Be honest - how long would it take you to buff out this car? 1956 Dodge Lancer - Kustom car by Richard Zocchi

[Mike Phillips]

Be honest - how long would it take you to buff out this car? 1956 Dodge Lancer - Kustom car by Richard Zocchi







Here's the criteria...

Car is already clean and ready to start machine buffing.



Car needs,

1. Machine compounding
2. Machine polishing
3. Sealing the paint with a wax, sealant or coating

How long from start to finish would you estimate to do the above 3-steps?


List the tools, pads and products you would use.

[Mike Phillips]

Me?

I'll track my hours and post how long it took me after I finish.

[DZ302]

16 to 20 hours using a Flex 3401..but I'm anal retentive..... Products used is a toss up depending on what I thought the paint and car itself looked its best in ..she looks like a " take me slow dancing tonight" car...wouldn't want to use something that made her Azz look Fat in....HE he He

Probably use Fusion as my LSP....or a quality ceramic coating...

[RaskyR1]

If I actually stuck to just one polishing cycle per step, per area, probably 12-14 hrs for a wax/sealant. Add 2-4hrs for a coating. Knowing me I would chase after deeper defects and it would take a lot longer, probably closer to DZ302's estimate.

We can't see paint condition so it's hard to say what to start with. Being a 2-step correction I'll assume it's pretty swirled up though. A test spot would be performed, but my go to combo is below

1. BOSS G21 or Rupes 21 with BOSS MF pads and Fast Correct Cream
2. BOSS G21 or Rupes 21 with yellow or orange BOSS pads with M205 or Hyper Polish
3. Blackfire Wet Diamond via GG6 and a blue LC pad.

(G110v2 with 3" pads for tighter areas)

[Mike Phillips]

Being a 2-step correction I'll assume it's pretty swirled up though.

We used this car in one of our classes a few years ago.

Sad to say someone hit the front end. The entire front-end has been repaired and then the House of Kolor paint was matched and the majority of the car was re-sprayed.

It was hand sanded, then machine sanded and then cut with a wool pad, rotary buffer and 3M Super Duty Rubbing Compound. And that's it.


I'm going to remove the holograms, some look deep. This is for a new project, probably won't share a write-up but will share how long it took me.

[adamgayton81]

I'm a little slower than most so I would give myself about 16 hours.

Without looking closer at the paint I would start by using my Rupes 21 with Rupes green pad and Rupes Quartz Gloss.

Next Rupes yellow pad with Rupes Keramic polish.

Last the Rupes White pad with Menzerna Jescar Power Lock.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RSW]

OK.

I would start with the Hitachi SP18VA rotary and use, depending on the result I got, Jescar heavy cut or Menzerna 400 or Wizards Mystic Cut with either the foamed wool pad from Lake Country or the Twisted wool pad depending on how deep the scratches on the paint are and how much correction is available. I'd do everything I could reach with pad then I'd hand polish using one of those products and Webril wipes to get the areas I couldn't get with the machine. That's not very much. I don't leave a lot of dust, but I'd dust the car.

From there, I'd use the Makita PO5000C and the new Lake Country orange pad and I'd try the Jescar micro finishing by itself and if it cut the swirls I'd just continue with that. If it didn't get them fast enough, I'd try again with one of my starting polishes. If the orange pad was too aggressive I'd switch to white.

In order to get the best finish possible with the Makita and foam pad, I'd run the product on each section until the shine really came through then, I'd wipe off the residue, and run over the section again with just the worn out polish on my pad - as long as I'm leaving a haze, I'm not marring so, good to go. I'd wipe that off to check with my headlight and if it was working up to par, that's the last time I'd wipe that second pass off.

Once I know the finish is right, by taking the last pass of residue off, and checking I'd go ahead and go over the whole car. Polish, wipe, polish move on. Then, I'd use Power Lock on a grout sponge to seal the car. Of course, if I were going to use one of the other sealers, I'd have to clean the surface with something first, but I've found that power lock will take the residue off nicely and because it coats whatever is on the paint as it removes it, the gloss is better than if I wipe clean first then power lock. I'd leave it on the car while I did everything else then take it off at the very end. The longer I leave that on the car the better it comes off - I put it on really thin anyway.

Assuming I got a really good nights sleep the night before and coffee and food was available I'd guess from experience somewhere around 6 - 7 hours then an hour cleaning jams, windows etc. It might be less depending on the paint and it could be more depending on what level the car had to be at the end. A show car needs a lot more work in areas no one cares about or sees outside the show. It's also stupidly time consuming.

Ed Terwilliger has seen my work and seen me work.

RSW

[rlmccarty2000]

About 17 hours. Start with Meg's d300 on a microfiber cutting pad, then go to Rupes yellow on a yellow Rupes pad (or maybe 3500). Then finish with Wolfgang Sealant. It's a big car.

[RSW]

Mike

Solvent wipe to start might not be the worst idea.

RSW

[Mike Phillips]

Ed Terwilliger has seen my work and seen me work.

RSW

Ed is a good friend, a long-time friend and a great guy.

To be honest guys, I think I'm going be knocking this out a lot faster than most of you....

I'll time-stamp it.