1966 Corvette Stingray - Machine Polish & Machine Wax

[Mike Phillips]

1966 Corvette Stingray - Machine Polish & Machine Wax


On August 18th and 19th, Matt Steele and I made a series of now how-to videos and for these new videos I rounded up some cool cars to work on.

Video Shoot with Matt Steele at Autogeek’s Show Car Garage TV Studio


All the cars needed work, either swirls removed, bird dropping etchings removed, etc. One of the cars belongs to my good friend Craig Danzig and upon close inspection I found a lot of Random Isolated Deeper Scratches plus the normal swirls and scratches common to so many cars. Craig let me know that many of the scratches are caused by their pet cat and please no cat remedies as Craig let me know the cat is an important member of their family. (So no cat posts or I'll delete them).

But this isn't a "car", it's a 1966 Corvette Stingray that was a "Barn Find" and then restored to it's almost pristine condition it's in today. We also shared the story behind this Corvette on our TV show, What's in the Garage?, which we'll be shooting Season 2 starting in January.

Episode 5 - Stuart, Florida - Corvette Barn Story in this Episode




All of the cars arrived either Wednesday night or Thursday morning which was perfect for all the claying, swirl removal and machine waxing steps we needed to shoot in the videos. This also means there was no time to finish buffing out the cars on Thursday and Friday. If you've ever been involved with making a video you can understand how long it can take to prepare and shoot individual segments.

The 2011 Camaro we used is coming back in the next week or so, it belongs to my friend Rene and I'm going to provide some personal, one-on-one training for him and the President of the local Camaro club they belong to, so you'll see it in a future write-up. (Bird dropping etchings).

The 2003 Corvette I machine waxed, the 2007 Mustang I removed the swirls and machine waxed, but this 1966 Corvette need a little more TLC so I saved it for Saturday.

I wrote an article about starting a detailing business, the focus on the article is about teaching people new to detailing as a part time venture to learn right at the start to match their services to their customer, here's the article,

A few tips on starting a part-time detailing business


Following my own advice and knowing this really cool car is going back to the same parking space in Craig's garage that the cat has access to I didn't try to remove all the deeper swirls and scratches because it's highly likely that it's going to see a few more into the future.

What I did do is remove a majority of all the shallow swirls and scratches and then polish the clearcoat till it's was clear and glossy and then I machine waxed it using Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax.

I arrived at work at 8:00am and only had till 4:00pm to do the entire job so I kept my process simple but effective.


Process
Wiped car down the day before using DP Waterless Wash & Gloss but gave it another wipe to remove any accumulated dust.

Note: Unless the owner tells you it's okay to wash their car with water it's a good practice not to wash classics like this with water because you'll introduce water to places you cannot reach to dry and this can promote the formation of rust.

Step 1 - Remove Swirls using Pinnacle Advanced Swirl Remover

Step 2 - Polished the paint to a clear, high gloss using Pinnacle Advanced Finishing Polish

Step 3 - Machine applied Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax

Step 4 - Cleaned, conditioned and protected leather and vinyl using Pinnacle Leather Cleaner & Conditioner

All machine steps performed using a PC 7424XP with 5.5" Lake Country Flat Pads, (Orange, White and Blue)



Here's some pictures from this detailing project...

Before


















After

















Interior
Note this car was restored and very low mileage since the restoration so the interior is still in excellent condition but you can see where the Pinnacle Leather Cleaner & Conditioner restored the richness of color to the black leather and vinyl surfaces.












Parting shots...



And late Saturday afternoon Craig takes his baby home before the rain starts...




Also just to add... the engine doesn't sound stock... don't know if Craig hot-rodded it a little or not or that's just how a 1966 Chevy Corvette engine sounds but one thing for sure.... it sounds as good as it looks...

[BobbyG]

What a gorgeous vintage Stingray Mike!! Some of the scratches looked deep, did they all come out or were the deeper ones only partially removed?

[Mike Phillips]

Everything I used on the 1966 Corvette can be found here,

PinnacleWax.com


Surface Prep - Pinnacle Paintwork Cleansing Lotion, Advanced Swirl Remover and Advanced Finishing Polish



Pinnacle Signature Series II, Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax and Pinnacle Liquid Souveran




Porter Cable 7424XP



Lake Country 5.5" Flat Pads

[Mike Phillips]

What a gorgeous vintage Stingray Mike!! Some of the scratches looked deep, did they all come out or were the deeper ones only partially removed?

