dsms detail - Dull Acura, Restored!

[dsms]

This one was in pretty bad shape. The owner called me and said his paint was "dull" and asked if I could bring back the shine. I said the only way to fix dull paint is with machine polishing and that no wax or sealant will bring back the true finish of the paint unless its fully corrected and polished properly, he wanted this car fixed up so he could sell it. Upon getting the car I saw it needed some extensive correction work.



The sun was just coming out so I tried to catch some swirls while I could







The trunk was by far the worst part, ater under the halogens you will se the amount of deep RIDS



When I say "dull" this is what I mean, the car needed the gloss brought back in a big way



After cleaning the wheels, I washed the car using the 2BM and 2 white foam shmitts with Gloss Shampoo. The gloss shampoo is very mild and wont strip an LSP, since this car had no LSP anyway there was no need for a citrus based shampoo.

After washing I clayed the car with gloss it lavender clay (agressive) using Meguiars last touch 1:1 as lube. The car was mildly contaminated.

Now for the correction work. I worked a small portion of the hood as a test panel using the Makita at about 1500rpm with a Meguiars cutting pad using the Gloss It 1 step polish. This yielded about 70% correction but the deeper scratches werent touched so I stepped up to the gloss it 8" lambswool pad and gloss it extreme cut compound. I worked it at 1500rpm and jeweled it down to about 1000, I then followed that up with the gloss it 1 step machine polish on a foam polishing pad.

The 8" lambswool pad, I like it because it has enough cut to polish out deeper defects but its not as coarse as some of blended wools out there. The hologramming was very minimal after jeweling down the extreme cut to about 1000rpm, I added some of the gloss it QD during the polishing stages to get more work time out of the compounds and polishes.

Here is a 50/50



Some finished shots after polsihing at the IPA wipedown...



After polsihing only, no LSP









Now onto the biggest problem area...







Some very deep RIDS and coarse swirls, i measured the paint with the PTG to see how much clear I had to play with...averaged 170-185microns which was plenty.





I went for the extreme cut right away



Before



After 3 passes at 1500-1800rpm using the extreme cut, I kept working the polish by spraying the gloss it QD in between..this helped reduce holograms as well

[dsms]

I then followed up with gloss it 1 step machine polish on a burgandy megs cutting pad at 1500rpm



This brought back the gloss after compounding





Some 50/50's









All finished







The rest of the trunk section was totally flat and heavily swirled as well

Before..



During..



After..



No correction job would be complete without a sun shot, I pulled the car out to inspect my work



Next I moved onto the side panels, the paint was very flat. I used some gloss it extreme cut at 1500rpm with a megs cutting pad and then followed up with the cyclo with the 1 step polish.

Here is a before and after of how the depth and clarity was restored





After finishing with the cyclo

[dsms]

50/50

After polishing the extreme cut at 1500rpm, defects removed with slight hologramming









I then followed up with the cyclo using yellow polishing pads, I can work much larger areas with the cyclo not having to tape off edges and breaking panels into 2 parts

working the 1 step polish



after, a deep hologram free finish



RIDS before



After





Before applying the LSP after polishing I like to do all the finishing touches. I went and applied gloss it tire dressing, admas undercarrige spray to the wheel wells, cleaned the glass and exhaust tips and then treated the plastic trim.

Here is the lower plastic trim faded and spoted, after cleaning with IPA solution to remove any grease



After



I brought the car outside even though the sun was going down and then I had a nice suprise pull in my driveway



My favorite customer stopped by to show me his new GTR and to see what kind of work it would need to get it ready for winter, because this one aint staying in the garage! Im doing that one on Halloween.

Some finished shots before the sun went away for good. The LSP was gloss it gloss finish sealant applied by hand via red foam pad



Dullness be gone

[dsms]

Here is the paint before



And after

[robb01]

Great work, looks so much better

[Meghan]

Very nice job, that paint looks showroom new!

[sal329]

Another great job

[mixxer]

nice work! Did you take any readings after correction?

[mikep288]

Nice job! All told, how long did it take you on this one?

[lempilot]

Impressive!