Pearl White Lexus IS F - Detailed by Lawrence

[lawrenceSA]

Aah.... my first Lexus detail - and I was really glad that the first one I did was on the IS-F, in this color. Having see the condition of the paint on arrival, I simply could not wait to see it all corrected....and so was very excited about getting the opportunity to detail this car.

As we all know you really never can be sure of how the paint on each car will react to correction, and to make assumptions about brand 'x' being soft and brand 'y' being hard, is rather dangerous. I assumed that the paint would be on the softer side and thus was anticipating only having to do a 1-step correction. However this paint was actually rather hard (like Audi hard) and had quite deep damage. In the end a 2-step correction was needed to restore the paint but was well worth the additional work. This however meant that I was a bit pressed for time and did not get many 'during' pics. (the car is also deceptively big, especially the bonnet housing the 5l V8)

So Saturday morning was rather dark and gloomy and rain was predicted for pretty much the entire weekend. I managed to snap a few quick pics before getting stuck in - With no sun around, there was not much to see in the way of below surface defects

But then a little while later the sun managed to peek out from behind the clouds long enough for me to take these

Arches: Cyclo APC / Mothers Fender Well Brush / HP Rinse / Shield Sheen
Tires: Meguiars All Wheel and Tire Cleaner / Mothers Tire Brush / Optimum Optibond Tire Gel
Wheels: Glossworx Wheel Cleaner / Daytona Jnr / Various brushes/ Autofinesse Oblitarate / APC rinse / AF Iron Out / Daytona Jnr / HP Rinse / Menzerna Powerlock
Door shuts, window rubbers, fuel flap, badges: Cyclo APC / Various Brushes / HP Rinse / Chemical Guys V7
Wash: Chemical Guys Maxisuds II via foam cannon / AF Lather / 2BM with Lambswool wash mitt
Dry: ONR at QD strength / WW Drying towel / Compressed Air
Tar removal : Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover
Iron removal : Autofinesse Iron Out
Remaining Contaminants : Autoglym Fine Grade Clay / ONR at clay lube strength
Glass : Autoglym Fine Grade Clay / ONR at clay lube strength
Paint correction : Menzerna FG400 / LC Orange pads, followed by Menzerna PF2500 / LC Tangerine Pad,
Tail light correction: Menzerna PF2500 / LC White Pad / Menzerna SF4000 / LC Black Pad
Paint protection : 2 coats Collinite 845
Door rubbers, plastic trim : Shield Heavy Duty Vinyl and Rubber Cleaner / Smartwax Smart Dressing
Exhaust tips : AF Mercury Metal Polish / MF Towels

During tape up

Correcting the B-pillars

And then the paint after correction

2 Quick shots with the car still in the garage

And then some taken out in the fading sun a few minutes before the owner collected on Sunday afternoon and with light constantly changing between cloud/sunny and then going into evening, the white balance is a little all over the place on some of the pics (was fiddling with it and don't have any post processing software, so sorry about that).

Total time spent = 31 hours

Thanks for looking and as always and questions or comments are welcome.

 

[KMG]

Beautiful work as usual man. Those are some killer looking cars!

 

[lawrenceSA]

Beautiful work as usual man. Those are some killer looking cars!

Thanks and I agree - they really are beautiful vehicles.

 

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Outstanding work Lawrence! That looks incredible!

How bad was the iron contamination?

 

[lawrenceSA]

Outstanding work Lawrence! That looks incredible!

How bad was the iron contamination?

Thanks Mike:dblthumb2:

On my subjective scale of 1 to 10, the iron about a 6 and the tar about a 2:dunno:

 

[David at LC Pads]

rops: Looking good as usual!

 

[CarolinasFinestDetailing]

Beautiful work man. Gorgeous car!

 

[ousooner2]

I see you used Powerlock on the wheels and 845 on the car...any reason for not using PL on the car? I've got PL, but haven't used it yet. I also purchased Blacklight on a whim, but I'm unsure about if I should just sell these 2 and buy a better sealant or what.

 

[vdevan]

Great job lawrence!lovely colour hey..

Sent from my GT-I9505 using AG Online

 

[lawrenceSA]

rops: Looking good as usual!

Thanks

Beautiful work man. Gorgeous car!

Thanks

I see you used Powerlock on the wheels and 845 on the car...any reason for not using PL on the car? I've got PL, but haven't used it yet. I also purchased Blacklight on a whim, but I'm unsure about if I should just sell these 2 and buy a better sealant or what.

