Flex 3401 Detailing Classes - Show Car Detailing and Production Detailing
Flex 3401 Detailing Classes - Show Car Detailing and Production Detailing
How to use the Flex 3401 for Show Car Detailing
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1965 Plymouth Belvedere II Muscle Car
Next up in this class was learning how to do a multiple-step process or what's called Show Car Detailing to a real muscle car a 1965 Plymouth Belvedere II with a radical engine in it and a paint job that looks like it was washed with a Garden Rake!
Here she is early Saturday morning parked next to the other cars for this detailing class. In the shade the paint looks pretty good....
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Special Interest Vehicles
One of the reasons I like to bring in cool cars for our classes is to make the class both fun and memorable but also because muscle cars from the 1960's and 1970's tend to be very large compared to modern transportation cars so there's PLENTY of room for everyone to get lots of hands-on time working on the car.
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Later in the day, when the sun came out I took these pictures....
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Horrendous swirls
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Wet Sanding Scratches
This is a close-up taken out of the picture above. What you see here is hazing looking paint but what it really is are WET SANDING SCRATCHES that were not removed by the other guy that sanded and buffed this paint job.
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Here's the other side of the hood....
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Our Detailing Classes are fun!
Here's Nick backing the Plymouth into the Show Car Garage. Nick and I have a lot of fun driving these hotrods, kustoms and classics at our detailing classes.
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Swirled-out Mess!
Now with the car inside the garage under the florescent lights, you can see the paint is nothing but a hazy, swirled out mess!
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And as you can imagine, the entire car looks like the above pictures.
:)
Re: Flex 3401 Detailing Classes - Show Car Detailing and Production Detailing
A glossy finish starts with a smooth surface
When trying to create a true show car finish that has that deep, wet shine we all love, it starts with removing any and all above surface bonded contaminants to create a smooth surface before machine polishing.
A common question on this topic goes like this,
Won't machine compounding remove contaminants?
The answer is,
Compounding will remove "some" contaminants but anytime you're using a foam pad because the foam has a uniform surface texture it will tend to glide over contaminants not kick them off.
Now a wool pad on a rotary buffer will tend to remove contaminants because it's the most aggressive buffing procedure there is and the fibers of a wool pad spinning in a circle on the paint is very aggressive especially when you add an abrasive compound.
But when the plan is to use foam pad then it's a good practice to mechanically remove contaminants before you do any buffing.
After using Detailer's Waterless Car Wash to wash this muscle car, the next order of business is to inspect the paint.
The Baggie Test
Here's Axel and Rick feeling the paint on this 1965 Plymouth Belvedere II using the Baggie Test. Not only is the paint filled with millions of swirls, scratches and sanding marks it's also heavily contaminated.
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When doing the baggie test you start by feeling the paint with your clean, bare hand. For most cars, paint will often feel smooth to the touch when using only your skin to inspect the paint.
Next, place a clean, sandwich baggie over your hand and feel the same area of paint you previously felt and in most cases the paint is going to feel rough, like it has little bumps all over it. These bumps you feel are contaminants that are BONDED to the paint as though they are glued to the paint. Normal washing, rinseless washing and waterless washing won't remove these contaminants, you need to do something mechanically to convince them to leave.
Nanoskin Autoscrub Pads
Nanoskin offers their unique products in various forms including,
Nanoskin Autoscrub Pads - for use by machine
Nanoskin Autoscrub Towels - for use by hand
Nanoskin Autoscrub Wash Mitts - for use by hand
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This is a cropped out section from the above with no resizing...
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Fine and Medium Grade Pads
The blue foam indicates the fine grade while the yellow foam indicates the medium grade Nanoskin Autoscrub Pads.
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So next up the class is going to use Nanoskin products including the Nanoskin Autoscrub Pads on the Flex 3401.
:)
Re: Flex 3401 Detailing Classes - Show Car Detailing and Production Detailing
Decontaminating Beast!
First a demonstration on how to correctly use the Nanoskin Autoscrub pad with a Flex 3401 Forced Rotation Forced Oscillation Dual Action Polisher.
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Then the class takes over the process... here's Kevin with a Porter Cable mechanically decontaminating the hood.
In front of him is Willy using the Nanoskin Towel.
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Here's Dave using the Flex 3401 with a Fine Grade Nanoskin Pad on the roof. Dave is alumni having previously attended on of our Detailing Boot Camp Classes back in May of 2014
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Here's Chris from Flex Power Tools helping out on the back of the car....
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:)
Re: Flex 3401 Detailing Classes - Show Car Detailing and Production Detailing
How to remove swirls and scratches with the Flex XC 3401
After decontaminating the paint, (that's removing defects on top of the paint), the next step is to remove the defects below the surface, this would be the swirls, scratches and sanding marks.
First a demonstration on how to use the Flex 3401 for heavy correction work with Wolfgang Uber Compound and Lake Country Orange Hybrid Cutting Pads.
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Here's Sam working the swirls and scratches out of the trunk lid...
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Here's Dave and Richard on the hood....
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On the right is Craig and Chris on the hood....
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Here's Ron and Will working on the trunk lid....
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Justin is on the right in the picture below....
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Re: Flex 3401 Detailing Classes - Show Car Detailing and Production Detailing
Machine Polishing with the Flex XC 3401
After the compounding step everyone switches over to the Black Hybrid Pads with the Wolfgang Finishing Glaze and re-polishes every inch of paint.
Here's Willy....
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That's Adam working on the passenger side with Willy up in front of him...
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:xyxthumbs:
Re: Flex 3401 Detailing Classes - Show Car Detailing and Production Detailing
Machine Waxing
After the polishing step we switched over the fresh, clean Black Hybrid pads and machine apply the Blackfire BlackICE Hybrid Montan Sealant Wax.
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Pulling cords
After each project car to keep things orderly we pull all the extension cords and set them on the floor next to were they are plugged in so they are not a trip hazard. This gives the wax or sealant time to dry.
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Re: Flex 3401 Detailing Classes - Show Car Detailing and Production Detailing
How to safely and correctly remove a Hybrid Paste Wax
Next the class inspects their microfiber towels and then puts on their microfiber gloves and using the technique they learned when working on the first car of the day carefully removed all the Blackfire BlackICE Hybrid Montan Sealant Wax
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Class Shot
Here's the class right after wiping the sealant off the Plymought....
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Sun Shots!
Then we moved the car outside and took a few sun shots while we still had sunshine!
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:dblthumb2:
Re: Flex 3401 Detailing Classes - Show Car Detailing and Production Detailing
And here are the beauty shots....
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Reflection Shot of the back wall
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This is the same picture as above only I've flipped it vertically...
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Orange Peel
Because of the amount of orange peel in the paint that you can easily see now that we've restored clarity to the clear coat I'm going to guess the guy that was paid to wetsand this car after it was painted only sanded the horizontal surfaces...
The owner trusted me to use this for my wet sanding training car but I didn't feel comfortable re-doing someone else's hack work on the horizontal surfaces so we just went with swirl and scratch removal for this car in this class. Perhaps we'll have this car back for a future project as it could really use some help below the trim line running down the center of the vertical panels.
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Nice work class!
:dblthumb2: :dblthumb2: :dblthumb2:
Re: Flex 3401 Detailing Classes - Show Car Detailing and Production Detailing
Looks sharp! I sure like old Mopar.
Re: Flex 3401 Detailing Classes - Show Car Detailing and Production Detailing
Awesome job all around. Paint looks brand new. Love that car, especially in black.