Keeping the paint shining

[johnfranklyn]

In an effort to keep the delivery shine on my new Pro Ceed 3 I had just purchased I applied a rather expensive polish. Last year I re-applied it to one side of my bonnet and on the other I used a wax polish made up for my wife’s use mainly from some of my bee capping’s, thinned with genuine turpentine.
Nine months later I notice the rain still gathers in drops on the waxed side of the bonnet and the other side having a complete run off. Very early in my motoring life I did buy a tin of polish quite famous for containing beeswax. Its name I can’t remember at my age, but I do recall it was slave labour to apply. Remembering this hard work I chose to use SWMBO’s polish when the car bonnet was warm, after an unexplained spell of sunny weather. It went on almost as easy as my expensive polish. It also buffed up to a quick shine when the car had cooled off from the sun
I do recall long ago when the quality of chrome was questionable to say the least I did use it on bumpers and hubcaps to excellent effect. Cleaning the garage after collecting the honey is always hard work and any solvent used only seems to thin the wax spills and not remove them completely. I recall a National Service phrase about something “sticking to a blanket”. Come the next spell of hot sunshine my Kia will get the full treatment, but I expect to have to turn the car about to warm the other side. Any bee keeper should be able to supply wax capping’s and although genuine turpentine is hard to find it makes a superb polish. Oh! For non- bee keepers wax capping’s are clean and white and applied by the bee’s to the top of a cell of honey to seal it.

[dubster]

Cheers John, interesting to know you've found a fair alternative (and method) for expensive polish, though it might take a bit of effort for non-bee-keepers to locate
Best of all your car's nice, shiny & clean, which is a tough mode to keep at the moment!

[johnfranklyn]

Hello Dubster,
If you would like to have some new beeswax I would be delighted to supply and let you try for yourself. If so send me a private message I will post on some of the coming years new wax.
Regards,
John.

[RTFishall]

John... Like you I remember the old solid polish. Years ago (1968) getting my first car, a then 17 year old Hillman Minx MK3 (I wish I still had it!). It was like most cars at the time coloured black. A friend (?) worked a bit of that polish on a small patch very hard for about five minutes. What a friend! You could see the bit he'd done all the time I had the car. It would have taken me months to apply the same effort with the polish to the entire car. Still, you live and learn
Now after all these years I don't bother to polish any more, just use the auto car wash. At the end of the day they all, like us, finish up on the scrap heap.