First off , Thanks to everyone here for putting out tons of useful info and thanks to Autogeek , admins etc for the forum.
Tools and material :
All brand new to me thru my first order with Autogeek.
Meg. 105 - not used , could/should have though.
Meg. 205
3M - Imperial hand glaze
Collinite - 845 insulator wax
Griots Garage 6" orbital polisher
a bunch of various Lake country pads
the task - 2001 F250 Super Duty Diesel 4X4 , 190,000 on the clock , getting rusty around the edges.
This beast has been driven to a steel mill , powerhouse or refinery everyday for the past several years. The amount of crap that gets on your paint in a steel mill can only be experienced , adjectives and cuss words will never properly convey what happpens to a vehicle out there.
1. wash - strong dish soap solution
2. clay - tons of "yuck" in the clay
by the way , I bought a "clay holder pad" ... save your money , it works just fine , but I didn't see the need for it , even on paint this contaminated. I coud do it faster by hand, mainly because the clay would get dirty so fast causing it to get hot and stick to the pad like nobodys business, no matter how much spray used. Easier to just fold and rub as usual.
Still tons of etching etc in the paint at this point.
3. Griots buffer w/ orange pad & 205
Huge props to Griots for the machine , takes about five minutes or less to master it and it does such a beautiful job , obviously the 205 and pad get some of the credit. I used the machine as described in the polishing video on this site and the instant I wiped off the compound I knew I had "driven it outta the park". The paint was just clean .... clean and smooth .... and clean.
Did I mention how clean the paint was now !! ??
4. 3m hand glaze
5. Collinite - applied with machine w/ red pad , in a very thin coat as suggested by this site.
The coolest thing of the day .. I taped of a square section of the hood after I was done with the roof , just to have a clear cut line of before and after to show the wife. She spotted it easily after I was done. I had the square that was 205'd & glazed , and dead in the center in a circle just bigger than the pad , I ran the red pad that had 845 remnants on it. I was shocked at how much deeper the wax made the paint even after the glaze. Being an electrician and using "insulator wax" on my car is just too cool.
I have only done the cab thus far , the bed will move along MUCH MUCH faster since I don't need a ladder for it , like I do for the roof and hood.
I am simply amazed at how smooth and clean the paint feels now. Even the wife (Mrs. NON mechanical , non garage , etc) was impressed at how the paint looked AND felt after I urged her to go ahead and run her hand along it (then urged her to feel along the raw bed side for a comparo , more impressiveness ).
Too her credit , she has a strong German heritage and told me I should've sprung for the FLEX (made in Germany). Honestly , for the weekend warrior like me and so many others , the Griots is just fine. If it will run through the junk I had it through today .. it's a trooper.
I took a few pics , not dl'd into the computer yet.
The truck , note the difference between the bed (only washed and clayed) and cab (pretty much finished) so far. I think I pulled the wax off too soon , it left an oily sheen behind that looks like swirls/hazing , scared the hell out of me until I realized what it was. I've done it before.
Ther are a few deeper marks in the clear that I did not get out , but that really wasn't the point of this exercise , thats where the 105 probably should have been used first.
I know what your thinking , why all the effort in this rust bucket.
1: practice
2: Will be selling/tradeing in for a newer replacement vehicle , which I do not intend to let get this nasty , thus , the needed practice. Not to mention , having whats left of the sheetmetal be nice and shiny can't hurt.
Regardless , i am impressed what can be done to damaged paint , even by a green Noob like me.
The rest : Note the oily swirls , oddly the paint looks great up close , then the swirls appear when you get far enough away ... backwards from what I'm used to.
I'd imagine a quick detailer or some thing may remove them ... or maybe I should not have glazed ...
I need to note that in the top picture of the truck bed and cab , not all of the mess is IN the paint , a lot of it is ON the paint.
The truck was pretty decent until a few months ago , then I got into something at work that stuck to it , then I tried to remove the stuff using some of Zainos AIO. It just moved the stuff around into 40 acres of psychedelic swirl pattern.
I guess this is an interesting vehicle to learn how to run a machine on ... acres of paint to work with.
truck looks alot better for sure! glad the products are working out for you! great job on first attempt!..but one suggestion is you should really get some iron x i bet everything would be blood red using it being as it was a truck in a steel mill!...now you need to get the wheel wells cleaned up and those wheels polished!
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Honestly , for the weekend warrior like me and so many others , the Griots is just fine. If it will run through the junk I had it through today .. it's a trooper.
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