsing off your car, alot of times, you have the sprayer nozzle on and the water turned all the way up. that way you get all the dirt and gunk off before you get down to scrubbing the car. well after you washed it, remove the nozzle, and turn down the water until it's running out of the hose, but not splashing all over the place. slow, gently movements, and you'll hardly have any water on your car to dry off

[Mario]

Cool, I'll try it tomorrow - thanks man. :)

[DrJones]

If you want a little more detail...

The basic concept behind it is that it takes advantage of the surface tension of water. Meaning (well... not an exact definition but enough for the non-engineers out there to grasp the concept) that particles of water like to stick togeather. That's why it forms into drops. You can see now why a waxed surface does a better job. Rub something that is kind of oily on a counter top or something, like maybe butter or cooking oil, and put some water on it, it will really stick togeather and slide around the surface.

So what you do is remove any nozle you have from the hose. You don't want to use high preassure. You want to have a good flow of water. There should be a lot of it coming out, but it should be clear, not white with bubbles or whatnot. Then the basic strategy is to 'push' the water on the surface off with the hose.

So on the hood, for example, you first wet the whole hood so none of it is dry. Then start on a corner and spray water onto the hood. Then push the hose in the direction the water is spraying, untill you 'shove' some of the water over the edge. This water will start falling, which means the water connected to it will also fall. Because the water holds togeather well, it will all stick togeather and kind of 'sheet' off the car in one smooth motion.

With a decent coat of wax and a little practice you can get a car about 95% dry. There will always be a few spots that are left, but you can take an absorbent cloth, and blot these. You don't want to rub, as that would cause swirls. But when you only have a few spots to pick up, some light preasure is more than enough to pull that water off the surface swirl free.

It takes a little practice but isn't to hard to do. Just play around with it next time. The only big thing to remember is you want a nice smooth flow, not a lot of preassure.

[Mario]

Ok, thanks for going a little more indepth. :cool:

[alpha]

he wrote up the thread a while ago.. ;)

http://www.highaltitudeimports.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11624

[DrJones]

He probably just missed it.... not everyone visits the Detailing Zone as religiously as I do :D

[xain]

i look forward to posts from the dr. :) im all about learning to care for the aesthetics of my car the right way.

[DrJones]

Anyone who wants to see how to do this in person should come to the HAI detail day event this sunday as listed on the upcomming events part of the forum.