Eric@CherryOnTop
07-01-2014, 08:03 AM
Hi all, I was contacted last fall by this gentleman about restoring the paint on his Porsche. When I initially inspected the car there was a lot of damage around the drip edge around the rear hatch glass. He said he planned on having that body work done at so e point. I told him he was better off having the body work done, then bringing the car to me for the finishing detail. So he has the body work done at the beginning of spring, and wanted to wait 60 days for the paint to fully cure.
I initially thought this car was single stage metallic paint, but once I got it washed and decontaminated I started to question my initial assessment. Here's an overall before photo:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/5y4ere5e.jpg
And a close up of what I'm dealing with:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/unumape2.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/hy4y5ejy.jpg
This paint was in REALLY rough shape. After doing a rub test on one panel I realized it was in fact clear coated.
Products used:
- ONR at rinseless wash ratio, and clay lube ratio
- Meg's d101 at 1:4 ratio
- Sonax FE wheel cleaner
- iron X (for wheels)
- Carpro hydro2 (wheel sealant)
- claybar
- nanoskin medium prep towel
- Rupes 15
- Meguiars 205, b&s mf finishing pad
- menzerna sf4500, lc black flat pad
- Flex pe14
- lc purple foam wool pad (3.5"), menzerna fg400
- lc smartwool pad, Meguiars m101
- Flex 3401
- menzerna fg400, orange hybrid pad
- menzerna sf4000, white hybrid pad
- Poorboys trim restorer
- DP coating prep polish
- PBL Diamond surface coating
- PBL synergy
One of the customers concerns was the fading bumpers on this car. From the pictures and from feeling them I couldn't really tell what they were.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/jury6ata.jpg
Last season when I was evaluating the car I rubbed some Poorboys trim restorer on a spot to see what would happen and the spot seemed to clear up and get glossy again, so the plan was for a few coats of this spread apart and then the customer would maintain applications as needed.
I started by bringing the car outside to scrub the bumpers and deep clean / decontaminate the wheels. I used apc and a soft brush to clean up the grime on the bumpers. I also cleaned up the gas cap area. The tires and wheel wells also got the apc treatment. Wheels were cleaned with full effect:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/yjyguqe5.jpg
And then iron-x:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/2uve9epe.jpg
Finally sprayed with hydro to seal:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/a4aha2u4.jpg
I brought the car in the garage and gave the paint and glass a quick rinseless wash. I then started the decontamination process. After spending about 2 minutes claying a small part of the hood and getting this:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/tejevy8e.jpg
I decided I needed to step up to a medium nanoskin towel so I didn't become eligible for Medicare during the decontamination process. By the way, to save a little time while working this way, rinseless wash the whole car but don't dry anything, then take ONR diluted to clay bar lube ratio and spray it on the wet panel and go to town. Wipe most of the solution off, if you are going to be polishing anyway, no need to go nuts getting all the streaks buffed out at this stage.
Now for the fun part, polishing. Trim was taped off:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/abu8ebuq.jpg
And here's what I'm up against, some really hammered paint:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/uhe8ynyn.jpg
This is the re sprayed area, body shop left their pretty signature for me to remove:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/4yge9eju.jpg
Roof was trashed, more on that later:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/avujaben.jpg
Door:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/6yqesa4a.jpg
I did my test spot on the hood. Since it's a Porsche and a old one at that, I started very light with sf4500 on a black pad on the 3401, speed 6 with the smack technique (all work done with the 3401 was with the smack technique). This removed surprisingly most of the swirls, but just wasn't going to be good enough for what I was trying to achieve, especially on the hood (gloss panels should always get a little bit more love). I had just gotten a new Rupes and wanted to see what it could do so I loaded it with a microfiber finishing disc and m205. I used the Kevin brown method and got great correction and just a little hazing left over. I went back over the hazing with the sf4500 to clean it up. Both edges of the hood were really bad:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/nugy2ypy.jpg
I used fg400 on a foamed wool pad on a rotary to clean these up:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/my9ebeza.jpg
I should mention at this point that I kept my paint thickness gauge very close to hand for the polishing on this car. What I discovered during pre polish inspection was that this car was actually in various stages of repaint. I got very low readings on the hoof and roof, as low as 77 microns. The freshly painted hatch area measured in the 130 micron range, along with most of the left side of the car. The right side of the car appears to have been repainted at some point too, with those readings being consistent in the 300-400 micron range.
