Step-by-Step How-To Article using Pinnacle Products with the new PC 7424XP

[2003 GMC Denali]

Hi Mike... Dean here, asking you some Newbie questions.

1) It appears to me, that in a couple of your Pictures, you are Claying the Windshield and the Sunroof. Can you tell me why you would use Clay here and not some other Miracle-Cleaner of some sort ? Were there tough Water Spots on the Glass you were trying to get off ?

2) Can one over-Clay Glass so much and produce a haze on the Glass, if not done properly ? Is this something a Newbie should stay away from ?

3) You made reference to not worrying about the bigger Paint Problems as this particular Car is a daily driver... how would a Newbie know how many times he or she can do "Paint Correction" without having one of those "Paint Gauges" ?

4) Winter in Canada is not kind to Black Paint, so if I wanted to do this kind of Job, once in the Spring, would that be sufficient for the Year ? You only do a Detail like this to a Car no more than once a Year, right ?

5) I've been told that GM Clear-Coat is very hard and can take a lot of work done to it, but how would one know that they've reached the limits of the Paint Correction they can do ? Would that be when the Pad turns the Color as the Paint ? (duh, probably)

6) With the new Griot Dual Orbital, and the Meg 105/205 combo I bought, would I have lots of life in my Clear-Coat to do many Details like this one of yours ?

7) I own a Black 2003 GMC Sierra Denali AWD with QuadraSteer and the rear Fenders are made of Plastic instead of Metal. I feel the Paint on the both halves of the Truck are probably the same, but do you know of any special considerations for Paint over Plastic ?

I'd like to see more details be done on a Truck. I know that the steps involved would not differ that much, but I appreciated the "stance and position tips" you offered in this thread.

When I get my huge shipment of supplies I just ordered... I'd like to be one of the few "Before and After" Truck Detail threads on AG.

Thanks for your help in advance... and welcome to AUTOGEEK !

[Mike Phillips]

Hi Mike... Dean here, asking you some Newbie questions.

1) It appears to me, that in a couple of your Pictures, you are Claying the Windshield and the Sunroof. Can you tell me why you would use Clay here and not some other Miracle-Cleaner of some sort ? Were there tough Water Spots on the Glass you were trying to get off ?

While the clay is out and in my hand... if it needs to be clayed it gets clayed, that includes the glass. This was a write-up for primarily the paint on this car and as such clay was out and availalbe to use, so I used it.

Claying removes 'some' of the the water spots on the glass but not all of them so in a perfect world I would have polished the glass but we ran out of time so the car left without having the class polished.

I am working on a write-up for polishing glass however and whenever that car comes back if there's time I would gladly polish the glass, mostly it was a time issue as machine cleaning and polishing paint takes the largest chunk of time in any complete buff-out of a car's paint.

2) Can one over-Clay Glass so much and produce a haze on the Glass, if not done properly ? Is this something a Newbie should stay away from ?

I've never seen glass scratched via claying. If it did happen my guess would be that it wouldn't be the fault of the clay, it would be some kind of contaminant lodged in the clay and again, as long as you're working clean and paying attention to the task at hand it shouldn't be a problem.

You can clay ANYTHING that's smooth, paint, glass, plastic, chrome, stainless steel, etc. It might not everything that needs to be done to the surface you're working on but it's a good first start to remove anything sitting on top of the surface. Afterwards, if the surface needs more steps you can certainly do them. For example the glass issue you brought up above.

3) You made reference to not worrying about the bigger Paint Problems as this particular Car is a daily driver... how would a Newbie know how many times he or she can do "Paint Correction" without having one of those "Paint Gauges" ?

I mentioned not worrying about getting each and every deeper defect out of the paint and that is a good rule of thumb for a daily driver.

As for how many times can you do serious correction without measuring?

Hard to say, remember a Paint Thickness Gage is just an indicator as it measures the total film build, not just the thickness of the clear. The idea is to remove the defects and then take care of the car in a way that you don't continue to instill swirls and scratches into the paint causing you to have to remove them again.

If the car is a daily driver and parked outside where water spots are an issue then there's not much you can do about this that's where you alter your goal to be realistic. I used this car for a number of different reasons, one of which was because it was available, other's include because it was black and had defects.

