Paint Correction - George Harrison's 1966 Ferrari 275 GTS - Pinnacle Jeweling Wax & Souveran Paste Wax

[Mike Phillips]

Paint Correction - George Harrison's 1966 Ferrari 275 GTS - Pinnacle Jeweling Wax & Souveran Paste Wax



George Harrison's 1966 Ferrari 275 GTS




This was a unique detailing project. This car has the ORIGINAL single stage black paint. It has been detailed by others before me over the last 55 years. I have know idea what others have used and thus how much paint they have removed. For all I know the paint on this car is Whisper Thin. One thing for sure, I will approach this car as though the paint is Whisper Thin.



First things first.... I need to get this car clean.


The car washing dilemma

One of the things I teach and practice is the Professional Detailer's Oath, which is similar to the physician's oath and that is,

First do no harm when detailing a car


Now allow me to explain what this has to do with washing a car, or at least washing a car in the normal sense most people think of in their brain. Washing a car for most people means getting a water hose, a water sprayer, a bucket, some car wash soap and a wash mitt. Agree?

The above is perfectly okay-dokey for a new or modern car. When it comes to classics, or more specifically, when it comes to OTHER PEOPLE'S CLASSICS - As a professional courtesy to the current owner and future owners, I don't introduce running water to cars where rust can be an issue. I just don't do it. You can do it. Not me. I already know the most expensive part of restoring a car is cutting out rusted body panels, replacing removed portions with new replacement sheet metal and then rust-proofing everything. So as a professional courtesy to the owners of fine automobiles I don't wash them with the traditional hose and bucket method and I teach this in all my car detailing classes for upcoming professional detailers to emulate if they so choose.


So how do you get a car clean without using the traditional hose and bucket method?

Good question and there are a number of ways to do this but for the last few years my preferred method is to use the "Waterless Wash" approach using SONAX Glass Cleaner as my waterless wash of choice.


PREP WASH ONLY

I've seen some confusion over this topic so let me clear it up. I only use SONAX Glass Cleaner when doing a PREP WASH - not a maintenance wash.

What's the difference between a Prep Wash and a Maintenance Wash?

Great question. Thank you for asking.

A Prep Wash is for getting a neglected car clean BEFORE you detail it. In this context, the word detail includes paint correction.

A Maintenance Wash if for carefully taking care of a car when being washed AFTER you detail it.

HUGE DIFFERENCE.

I don't use any brand of glass cleaner when doing a maintenance wash. In fact my favorite car wash soap, (for most cars), when doing a maintenance wash is this one.

So to get this car clean before I start detailing it I used SONAX Glass Cleaner and LOOK at the pictures - PLENTY of clean, inspected, uncontaminated microfiber towels. If you're new to detailing, new to this site or new to my how-to articles, then read this.








Measuring Paint Thickness

This is a great example of when to use a Paint Thickness Gauge to inspect a car to find out if the paint is dangerously thin. Being 55 years old as of the date of this write-up, I have know idea how many people have worked on this car? Did they just wax it with Simonize Wax? Or has someone compounded this car with a Caveman compound? I have know way of knowing the past and what was used. So what I do is take some measurements around the car to get an idea of the overall thickness or thinness of the paint.














Paint Thickness Reading Results

Overall, the paint on all the panels measured in the range of 6.0 mils to 10 mils - to me this means most of the original paint is likely STILL on the car. I don't know for sure, but the readings show each body panel is in the same range and that's a sign of uniformity and uniform paint thickness is a good sign.



The Baggie Test

Next I gently performed the Baggie Test. If you don't know, the Baggie Test is a simple test you can do to check and see if the paint needs to be clayed. The thin plastic membrane of a clean plastic baggie, placed over your hand, will increase your sensitivity and enable you to feel above surface bonded contaminants that your normal sense of touch cannot feel. If you feel tiny bumps on the paint this is a sign you need to use detailing clay to clay the paint. If the paint feels smooth with the baggie test - this is a sign the paint is NOT contaminated and you can skip the claying step.






Visual Inspection

After doing the baggie test, next I inspect the paint using a swirl finder light to determine the swirl level in the paint. To be honest, this car wasn't bad at all. The paint condition is not great but I've definitely worked on a a lot worse condition cars in my life.











There were a number of places with marring like you see in the picture below.











Oxidized to the point of turning WHITE

Around the windshield washer squirters the paint has NOT been mechanically polished for years, maybe never. The reason for this is it's a tight little area to get a machine. It could be polished by hand if someone would have taken on this responsibility over the decades - but the swirls and scratches IN the oxidized white paint makes it look like that these two areas have simply been neglected.