One thing I've been typing in answers to other people's questions for years goes like this,

Sometimes it's better to only try to improve deeper scratches and
learn to live with them than to try to remove the scratches 100%

Because this car is going back to the family garage with the family cat, it would be a disservice to the paint, the car and the owner to remove so much paint to remove 100% of the deeper scratches only to be scratched-up again.

In keeping with the match your services to your customer philosophy, I didn't remove all the deeper scratches. If the cat goes away someday, then it might be a good candidate for a more complete scratch removal process but until then my opinion was that it wasn't a good idea to remove as much paint as would be necessary to remove all of the deeper scratches.

Make sense?


I know a lot of detailers have a knee-jerk reaction to do "their" best on every car they work on but that's where my article on matching your services to your customer comes into play... when working for someone else, it's not always about you and what you can do... it's about your customer and what's best for them and their car.

Match your services to your customer


One thing for sure, before I buffed the car out you didn't have to look hard to see the swirls and scratches. After the buff-out, because the paint is now so dark and clear, you can't see what's left unless you purposefully look and most people don't do that, just us detailer types...


Good question Bobby...

[Mike Phillips]

All the techniques I used to remove the swirls and scratches and then restore a deep, wet shine to the clearcoat finish on this classic Corvette are taught in our Detailing 101 Class.

Do you want to attend a Detailing Class?
If you want to be notified when the next Detailing 101 and 102 classes are scheduled, then please send me an e-mail, (not a Private Message), with the subject:

Class Request

to Mike.Phillips@Autogeek.net

[BobbyG]

Yes, it makes 100% sense!

Sometimes the way I explain scratches to people begins with a cross section of a scratch at high magnification.

Scratches initially have sharp features. Part of my goal is to blend or round these features so that they reflect less light or become softer or smoother. While they may not be entirely removed the defect has been "improved" greatly.

Adding a gorgeous carnauba wax like Pinnacle Souveran further fills making these almost transparent..

[Mike Phillips]

Scratches initially have sharp features. Part of my goal is to blend or round these features so that they reflect less light or become softer or smoother. While they may not be entirely removed the defect has been "improved" greatly.

Adding a gorgeous Carnauba wax like Pinnacle Souveran further fills making these almost transparent..

Bingo! You can't always remove but you can usually improve...


I also found two edges that had been burned-through by the person or people that have buffed this car out before me so the last thing I want to do is leave my signature...

Your Signature - Don't leave one...

[Flash Gordon]

Great looking Vette. Nice job Mike. I would get that cat declawed

[embolism]

Mike, how do you polish the paint inside the emblem letters?

Hopefully, the paint being somewhat inaccessible also means it doesn't require much correction but seems a shame to have everything super shiney from the machine polishing except areas like this where the machine can't get to.

Short of removing the emblem, then replacing it, what can we do except clean as best as possible with some qtips then use a spraywax that dries clear?

[Mike Phillips]

Mike, how do you polish the paint inside the emblem letters?

Hopefully, the paint being somewhat inaccessible also means it doesn't require much correction but seems a shame to have everything super shiny from the machine polishing except areas like this where the machine can't get to.

The emblems on this car had a lot of dried wax in and around them, this was a sign to me that whoever did any previous work was on the sloppy side.

Short of removing the emblem, then replacing it, what can we do except clean as best as possible with some qtips then use a spraywax that dries clear?

I told the owner that in order to do the job right we would need to remove the emblems and he didn't want to get into this type of a project at this time.

I rubbed the paint out by hand surrounding the emblems or script because I can exert more force with a few fingers to an applicator pad. Then re-polished the areas by machine letting a foam pad with equal pressure over the entire face of the pad remove any marring I instilled by rubbing hard by hand. It takes more time but does a pretty good job. Inside the lettering I simply rubbed a little with a microfiber and polish and then scrunched-up some microfiber and forced it into the lettering and rubbed the polish out. This was some down and dirty detailing because the right way is to remove the script.

I did look at removing the emblems myself but the one of the hood was hard to get to and more often than not on classic cars like these the emblems are made from pot metal and use speed nuts and one or the other breaks when you try to remove them.

That's why I like the owners to do it for me or be there to help so they can see what's involved. If it's really easy then I just go for it.

I removed the V and the Cadillac emblem on this car after the class and buffed all the paint out using a rotary buffer and then put the script back on and that's the best way to do it. Both of these emblems on the hood and trunk lid were easy to get to as compared to the Corvette.


Pictures & Comments from July 9th, 2011 Saturday Detailing 101




I took extensive before and after pictures for the emblem removal process but like so many projects it's time consuming to sort through the photos, rename them crop them, resize them, upload and then insert them and add words and I always have other projects on my plate. I can try, but not sure when I can get to it...


Good questions... tough problem on some cars...