In the real world if I were doing this car for money I would have matched my services to the customer and found out how the car is used and where it's parked each day and night. If I found out the car was going to be parked outside at College all the time and likely run through a car wash on weekends, I would have either turned the job down because I normally don't buff out daily drivers or educated the customer that what they want is a wash, clay and cleaner/wax and call it good because it's just going to go down hill with time due to how it's used and where it's parked.

Make sense?

4) Winter in Canada is not kind to Black Paint, so if I wanted to do this kind of Job, once in the Spring, would that be sufficient for the Year ? You only do a Detail like this to a Car no more than once a Year, right ?

Is the car parked inside part of each day or is it always parked outside?
is it run through a car wash or is it always carefully hand washed?

Match what you do to what the car is and how it's used and stored when not in use. Black is a hard color to keep showroom new if the car or in this case the truck is a daily driver parked outside all or most of the time.

Silver or white would be a better color. Just using a good quality cleaner/wax for a daily driver is also an option. We bought a black Honda Pilot and the first two years I was pretty good about keeping it looking brand new all the time, after about two years reality set in and it's a grocery getter, daily driver that's lucky in that it is parked inside all the time it's not in use. I would never buy another black daily driver because for me it's not worth the time to do all the work it takes to keep it looking great. Now if it were a toy, as in a Vette, or a viper, or a Street Rod, or anything "Special Interest" well then I could personally justify it but not a rig that's used to go to Costco and back or haul kids to the football game.

5) I've been told that GM Clear-Coat is very hard and can take a lot of work done to it, but how would one know that they've reached the limits of the Paint Correction they can do ? Would that be when the Pad turns the Color as the Paint ? (duh, probably)

I try not to make generalizations about whether a specific manufacture or even model by a manufactures has hard of soft paint and instead wait till I do some testing to find out. That said, every modern Corvette I've ever worked on had very hard clear on it.

There's a real good story I documented on this topic here as I was the one that did all the sanding and buffing on both cars. The were the same make and model but one year apart and completely different paints as far as hardness or softness.

This article is going to show you that two cars, from the same car manufacture, one year apart have totally different factory paints as far as hardness and softness goes.

Paint Workability - The Hardness or Softness of your car's paint

"You don't how hard or soft your paint is until you go out into your garage and work on your car"

I wrote the above article because of all the confusion on all the different forums about the hardness or softness of paint and because it was the perfect opportunity to write such and article having two cars, same assembly line, 1 year apart, different results in paint.

If I get such an opportunity here in Florida then I'll duplicate that article here on AG

There's always a chance because we'll be starting similar classes here in Florida.

6) With the new Griot Dual Orbital, and the Meg 105/205 combo I bought, would I have lots of life in my Clear-Coat to do many Details like this one of yours ?

Again, the goal is to take care of the paint after you've buffed it out so you don't have to do the M105 step often. If you do the M105 step often then maybe it's time to look at where the below surface defects are coming from and try to pro-actively stop the problem at the root cause or re-evaluate your goals for the finish on your truck.

Fact is most people struggle getting all the swirls out of their car's finish, another way of saying this is most people can't remove enough paint to get the job done. When this is the case, then removing too much paint is the least of your worries. You're worries are about removing enough paint to remove the defects to your satisfaction.


[quote=2003 GMC Denali;250664]

7) I own a Black 2003 GMC Sierra Denali AWD with QuadraSteer and the rear Fenders are made of Plastic instead of Metal. I feel the Paint on the both halves of the Truck are probably the same, but do you know of any special considerations for Paint over Plastic ?
[/guote]

At the factory level I don't know how they deal with painting different substrates, maybe someone can do some research on this topic.

Usually plastic doesn't dissipate heat as fast as a metal panel so if you're ever using a rotary buffer than be extra careful. Otherwise with a dual action polisher treat all the paint the same, that is,

"Use the least aggressive product to get the job done"

I'd like to see more details be done on a Truck. I know that the steps involved would not differ that much, but I appreciated the "stance and position tips" you offered in this thread.

We can try, the criteria is usually the paint has to be black and in bad shape, so we'll keep our eyes open for a large truck like yours that's black and in bad shape.

When I get my huge shipment of supplies I just ordered... I'd like to be one of the few "Before and After" Truck Detail threads on AG.