Well yes and no.... I wanted to demo how powerlock adds a really nice layer of slickness to someone who was around when I was doing the wheels, so went ahead and did that. But I really wanted to use Collinte on the paint - there is just something about it, particularly on white paint, that I thought would suit the look of this paint.

Great job lawrence!lovely colour hey..

Sent from my GT-I9505 using AG Online

Thanks my friend - yeah awesome color:xyxthumbs:

 

[KlasslessDetail]

Beautiful!

 

[Sicoupe]

Awesome job again

 

[jamesboyy]

Excellent work on such a beautiful car

 

[Kappy]

Everything I've seen from you looks great, and I appreciate the fact that you post a complete list of products that you've used. I'm not that familiar with some of them and it gives me a chance to discover something new.

 

[lawrenceSA]

Beautiful!

Thank you

Awesome job again

Thank you

Excellent work on such a beautiful car

Thank you

Everything I've seen from you looks great, and I appreciate the fact that you post a complete list of products that you've used. I'm not that familiar with some of them and it gives me a chance to discover something new.

Thanks - I try to include as many of the details of the detail as I can for exactly this purpose - so that hopefully someone could learn something from it.:dblthumb2:

 

[Kyle_Elantra]

Amazing, that metallic looks great.

How were you able to fit the Mother's wheel well brush in the arches?

 

[tersplat]

Those results are AMAZING!, especially the reflection shots of the trees on the hood.

 

[shagnat]

Great job. I'm sooooooooooo glad to see a car that's not a deep color like black, red, deep orange, purplish, and on and on...... I'd love to see more light colors such as silvers, grays, whites, tans, light yellows (none of the "candy" colors).
I understand the darker colors show the flaws and corrections better, but, it would also help the rest of us try to determine if a $13 bottle of a product would have the same eye-candy effect as a $56 bottle of the same "type" stuff on the lighter colors.
I mean if you can't see it is it there??! I get the "protection" thing w/out issue, but, otherwise if all we ever see are darker colors or candy colors then the rest of us who have DDs of less obvious states of detailing may be spending a bunch more money than we really need to.
Granted, there is a faction of folks who want the best regardless of whether it's noticeable or not. (me included) But there are probably quite a few who wouldn't spend the money/time if they can't see a difference. There's a really good reason to buy a lighter colored (non-candy) car, they don't show every spec of dirt like a black car. Black cars (and many candy cars) fall into two categories IMO, they look GRRREATT..... or they need detailing. A fine line divides the two....... just my 2 cents.

 

[1kwikf]

that is some seriously killer work

 

[lawrenceSA]

Amazing, that metallic looks great.

How were you able to fit the Mother's wheel well brush in the arches?

Thank you. This was the first pearlescent paint I have worked on and it really is beautiful

The rear wheels have the carpeted liners in them, so I did not use the brush to agitate them. For the fronts I simply turned the wheels full lock to the right, cleaned with the brushes, then turned them full lock to the left and repeated.

Those results are AMAZING!, especially the reflection shots of the trees on the hood.

Thank you very much. Yes, this one really did come out awesome.

Great job. I'm sooooooooooo glad to see a car that's not a deep color like black, red, deep orange, purplish, and on and on...... I'd love to see more light colors such as silvers, grays, whites, tans, light yellows (none of the "candy" colors).
I understand the darker colors show the flaws and corrections better, but, it would also help the rest of us try to determine if a $13 bottle of a product would have the same eye-candy effect as a $56 bottle of the same "type" stuff on the lighter colors.
I mean if you can't see it is it there??! I get the "protection" thing w/out issue, but, otherwise if all we ever see are darker colors or candy colors then the rest of us who have DDs of less obvious states of detailing may be spending a bunch more money than we really need to.
Granted, there is a faction of folks who want the best regardless of whether it's noticeable or not. (me included) But there are probably quite a few who wouldn't spend the money/time if they can't see a difference. There's a really good reason to buy a lighter colored (non-candy) car, they don't show every spec of dirt like a black car. Black cars (and many candy cars) fall into two categories IMO, they look GRRREATT..... or they need detailing. A fine line divides the two....... just my 2 cents.

Thank you and I agree with what you are saying. Whilst I have no way of quantifying what I am about to say, and it is only a gut feel, I reckon 90-95% of the 'look' comes from surface prep (decontaminating/polishing) and 5-10% is based on LSP so in my opinion I try to focus on the prep work and not too much on the LSP. IMO the Collinite 845 is simply one of those LSP's that bang for buck are hard to beat.

that is some seriously killer work

Thank you very much:xyxthumbs: