Low Mileage '80 Vette, Exterior Paint correction: Rasky's Auto Detailing

[RaskyR1]

1980 Corvette L82, 16,XXX miles, exterior paint correction

I was contacted by the owner this spring to detail this low mileage beauty and it was scheduled for my Premium exterior service (2-step correction). Upon inspection the paint appeared to be in good condition with moderate swirls and a few RIDS and the 2-step was able to achieve at least 95% correction. While the car has very low miles on it, it had been repainted at some point in its life…overall a very nice car though and the interior was mint…of course I forgot to take a pic. :(


Process:

Wash - ONR
Tires – Cleaned with Optimum Power Clean and dressed with Meguiar’s Hyper Dressing
Wheels - Sonax Full Effect, light polish with Optimum Metal Polish
Paint correction - M105 with a Surbuf pad on the GG6 followed by M205 with a crimson LC pad on the GG6. Bumper covers were done with Sonax Paint Cleaner and a 4” tangerine LC pad…(more about that below).
Glass - Meguiars D120
LSP – Blackfire Wet-Diamond



Before pics
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5381.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5383.jpg


Putting my new brushes to use
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5391.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5392.jpg



Swirls were a little hard to capture…
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5379.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5380.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5388.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5390.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5393.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5427.jpg


Lots of areas that had TOGW!
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5385.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5384.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5389.jpg


My initial test spot was with D300/MF, which worked well on the light swirls, but the paint was hard and a more aggressive method was needed for the deeper stuff, M105/Surbuf worked better and even finished down very well!
Single Stage paint…being a repaint I was expecting BC/CC.
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5396.jpg


The 50/50 shots were with D300/MF


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5399.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5401.jpg

This one was with M105/Surbuf…not the best shot as it was the top of the fender but you should be able to see it.
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5426.jpg

All sharp edges were taped up…Corvettes are notorious for sharp edges, and burning through them is very easy to do. There were actually several areas where the edges were already burned on this car (which were documented prior to correction) so I wanted to be sure I didn’t make things any worse. 3M fineline tape works great for these areas!
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5424.jpg

You can actually see the sharp raised edge here
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5423.jpg


Gas doors have very sharp edges too!
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5425.jpg


There are always going to be those cars or paints that come along which really pose a challenge or require some thinking to correct…well, this was definitely one of them! As I worked my way around the car M105/Surbuf was working amazingly well, right up to where I started on the rear bumper! The second I started hitting the bumpers, everything I tried dried up right away and it dulled the paint big time! See pic below
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/efedb085.jpg


After trying about 6 different polishes (M105, D300, M205, M83, M80, and even M07), various pads, rotary, DA and hand, I began to be concerned. I gave my good buddy Kevin Brown (aka – Buff Daddy) a call to discuss some possibilities to the problem. Kevin suggested a few options and it was finally decided to try a few other polishes, possibly some which were water based. In the mean time I figured I’d get the rest of the car done first and worry about the bumpers last as I was pressed for time. While I was working my fellow detailing buddy Justin stopped by looking for some product samples. I showed him the issue I was having and he volunteered to help try some things out while I continued working on the rest of the car. He immediately asked if I had any Sonax Paint Cleaner on hand, having read Todd Cooperiders review (http://www.detailedimage.com/Ask-a-Pro/product-review-sonax-nano-tech-paint-cleaner-ntpc/) on it recently, he thought that would be a good place to start. Of course I had some and he went to town applying it by hand first. Almost immediately we saw signs of improvement! Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one! Here is Justin helping me out… thanks for the free labor Justin! :D
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110910-_MG_5428.jpg

[RaskyR1]

Now for some after pics!
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5433.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5432.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5445.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5446.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5438.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5440.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5441.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5448.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5449.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5455.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5452.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5450.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5451.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5459.jpg


http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i288/Raskyr1/1980%20Vette/20110911-_MG_5458.jpg


Thanks for looking! :)

Rasky

[Kristopher1129]

Nice! Love those body styles. They can be a real headache to polish sometimes...but there's not much to compare those body lines to in the sun!

[Harleyguy]

Chad we all know how great your details are but what really makes you stand out from the next guy is how you find a way no matter what to make every part of a car pop . Case in point working out the bumper problem . Hopefully we will get to hang out in Vegas if I ever make my reservations .

[rwright]

Stunning as usual! :urtheman:Thanks for sharing such a beautiful car and detail.

[Garry Dean]

Fantastic write up, sir. Thanks for sharing!

[kc's]

ma ma mia buddy

u never fail to amazed me

[WRAPT C5Z06]

:urtheman:

:dblthumb2:

:props:

What kind of pressure did you use with the surbufs? I'm beginning to think the surbufs finish better than most people give them credit for, generally speaking.

[RaskyR1]

Nice! Love those body styles. They can be a real headache to polish sometimes...but there's not much to compare those body lines to in the sun!

Thanks Kris!



Chad we all know how great your details are but what really makes you stand out from the next guy is how you find a way no matter what to make every part of a car pop . Case in point working out the bumper problem . Hopefully we will get to hang out in Vegas if I ever make my reservations .

Thanks Adam!

We'll definitely have to hook up in Vegas! I haven't booked anything yet either so no worries. ;)



Stunning as usual! :urtheman:Thanks for sharing such a beautiful car and detail.

Thanks Richard!

You can thank the owner for allowing me to work on his baby! ;)




Fantastic write up, sir. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you Gary!




ma ma mia buddy

u never fail to amazed me

Thanks KC! :)



:urtheman:

:dblthumb2:

:props:

What kind of pressure did you use with the surbufs? I'm beginning to think the surbufs finish better than most people give them credit for, generally speaking.

Thanks Marc!

I used light to moderate pressure except when I came across any RIDS, for those heavy pressure was used and a few required several passes. On hard paint the Surbuf work really well IMO. They finished almost LSP ready on this car. ;)