Competition Ready Episode 7 - Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance - Doc's 1933 Rolls Royce Phantom II

[Mike Phillips]

Competition Ready Episode 7 - Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance - Doc's 1933 Rolls Royce Phantom II


Here's the promo video for episode 7






Besides the size and condition of this classic Rolls Royce, the other challenge was detailing this huge car outside in full sun. Plus we were at the height of the pollen season so we had to continually clean the car in-between steps.

[Mike Phillips]

Here's some screenshots I took from the rough-cut for this episode...



First the Competition Ready Team for this episode.

From left to right...

Antonio Jimenez, Jim Goguen, Godfrey Williams, Rodney Tatum





Jim Goguen





Antonio Jimenez





Godfrey Williams - Alumni Student Competition Ready Detailing Class





Rodney Tatum





These guys worked their butts off under the most grueling conditions for any type of car detailing and especially when prepping a car for judging at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance.


Great job guys!

[Mike Phillips]

More screenshots from the rough-cut....


Doc the owner






Wes the caretaker for Doc's collection





AJ and I arriving at at Doc's estate in the Competition Ready Van





AJ helping to unload, here she's carrying a Griot's 6" Dual Action Polisher and a Porter Cable 7424XP Dual Action Polisher




Using McKee's 37 Waterless Wash on the Go to wipe the car down and remove all the pollen.








The Baggie Test

Yep... I always do the baggie test before I detail a car and I always show it to everyone when I'm teaching car detailing. Be it on TV, my 3-day class or one-on-one with a car owner. It's a simple test anyone can do and it tells you what's going on at the surface level of the paint.






The Hulk Technique for Kneading Clay

If you've ever been to one of my detailing classes in the last 20 years or so you know I try to include some comedy in all my classes as it makes learning fun. One of the techniques I share to take a BAR of clay, (usually the shape of a bar of soap), and get kneaded out to the shape of a pancake about 5" in diameter is to take the lump of clay, place it between your palms, and then using your fingers to grab the outside of each hand, compress your hands together and thus squeeze the lump of clay into a SMALL flat patty or pancake.

Then from there use your thumbs and fingers to knead the clay to the full size patty so that it fits across your palm.

As I explain how to do this on this episode but also in my classes I tell people to use the Hulk Technique and then to clarify I remind them of the two characters that go by the name Hulk and the thing that they both have in common is they are very strong.

Here's who I'm talking about....

The Hulk
(the green guy)





The Hulk
(The wrestler guy)







And here's the Hulk Technique taken from screenshots from this episode...













Contaminated Rolls Royce

And "yes" this beautiful 1933 Rolls Royce was contaminated.






Swirl City

After wiping the car clean and then claying the paint, the camera guys caught the true condition of the paint...

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....


Next AJ and I are going to test the paint to find out if it's single stage or basecoat/clearcoat? You can't be 100% for sure just by looking at it so when working on classic and rare cars like this 1933 Rolls Royce here's a simple test you can do.


Using McKee's 37 Fast Compound, which is white in color....





Applying some to a white colored microfiber applicator pad





Then apply the compound to a section of paint...





Then after a few moments of rubbing the paint turn the applicator over and inspect it....





Results

For our test there is no color or pigment transferred from the gray colored body panels onto the applicator pad. This shows us that we're working on a 1933 Rolls Royce that has been re-painted using a modern basecoat/clearcoat paint system. Had we seen the color of the car on the applicator pad that would have indicated we were working on single stage paint and then we would have wanted to be super careful.

[Mike Phillips]

Since we couldn't do the work inside any of the garages, (they were too small for the work PLUS the cameras), it was decided to postion the car in the middle of the car garages and in front of the estate house you see in the background.

[Mike Phillips]

The silver trim was tarnished and had turned a hue of yellow so one of the areas we had to work on was removing the tarnish and restoring the luster to the silver trim.

[FrankS]

Great post Mike!

Good Hulk pose also

[Mike Phillips]

Classic cars like these are very ornate including things like the use of real ivory for the interior. The ivory components were very yellowed from time and finger oils but McKee's 37 Jeweling Wax safely cleaned the surface to restore them to like new condtion.

[Mike Phillips]

To remove the swirls and scratches out of the paint on the Rolls Royce we kept it real simple and used the time-proven Porter Cable 7424 Dual Action Polisher. There were a lot of rivets on the hood and anyone that's ever buffed out anything with rivets knows what happens if you get to aggressive.

We also used Lake Country 5.5" foam flat pads, simple but effective and for a valuable car like this also very safe. I recommend these to people that are brand new to detailing because they take the maximum risk out of the potential for any buffing related problems with their flat face surface.

The products were all McKee's 37. We cut the paint with the McKee's 37 Fast Compound and then machine polished using the McKee's 37 Jeweling Wax. Then after this we topped the final results with a true show car or finishing wax, McKee's 37 TRADEMARK Carnauba Paste Wax to create a deep, wet shine.







We try to share tips and techniques in each episode. I have a saying that goes like this,

"When it comes to car detailing, the little things are the big things"


This applies to a lot of different aspects of car detailing but one of the most important things you can do and should and one of the most common mistakes people new to machine polishing make is to clean their pad often. How often? In a perfect world you would clean the face of your buffing pad after each section you buff.

To clean a foam buffing pad simply brush the face of the pad with a Pad Conditioning Brush





To apply the TRADEMARK Carnauba Paste Wax we used these handy gold foam finger pockets. They're ultra soft and slide over your fingers to make applying any wax easy.








After waxing all the painted body panels it's time to put on the microfiber gloves and carefully remove the wax using my favorite microfiber towels for show car work, the rolled edge, super plush green microfiber towels.






Done.

[Mike Phillips]

Here's the last of the screenshots I captured.


This one is to show that working out in full sun without a hat leads to a good tan...


Look at my skin color in this picture from the morning....







And look at it in this picture at the end of the day...





And the car really did come out beautiful thanks to all the hard work and dedication to the craft of of car detailing and the art of polishing paint.







Huge thanks to my team as well as the TV production team for all their hard work under the hot South Florida sun in the middle of driveway.

Good job team!


On Autogeek.com

Here's some of the products we used to turn this diamond in the rough into a glistening gemstone...

McKee's 37 Fast Compound 16 oz

McKee's 37 Fast Polish 16 oz

McKee's 37 Jeweling Wax 16 oz

McKee's 37 Trademark Carnauba Paste Wax

Porter Cable 7424XP Dual Action Polisher

Lake Country 5 1/2 inch Flat Foam Pads

Microfiber Gloves 6 Pairs

Super Soft Deluxe Green Microfiber Towels with Rolled Edges - 12 Pack