This doesn't seem like too much of a big deal until I moved away from the hood where I had a process dialed in and that process did absolutely nothing on the next section.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I initially thought this car was single stage metallic paint, but once I got it washed and decontaminated I started to question my initial assessment. Here's an overall before photo:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/5y4ere5e.jpg
And a close up of what I'm dealing with:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/unumape2.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/hy4y5ejy.jpg
This paint was in REALLY rough shape. After doing a rub test on one panel I realized it was in fact clear coated.
Products used:
- ONR at rinseless wash ratio, and clay lube ratio
- Meg's d101 at 1:4 ratio
- Sonax FE wheel cleaner
- iron X (for wheels)
- Carpro hydro2 (wheel sealant)
- claybar
- nanoskin medium prep towel
- Rupes 15
- Meguiars 205, b&s mf finishing pad
- menzerna sf4500, lc black flat pad
- Flex pe14
- lc purple foam wool pad (3.5"), menzerna fg400
- lc smartwool pad, Meguiars m101
- Flex 3401
- menzerna fg400, orange hybrid pad
- menzerna sf4000, white hybrid pad
- Poorboys trim restorer
- DP coating prep polish
- PBL Diamond surface coating
- PBL synergy
One of the customers concerns was the fading bumpers on this car. From the pictures and from feeling them I couldn't really tell what they were.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/jury6ata.jpg
Last season when I was evaluating the car I rubbed some Poorboys trim restorer on a spot to see what would happen and the spot seemed to clear up and get glossy again, so the plan was for a few coats of this spread apart and then the customer would maintain applications as needed.
I started by bringing the car outside to scrub the bumpers and deep clean / decontaminate the wheels. I used apc and a soft brush to clean up the grime on the bumpers. I also cleaned up the gas cap area. The tires and wheel wells also got the apc treatment. Wheels were cleaned with full effect:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/yjyguqe5.jpg
And then iron-x:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/2uve9epe.jpg
Finally sprayed with hydro to seal:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/a4aha2u4.jpg
I brought the car in the garage and gave the paint and glass a quick rinseless wash. I then started the decontamination process. After spending about 2 minutes claying a small part of the hood and getting this:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/tejevy8e.jpg
I decided I needed to step up to a medium nanoskin towel so I didn't become eligible for Medicare during the decontamination process. By the way, to save a little time while working this way, rinseless wash the whole car but don't dry anything, then take ONR diluted to clay bar lube ratio and spray it on the wet panel and go to town. Wipe most of the solution off, if you are going to be polishing anyway, no need to go nuts getting all the streaks buffed out at this stage.
Now for the fun part, polishing. Trim was taped off:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/abu8ebuq.jpg
And here's what I'm up against, some really hammered paint:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/uhe8ynyn.jpg
This is the re sprayed area, body shop left their pretty signature for me to remove:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/4yge9eju.jpg
Roof was trashed, more on that later:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/avujaben.jpg
Door:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/6yqesa4a.jpg
I did my test spot on the hood. Since it's a Porsche and a old one at that, I started very light with sf4500 on a black pad on the 3401, speed 6 with the smack technique (all work done with the 3401 was with the smack technique). This removed surprisingly most of the swirls, but just wasn't going to be good enough for what I was trying to achieve, especially on the hood (gloss panels should always get a little bit more love). I had just gotten a new Rupes and wanted to see what it could do so I loaded it with a microfiber finishing disc and m205. I used the Kevin brown method and got great correction and just a little hazing left over. I went back over the hazing with the sf4500 to clean it up. Both edges of the hood were really bad:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/nugy2ypy.jpg
I used fg400 on a foamed wool pad on a rotary to clean these up:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/01/my9ebeza.jpg
I should mention at this point that I kept my paint thickness gauge very close to hand for the polishing on this car. What I discovered during pre polish inspection was that this car was actually in various stages of repaint. I got very low readings on the hoof and roof, as low as 77 microns. The freshly painted hatch area measured in the 130 micron range, along with most of the left side of the car. The right side of the car appears to have been repainted at some point too, with those readings being consistent in the 300-400 micron range.
This doesn't seem like too much of a big deal until I moved away from the hood where I had a process dialed in and that process did absolutely nothing on the next section.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk