richy
06-19-2014, 11:00 PM
When I learned that I would be working on this car, I was very excited at the prospect. I had been told that it was repainted and that it had some heavy orange peel that needed removing. The reason that the owner wanted it removed was that it was going to be sold in an auction. Therefore, he did not want me spending an inordinate amount of time correcting the orange peel. The goal was therefore as much OP removal as possible for the least amount of time trying to make the paint look much better.
The immediate answer that sprung to mind was Corey's CarPro Denim Orange Peel Removal pads. I called Corey and discussed the job with him. We discussed how to use them and how many I'd need. I ordered 5. Fast forward to 3 days prior to the job: still no pads in the mail!! Uuggghhh! Panic mode. I then turned to my life-saving friend Bryan Walroth from Toronto. I had also talked to Bryan about how to use the pads and I know he was one of the very first to use them. Luckily Bryan had 5 brand new ones in stock for Concours Touch and sent them overnight delivery to me.
My intention and indeed my hope was that this would essentially be a 2 step and no more than 3 step to level the Orange Peel (OP) and coat it. Incidentally, I decided this car would be the very worthy first candidate for the DG coating.
I had done 2 cars for this owner several years ago and wanted to really do a bang up job for him on this one. Here are the last 2 Antiques that I did for him:
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/show-n-shine/13037-53-chrylser-bar-set-high.html
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/show-n-shine/13193-42-caddy-finally-done-dg.html
When I saw the car, I knew this was going to be an extremely difficult challenge for an OP removal pad. Boy, oh boy was it heavy! It was truthfully, an awful paint job. I realized my job was going to be making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Bloody shame too, as it is such a very cool car! Not only is this car cool because it's old and in great shape, no, wait to you hear what he did to it! He wanted to make this car into a daily driver so he installed air conditioning into it and changed the electrical system to 12 volt. A very cool, very unique car with all the comforts. Awesome or what?!?
So, here she is when she arrived. I tried to capture the OP as well as I could and also show the overall dullness of the paint:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4703.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4703.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4704.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4704.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4705.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4705.jpg.html)
Outside view of some of the OP:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4706.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4706.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4707.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4707.jpg.html)
Chrome discoloured by the exhaust:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4708.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4708.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4709.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4709.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4710.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4710.jpg.html)
Man, what a gorgeous interior!!
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4711.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4711.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4713.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4713.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4714.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4714.jpg.html)
The first step was a hand wash with DG 901. That was followed by a hand wash with IronX paste on an Incredisponge to make sure no wax or contamination was on the surface.
So, one of the most noticeable areas of course was the hood. As a friend of mine commented who came by to check it out "The hood of this thing is longer than most cars nowadays". True. So that's a whole lotta OP to show. Here's how the hood looked inside:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4715.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4715.jpg.html)
Now the moment of truth: testing the OP removal pads on this paint. I knew it was going to be tough, I just had no idea how truly tough this challenge was going to be. Bryan had suggested I use my rotary for the pads. The Flex was not going to be near strong enough for what I needed to do here. He also suggested that I used HD Cut which I had purchased from him a month or so back. (He's a Canadian HD distributor-no link provided here per forum rules). So, I did. Tried it at varying speeds. Not enough cut. I then went to Amerirocks. Better, still not enough. I then stepped it all the way up to M101. The pads behave differently with it than with the other 2 but it did give me somewhat more cut. Not a ton more by any means. Even 2 very heavy handed, slow passes only removed a mild to moderate amount of OP. I decided to follow that stage with my 3000 grit Megs pad on my Griot's mini DA. Of course, that dulled the surface, but once polished out, yielded better OP leveling than the Denim pads would on their own. In hindsight, I would have been better served with a 2 step sanding followed by compounding and polishing. But, remember the goal of minimizing the cost. That would have taken even more time than I already had estimated taking. All the areas of OP that I could safely get to were given 2 rounds of Denim pad therapy. That improved it. Did it eliminate the OP altogether? No. My goal, and I think I succeeded, was to vastly improve the finish within a reasonable amount of time for this big beast. I'll let you be the judge afterward whether I succeeded or not.
Here is that same hood section all polished out:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4716.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4716.jpg.html)
Here is an in-progress shot after having been sanded:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4718.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4718.jpg.html)
The steps following the sanding stage were:
Amerirocks with TB black wool + rotary
M105 + orange B/S + Flex
M205 + white B/S + Flex
DG Squeaky Clean via Flex + green B/S
Eraser Wipe down
DG coating
The chrome on this car was an absolute treat. Very good quality and fun to work with. I used an orange B/S pad + CarPro Reflect on it followed by DG SC and then DG Coating. The chrome strips along the side of the body and also along the bottom were cleaned with DG SC and then coated also with DG Coating. The chrome hubcaps were polished with the last 2 stages listed above and then coated.