I have an Angry Nano that will take care of these two areas. I had to use both hands to control the Nano when working around the windshield washer squirters so no pictures but I did mock-up a picture showing how I used the Nano to remove the swirls in the concave curved area in front of the headlights.

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....


Technique Tip - Cover Cloth Tops

Anytime you're doing paint correction via machine polishing to a car with a CANVAS CLOTH convertible top - please take my recommendation seriously and cover the clot top with some form of covering to prevent any splatter dots from the machine polishing process from landing on the top. It's worth the time and energy. If you don't protect the top and accidentally get splatter dots of compound, polish or wax - you will hate yourself. You will also spend some time carefully getting the splatter dots off the top via a toothbrush.

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....


The Paint Correction Step


One of the things that I've learned over the last 40+ years of detailing cars, is that single stage black paint is one of, if not THE softest paints there are to polish.

Why?

Because the pigment for black paint is Carbon Black, which in an of itself is a SOFT pigment. When you add soft Carbon Black to a soft paint resin - you get a soft paint.

What does this mean? Why are you sharing this info?

Because this means when you go to polish the paint - you're NOT going to need aggressive compounds or aggressive pads.


The Test Spot

I coined the term test spot back in the 1990s, before the Internet. It is now a standard term adopted by and used everywhere throughout the detailing industry. I also practice doing a Test Spot for every car I detail and of course I teach how to correctly do a Test Spot in my car and boat detailing classes.

The results from my test spot to the paint on this car showed me I could safely use a one-step cleaner/wax, technically a jeweling wax because unlike most cleaner/waxes or AIO's, this product uses amazing abrasive technology. The product is Pinnacle Jeweling Wax. The pads I used are RUPES soft foam finishing pads and the tool is the FLEX Supa BEAST with a 6" backing plate to churn and turn the larger 7" pads.


Pinnacle Jeweling Wax, foam finishing pads, the CBEAST and Angry Nano

You also see a couple of yellow foam wax applicators? These were for polishing the paint BEHIND the door handles. I you cannot reach an area by machine then you just have to go old-school and work by hand.







EVERYTHING GETS POLISHED!

Here's the entire outside of the Ferrari covered in Jeweling Wax drying... this includes all the paint, the glass the metal trim and chrome bumpers.

































Even the inside window glass was machine polished...





And the metal trim around the wing windows on the outside AND THE INSIDE.












Here's the results... but there's still another step...

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....


After machine applying the Jeweling Wax, which is a super safe, super careful way of removing swirls and scratches out of soft paint, next I machine applied a finishing wax. A finishing wax, which is also called a Show Car Wax, is a NON-CLEANING or NON-ABRASIVE wax. It's only supposed to be used on paint in perfect condition.

Owner's Go-To Wax

Besides maximizing the gloss and clarity created by the jeweling wax, and also leaving a super slick finish, the Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax is also the wax of choice by the owner for taking care of his car collection. Knowing this, I like to keep my product choices in the family.

I wish all paste waxes came in large, flat tins so that foam pads like the one you see on the FLEX PiXiE aka the FLEX PXE 80 - as this would make it really easy to get wax on the face of the pad. Basically I could place the face of the pad INTO the jar and >blip< the speed trigger on the polisher to get some wax on the pad and then start laying the wax down on the paint. But alas - such is not the case with Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax. It's a great show car wax, it just comes in a tiny jar.








No problemo - I used a clean bondo putty spreader to dig some of the wax out of the jar and then spread it over the face of the pad.








Then using a low speed I machine applied the Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax






Man versus Machine

I could have hand waxed the paint with this topper as I do in fact possess the skills to touch soft black paint without scratching it - but I also have a FLEX PiXiE - so might as well let the tool do all the work. Plus here at Autogeek we don't sell hands... we sell tools.






Here's wax on...

Machine waxing enables you to lay down a uniform layer of wax without any risk of putting Finger Marks into the paint in case you simply don't have a lot of experience detailing cars by hand.










Here's wax off...

























Time to stick a fork in this car, call it done and kick it out the door.

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....


Here's everything I used....









On Autogeek.com


Pinnacle Souveran Jeweling Wax

Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax

FLEX XCE 8-125 18.0 Polisher aka The CBEAST!

FLEX Multi-Polisher 6 inch Backing Plate

RUPES DA White Ultrafine Foam Pad - 7 Inch

RUPES Nano Tools and Accessories

NOTE: I like and use the RUPES Nano Long Neck over the short neck, I like the extra reach. I also for the most part ONLY use it in ROTARY MODE and after using it in rotary mode go back over any area I polished with an orbital polisher or b hand to remove any holograms. If you want to get the tool in this configuration then you can purchase it this way from AG. If you need help - call customer care and CITE THIS THREAD to your Customer Care Rep as this will help them to help you.

