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I have about, oh, 20 coats of wax on my '55 Clipper. The paint is overall good, but I think it is time to clean it up a bit. I was discussing this with some people who are really into paint and detailing and independently each suggested trying a clay bar to clean up the impurities in the existing paint. One said I should wash the car with Dawn diswashing soap to get rid of the wax build-up. then dipping the bar in the bucket of soap and gently gliding the bar over the surface until there is no resistance. He suggested I follow it with Maguire's glaze.

Since I have never tried one of these before, I am a bit nervous about it. I would appreciate any input regarding this method from those of you who have tried this before.

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I did this in 2007 with Best Other.
I washed it thoroughly with Dawn dish soap and then took it to local do-it-urself car wash and washed it and rinsed it thoroughly.
Back in the driveway I spent two days clay barring the car. It is a LOT of automobile. I had a used spritzer bottle to keep a nice wet surface for the clay bar to work in. I took my time and was very thorough. It took me two days, but I'm old and tire easily.
Then I took it down to the car wash and washed and rinsed it completely again.
I was following the directions that came with the Zaino polish kit. I applied the polish as described in the instructions. Took me almost two hours to apply and then polish with a COTTON bath towel.
That was in 2007. I have not applied any more polish since then. I wash it at the local car wash at least once a week.
I do polish and wax the chrome and stainless carefully.

It still looks good, but I am thinking of polishing it again.
Six years is a long time, but you can see Best Other in several posts on this site.

Randy:

Thank you for the info ... Did you find using it fairly easy? Did you have to go over the surface more than once? I assume you didn't use the car on the chrome or stainless, right?

Craig

I did use the clay bar on all the trim. It does an outstanding cleanup job. It was easy. Just keep the surface wet. BUT you have a lot of surface to cover. I swiped the same spot several times just to make sure. Take your time - you won't want to do it again for a while.

The key to using a clay bar successfully is to use plenty of lubricant. You can use soapy water but the Meguiars spray wax is effective and is recommended as part of their clay kit.

To see how effective it has been, take a very lightweight plastic bag (sandwich bag on a roll type) and place your hand in it. Sweep your hand over the paintwork and you will feel the plastic catching and dragging on the paintwork even if it is freshly washed and clean. The snagging is caused by micro particles of iron filings and other impurities that simply dig their way into the paint.

The clay bar will draw these particles out and the surface of the bar may also appear orange after some use, showing that the impurities have been lifted.

The same hand-in-the-bag test should then show that the paint surface is super-smooth. Simply apply lots of wax thereafter.