Here are a few shots of me checking the progress in the sun. You can see the LR 1/4 panel was only at the sanding stage at that point:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4723.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4723.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4725.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4725.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4726.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4726.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4728.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4728.jpg.html)
You can see that exhaust stain was removed:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4729.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4729.jpg.html)
The immediate answer that sprung to mind was Corey's CarPro Denim Orange Peel Removal pads. I called Corey and discussed the job with him. We discussed how to use them and how many I'd need. I ordered 5. Fast forward to 3 days prior to the job: still no pads in the mail!! Uuggghhh! Panic mode. I then turned to my life-saving friend Bryan Walroth from Toronto. I had also talked to Bryan about how to use the pads and I know he was one of the very first to use them. Luckily Bryan had 5 brand new ones in stock for Concours Touch and sent them overnight delivery to me.
My intention and indeed my hope was that this would essentially be a 2 step and no more than 3 step to level the Orange Peel (OP) and coat it. Incidentally, I decided this car would be the very worthy first candidate for the DG coating.
I had done 2 cars for this owner several years ago and wanted to really do a bang up job for him on this one. Here are the last 2 Antiques that I did for him:
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/show-n-shine/13037-53-chrylser-bar-set-high.html
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/show-n-shine/13193-42-caddy-finally-done-dg.html
When I saw the car, I knew this was going to be an extremely difficult challenge for an OP removal pad. Boy, oh boy was it heavy! It was truthfully, an awful paint job. I realized my job was going to be making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Bloody shame too, as it is such a very cool car! Not only is this car cool because it's old and in great shape, no, wait to you hear what he did to it! He wanted to make this car into a daily driver so he installed air conditioning into it and changed the electrical system to 12 volt. A very cool, very unique car with all the comforts. Awesome or what?!?
So, here she is when she arrived. I tried to capture the OP as well as I could and also show the overall dullness of the paint:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4703.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4703.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4704.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4704.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4705.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4705.jpg.html)
Outside view of some of the OP:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4706.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4706.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4707.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4707.jpg.html)
Chrome discoloured by the exhaust:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4708.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4708.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4709.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4709.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4710.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4710.jpg.html)
Man, what a gorgeous interior!!
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4711.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4711.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4713.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4713.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4714.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4714.jpg.html)
The first step was a hand wash with DG 901. That was followed by a hand wash with IronX paste on an Incredisponge to make sure no wax or contamination was on the surface.
So, one of the most noticeable areas of course was the hood. As a friend of mine commented who came by to check it out "The hood of this thing is longer than most cars nowadays". True. So that's a whole lotta OP to show. Here's how the hood looked inside:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4715.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4715.jpg.html)
Now the moment of truth: testing the OP removal pads on this paint. I knew it was going to be tough, I just had no idea how truly tough this challenge was going to be. Bryan had suggested I use my rotary for the pads. The Flex was not going to be near strong enough for what I needed to do here. He also suggested that I used HD Cut which I had purchased from him a month or so back. (He's a Canadian HD distributor-no link provided here per forum rules). So, I did. Tried it at varying speeds. Not enough cut. I then went to Amerirocks. Better, still not enough. I then stepped it all the way up to M101. The pads behave differently with it than with the other 2 but it did give me somewhat more cut. Not a ton more by any means. Even 2 very heavy handed, slow passes only removed a mild to moderate amount of OP. I decided to follow that stage with my 3000 grit Megs pad on my Griot's mini DA. Of course, that dulled the surface, but once polished out, yielded better OP leveling than the Denim pads would on their own. In hindsight, I would have been better served with a 2 step sanding followed by compounding and polishing. But, remember the goal of minimizing the cost. That would have taken even more time than I already had estimated taking. All the areas of OP that I could safely get to were given 2 rounds of Denim pad therapy. That improved it. Did it eliminate the OP altogether? No. My goal, and I think I succeeded, was to vastly improve the finish within a reasonable amount of time for this big beast. I'll let you be the judge afterward whether I succeeded or not.
Here is that same hood section all polished out:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4716.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4716.jpg.html)
Here is an in-progress shot after having been sanded:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4718.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4718.jpg.html)
The steps following the sanding stage were:
Amerirocks with TB black wool + rotary
M105 + orange B/S + Flex
M205 + white B/S + Flex
DG Squeaky Clean via Flex + green B/S
Eraser Wipe down
DG coating
The chrome on this car was an absolute treat. Very good quality and fun to work with. I used an orange B/S pad + CarPro Reflect on it followed by DG SC and then DG Coating. The chrome strips along the side of the body and also along the bottom were cleaned with DG SC and then coated also with DG Coating. The chrome hubcaps were polished with the last 2 stages listed above and then coated.
Here are a few shots of me checking the progress in the sun. You can see the LR 1/4 panel was only at the sanding stage at that point:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4723.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4723.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4725.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4725.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4726.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4726.jpg.html)
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4728.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4728.jpg.html)
You can see that exhaust stain was removed:
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/rhowitt/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4729.jpg (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/rhowitt/media/Detailing%20shots/Detailing%20shots001/DSC_4729.jpg.html)