Nano Long Neck

RUPES iBrid Rotary Function Unit

RUPES 34 mm Nano Backing Plate - 34mm = 1 1/4"

RUPES 40 mm (1.5 Inch) Foam Pads

Meguiars Plastx Clear Plastic Cleaner & Polish

303 Aerospace Protectant 16 oz

303 Automotive Protectant Wipes

FLEX Cordless FINISHER - Nobody calls it by it's part number but here it is: FLEX XFE15 150 Cordless Orbital Polisher

FLEX PiXiE - part number is FLEX PXE 80 12-EC (no one calls it by the part number)

Tornador Blow Out Gun

Haartz/RaggTopp Convertible Top Brush

RaggTopp Premium Fabric Convertible Top Kit

RaggTopp Premium Vinyl Convertible Top Kit

All RaggTopp products

Leatherique Rejuvenator Oil 16 oz

Leatherique Prestine Clean 16 oz

All Leatherique Leather Care Products

Griot"s Garage PFM Wax Removal Towel - 4-pack


I think I got it all?

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....

And for the other areas of the car, cloth top, plastic window, leather interior, you can find my car detailing how-to articles for these areas here - in the order I did them,

Restore Back Plastic Window - 1966 Ferrari Convertible by Mike Phillips

Review: Restoring an ANCIENT Rag Top with RaggTopp - 1966 Ferrari owned by George Harrison

Detailing the seats in George Harrison's 1966 Ferrari 275 GTS



Here's the band....





Here's the man!





Here's everything I did...






Cleaning and protecting the factory canvas top



Review: Restoring an ANCIENT Rag Top with RaggTopp - 1966 Ferrari owned by George Harrison






Machine polishing the factory flexible plastic back window





Restore Back Plastic Window - 1966 Ferrari Convertible by Mike Phillips





Cleaning and conditioning the factory original leather interior







Detailing the seats in George Harrison's 1966 Ferrari 275 GTS





Comments, questions and feedback always welcome.

Thank you for looking.

[Mike Phillips]

Continued.....


Couple of comments...



Pinnacle Jeweling Wax

I was told by the owner he paid 1.7 million dollars for this piece of Automotive Rock History. That's a lot of jack. The single stage paint was soft. So soft simply doing the baggie test can scratch the paint. There were already thin spots in various places around the car. I documented a few of them here.

I knew I would need to be uber careful but I also knew the only way to bring the paint up to show car status would be to machine polish. Most polishes wipe off a tick sticky and/or difficult. Anytime you're working on soft paint, while you may perfect the paint while machine polishing - the act of wiping off the polish can re-instill marring backing into the paint.

I chose the Pinnacle Jeweling Wax because it uses great abrasive technology plus a traditional Carnauba Wax, which would play well with the topper - Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax. Plus - the owner already owns and uses the Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax. Win/Win/Win.

Besides the great abrasive technology - once the jeweling wax dries - the wax component acts like a dry lubricant - as long as I used super soft, contaminant-free microfiber towels - I would be able to remove the wax without scratching the soft paint. This would be difficult to do using a dedicated polish. So in essence, I used this one-step cleaner/wax AS A POLISH.


Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax

I could have stopped after the jeweling wax step but this isn't just any old car - this is a show car by anyone's standards. It has been displayed at multiple concours events around the United States including the Palm Beach Cavallino Classic - one of the world's best Ferrari events.






While working on this car someone asked me,

Do you ever get nervous working on cars like this?

I said,

Sure! But just stick with the basics. Use great products, clean towels, do a Test Spot, use good technique, etc. These are simply basic foundational protocols that we should all use no matter what we're working on and if we do these things, everything is going to be all right.


As George said, it don't come easy...




But if you work at it, apply yourself and invest enough time into this craft you can do anything.

[Sizzle Chest]

Nicely done, documented and photographed Mike. Looks so much better now and the owner should be even more proud to own and show this! Hopefully he will show it again at this year's Cavallino later in the year!

[Billy Baldone]

Hey Mike, has anyone ever told you, you are pretty good at this detailing thing. You are the standard I strive for. Thanks for sharing

[2black1s]

How many hours invested in creating this thread? I can see from the timestamps 1:35 between the first and last post but how much other time gathering, organizing, sorting, editing all of the info and photos included here?

It wouldn't surprise me if the time taken was actually not all that much different than doing the actual work on the car.

Thanks for the effort.