Tom Weed
10-31-2011, 12:37 PM
Going to post pics of a detail I did this past weekend, I usually dont take the time to take pictures, but since I had a help from Paul, Aka. 2old2change after he was nice enough to come down and spend half of the day Saturday with me cutting out some of these swirls, I figured I would do a post.
A friend bought this car for his son at an auction a few weeks ago, he brought it over and it was a swirled up mess, appeared that it was either washed with steel wool or buffed with a wool pad and they walked away. When he brought the car to me to have a look at, I clayed 1/3rd of the hood and it nuked my clay bar! It instantly turned brown and the surface felt really rough. I broke out the paint thickness gauge and started taking some measurements and was getting an avgerage of 3.5, I was a little worried at this point on how much paint is left on the car and what it would take to level out the scratches. I didn't really want to use a rotary buffer and wool pad because I was afraid of burn through, so ended up taping off a square and used the MF cutting pads on the DA with the D300 cream and it made a big difference, so atleast I knew I could remove the defects.
When I returned from vacation I had him bring me the car for the weekend and Friday night I gave it a good wash with IronX, which turned the car and the entire driveway red! I hadn't really ever used it on a car with this much surface contamination before and boy did it work, it also really stunk! I then went around the car again spraying each panel with Power Clean, washing it and spraying it off. THe following day when Paul came down to Bloomington to give me a hand, when we started to clay the car, I was amazed, the clay was barely picking up any contamination! I could clay the rest of the hood and it was slightly dirty, as compared to before it was totally brown! I attritube that to IronX... After claying Paul and I started doing some test spots with different products and pads, I taped off thirds on the trunk and would use the DA and a MF cutting pad and tried Optimum Hyper Compound, on the next section I used the D300 cutting cream with a MF cutting pad and on the last third section I used Menzerna Power Finish. I wasn't able to capture any good pictures really since all I have is my android phone. The D300 cutting cream with the MF cutting pads removed more defects and left the finish slight hazed, compared to the others I thought it was the way to go. Paul showed me a nice tip, that once you are polishing to about the end of the buffing cycle, spray water on the pad or surface and continue polishing. It made a noticible difference and something I will be doing from now on. Also when you go to clean the pad with air after each panel, a couple squirts of water on the pad before hte air also really cleans the pad up better as well. (thanks Paul!)
So, after finishing the first step on the polishing, most 90% of the scratches were gone, but some haze remained. I broke out the rotary with a dynabrade attachment, a tan Megiuars Soft Buff finihsing pad and Menzerna Super Finsh. I would run the buffer on the rotary setting to go over the panel then switch it to the DA position and give it another pass. It turned out great! All the hazing was gone and it left a nice shiney finish. I went over the paint with CarPro eraser to make sure I had a nice clean finish and then used a steamer on on the cracks and and rubber trim to make sure I was able to remove all the polish and dirt. I then used I then topped it BFWD.
the Wheels were clayed and polished with Optimum Polyseal and tires were dressed with Optimum Tire gel. Wheel wells were cleaned with Power clean and dress with Hyper Dressing. Trim was dressed with Wolfgang Trim protectand and the glass was polished the with DP glass polish.
Here are some befores:
http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/500/2011-10-29_10-25-30_837.jpg
http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/500/2011-10-29_10-25-19_817.jpg
http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/500/2011-10-29_10-26-13_250.jpg
http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/500/2011-10-29_10-26-02_50.jpg
http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/500/2011-10-29_10-25-34_984.jpg
http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/500/2011-10-29_10-26-19_87.jpg
A friend bought this car for his son at an auction a few weeks ago, he brought it over and it was a swirled up mess, appeared that it was either washed with steel wool or buffed with a wool pad and they walked away. When he brought the car to me to have a look at, I clayed 1/3rd of the hood and it nuked my clay bar! It instantly turned brown and the surface felt really rough. I broke out the paint thickness gauge and started taking some measurements and was getting an avgerage of 3.5, I was a little worried at this point on how much paint is left on the car and what it would take to level out the scratches. I didn't really want to use a rotary buffer and wool pad because I was afraid of burn through, so ended up taping off a square and used the MF cutting pads on the DA with the D300 cream and it made a big difference, so atleast I knew I could remove the defects.
When I returned from vacation I had him bring me the car for the weekend and Friday night I gave it a good wash with IronX, which turned the car and the entire driveway red! I hadn't really ever used it on a car with this much surface contamination before and boy did it work, it also really stunk! I then went around the car again spraying each panel with Power Clean, washing it and spraying it off. THe following day when Paul came down to Bloomington to give me a hand, when we started to clay the car, I was amazed, the clay was barely picking up any contamination! I could clay the rest of the hood and it was slightly dirty, as compared to before it was totally brown! I attritube that to IronX... After claying Paul and I started doing some test spots with different products and pads, I taped off thirds on the trunk and would use the DA and a MF cutting pad and tried Optimum Hyper Compound, on the next section I used the D300 cutting cream with a MF cutting pad and on the last third section I used Menzerna Power Finish. I wasn't able to capture any good pictures really since all I have is my android phone. The D300 cutting cream with the MF cutting pads removed more defects and left the finish slight hazed, compared to the others I thought it was the way to go. Paul showed me a nice tip, that once you are polishing to about the end of the buffing cycle, spray water on the pad or surface and continue polishing. It made a noticible difference and something I will be doing from now on. Also when you go to clean the pad with air after each panel, a couple squirts of water on the pad before hte air also really cleans the pad up better as well. (thanks Paul!)
So, after finishing the first step on the polishing, most 90% of the scratches were gone, but some haze remained. I broke out the rotary with a dynabrade attachment, a tan Megiuars Soft Buff finihsing pad and Menzerna Super Finsh. I would run the buffer on the rotary setting to go over the panel then switch it to the DA position and give it another pass. It turned out great! All the hazing was gone and it left a nice shiney finish. I went over the paint with CarPro eraser to make sure I had a nice clean finish and then used a steamer on on the cracks and and rubber trim to make sure I was able to remove all the polish and dirt. I then used I then topped it BFWD.
the Wheels were clayed and polished with Optimum Polyseal and tires were dressed with Optimum Tire gel. Wheel wells were cleaned with Power clean and dress with Hyper Dressing. Trim was dressed with Wolfgang Trim protectand and the glass was polished the with DP glass polish.
Here are some befores:
http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/500/2011-10-29_10-25-30_837.jpg
http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/500/2011-10-29_10-25-19_817.jpg
http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/500/2011-10-29_10-26-13_250.jpg
http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/500/2011-10-29_10-26-02_50.jpg
http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/500/2011-10-29_10-25-34_984.jpg
http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/data/500/2011-10-29_10-26-19_87.jpg