Thanks for your help in advance... and welcome to AUTOGEEK !

Hope I answered your questions to your satisfaction, if not let me now and I'll take another stab at it or call my cell phone in my Sig Line on Monday.

[2003 GMC Denali]

Thanks for answering all my questions on a Sunday.

I wished I lived closer. I'd donate my Truck to you. My Truck is parked in a Garage, however it still see's the wrath of what Winter can dish out.

Here are some pictures of how dirty it can be. Please have your Heart Defibrillator handy.

[TopNotch]

Great info here Mike. You did a great job really noting all the information for a novice user but also for a pro to see to learn a new trick here and there.

Can't wait to see more of these types of posts.

[r0ckstrWS6]

lots of great info Mike, one question though, forgive me if you've already mentioned it. how many hours did it take you? I'm guessing around 8??

[dickwitham]

Awesome work! This just goes to show that with proper prep and attention to detail your results will be spectacular! Again, beautiful work Mike!

[RaskyR1]

I can't believe I didn't see this thread until now!


Nice to see they are putting you to work over there Mike. hehehe


I bet you feel a lot like a kid in a candy store with all those products to choose from!



This was a VERY detailed write up Mike, well done sir! Although I just scanned over most of the reading I did happen to catch one minor typo. On your first test spot you called out an orange pad when you meant to type white.


Take care,
Rasky

[Mike Phillips]

lots of great info Mike, one question though, forgive me if you've already mentioned it. how many hours did it take you? I'm guessing around 8??

Started at 7:00am and finished the car at 6:00pm with the final wipe and then pulled the car out into the sun for some photos.

I don't remember stopping for lunch and only a few minutes here and there to drink some liquids. Anytime you do a detail like this where you're taking pictures it takes longer than normal even if you have someone else there taking the photos. Since I knew ahead of time the car had to be done at 6:00 we really hustled. The longest step was the first cleaning step as you just can't move the polisher fast over the paint as it won't do much to remove the defects.

Personally I don't like to rush this fast for any detail work and when possible will avoid it at all costs, but in this case it had to be done at 6:00pm. I did have help with wiping panels off from Yancy, (the photographer), but I did do all the buffing. Historically, most my details no matter which tool I use, take 12 to 14 hours with no breaks and that's paint only. Wet-sanding projects are 2, 3, 4 days, but just buffing out a paint job is almost always 12 to 14 hours. One thing you'll never find that I've posted on any forum is that I'm fast.

I didn't do any interior work as there just wasn't time to put the buffer down and start working on the interior. I would have polished out the glass had there been time but didn't get to it either.

I'm working right now on a write up on working by hand as compared to working by machine and I think most people will find this interesting, that is how long it took me to just hand-rub out one half of the hood of a late model Lincoln. This car is getting just a cleaner/wax on the sides and roof as it sees brush car washes so no need working out all the swirls, this project is just to do a time comparison. Working on the pictures right now and will post a few tonight.


Lincoln - Hand vs Machine Time Comparison

[Mike Phillips]

One thing that also helped a lot and that was the extra power from the new PC 7424XP

The thing that will usually slow a person down the most when using a tool with a clutch is lack of pad rotation. And this is key, as long as I held the pad flat to the surface the pad rotated with now problem. It wasn't too bad on curves either but with body lines the extra pressure to one small area on the pad will slow the rotation down and can even stop it so that's where the smaller pads really help out.

Nice tool.

[Mike Phillips]

I can't believe I didn't see this thread until now!

There's going to be some tweaks to the forum to help with future projects.

Nice to see they are putting you to work over there Mike. hehehe

This company is a well oiled machine and everyone his is super cool and fun to work with plus we can wear shorts and tennis shoes to work, just like most of you would wear on a Saturday if you were out in your garage detailing your car.

Pretty cool.

I bet you feel a lot like a kid in a candy store with all those products to choose from!

That is the most accurate description to describe how it feels to work here. Plus, if I have any ideas for new products or tools, there's an open door policy that encourages everyone's input. That's also very cool.

This was a VERY detailed write up Mike, well done sir! Although I just scanned over most of the reading I did happen to catch one minor typo. On your first test spot you called out an orange pad when you meant to type white.


Take care,
Rasky

Thanks, I'll fix it. Just another case of thinking too fast and typing too slow...