Can you achieve perfection by hand?

[xxnonamexx]

Can you achieve perfection by hand?


I read a few members about detailing cars using buffers and by hand in prepping certain pads.

My question is have any members detailed a car totally by hand only w/o the use of buffers and achieved maximum results?

If so what products did you feel achieve the job well and not turning your hand into dead hands.

Thanks

 

[glen e]

It virtually impossible as your hands will not get the speed to get out any imperfections. But if you have a show car that is pristine, doing by hand will work fine. It takes pads and machines for anything else....IMO..

 

[Kaban]

I don't understand why a show car would be different to detail or would somehow make "hand work" more appropriate or acceptable than any other car. Care to explain?

 

[Mazda.Mark]

I don't understand why a show car would be different to detail or would somehow make "hand work" more appropriate or acceptable than any other car. Care to explain?

Perhaps by hand there is no chance of machine caused imperfections? Not sure as well. Correct technique with machine should save TONS of time with great results.

Im guessing if the show car is ALREADY 99.9% swirl/imperfection free, the OP sees no use for machine correction. But, still use for applying LSPs. I happen to enjoy applying that last stage by hand to soak in the awesome smells

 

[RTexasF]

Good results by hand? Yes. Perfection? No.

 

[RTexasF]

I don't understand why a show car would be different to detail or would somehow make "hand work" more appropriate or acceptable than any other car. Care to explain?

If it is a show car the paint is already perfect. All that would be needed is perhaps a glaze to amp up the shine or a quick detailer for dust.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

My question is have any members deatiled a car totally by hand only w/o the use of buffers and achieved maximum results?

I have. It was on a with a very old lacquer paint job that was too thin to machine buff so I rubbed the entire car out by hand using $30.00 worth of products. I'll try to find the thread about it but here's an article that explains why it's easier to rub out an old school single stage paint versus a modern clear coat by hand.

The practical differences between single stage paints and a clear coat paints

 

[Mazda.Mark]

I have. It was on a with a very old lacquer paint job that was too thin to machine buff so I rubbed the entire car out by hand using $30.00 worth of products. I'll try to find the thread about it but here's an article that explains why it's easier to rub out an old school single stage paint versus a modern clear coat by hand.

The practical differences between single stage paints and a clear coat paints

If anybody has, it would be the guru, Mike Phillips

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Copied and pasted from a thread about M16 on MOL


The last time I used M16 was on this 1948 Bentley, after testing a few different waxes, it just seemed to work better and look better on this very old single stage lacquer paint. Plus I did an Old School Hand Rub-out using OTC products. (For all those people that discount a product just because it's available locally).


Did this 1948 Bentley last weekend, it has an older re-paint using single-stage lacquer paint that's thin in a number of places. For this reason and because it has a lot of raised or hard body lines, (lots of older cars are like this while the body lines on many new cars look more like ice cream that has begun to melt, that is everything is smoothed over), every step was performed by hand.

Before

We snapped a couple shots of the trunk while the sun was at the right angle to capture a before and after shot of the paint condition.

How did you get the swirls out of that paint Mike?

By hand using Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner followed by the Deep Crystal System and topped with M16.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

One thing I type all the time goes like this...

With today's pads, products and tools, just about anyone can get show car results with just a little practice.

It actually takes a lot of skill and experience to rub out a modern clear coat finish by hand and not leave any marks behind in the process. See this article,

Fingermarks



I machine polished the majority of this Mosler for Corvette Mike in SoCal but all the louvers I rubbed out by hand.


Test Spot on a Mosler to remove scratches and restore clarity to the clear coat.

After our choice of products were applied and wiped off to the test spot the Mosler was pulled out into the sun to inspect. The products and procedures selected worked in the test spot and then they were duplicated over the entire car.

Once you dial-in a successful procedure to one small area, all you have to do is repeat the procedure over the entire car. If you can make one small area look good, it's not a leap of faith to figure out you can make the entire car look good.


LSP applied (NXT in this case after machine cleaning and polishing)

LSP removed

:xyxthumbs:

 

[Mazda.Mark]

A-maze-ing. Mike- how many hours did the car take by hand?

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

A-maze-ing. Mike- how many hours did the car take by hand?

I knocked out both cars in single days...

I try to always start by 8:00am on any car project. I had to drive to both of these cars from Apple Valley, California, the Packard was in Palm Springs, California and Corvette Mike is in Anaheim, California.

Long days and the long drives home...

Keep in mind the blue, single stage paint on the Packard was incredibly soft, thats why I couldn't machine buff it and why I could rub it out by hand with some very non-aggressive products.

The paint on the Mosler was horrible to work on, it scratched very easily. There's no way it looks good today, too hard to keep it nice. Only way would be if the owner, (George Luca if I remember correctly), was incredibly talented with their hands and wiping techniques.

 

[xxnonamexx]

Great articles, job Mike Thanks for your advice.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Great articles, job Mike Thanks for your advice.

The first one hopefully just clears up some confusion, when I first started posting to CorvetteForum all the gurus over there kept talking about how soft Corvette paint is, did my best to explain it's hard but scratches easy and people confuse the easily scratched characteristic with softness which just isn't the case. Now if you go on CF everyone is up to speed that modern Corvettes have hard paint.

The practical differences between single stage paints and a clear coat paints



The second article I added to this thread just explains how you need to be careful when working by hand and always do a Test Spot because some product don't work well when applied by hand.


Fingermarks




:xyxthumbs:

 

[umi000]

Scottwax over on Autopia used to do everything by hand.

 

[Cosmin]

My question is have any members deatiled a car totally by hand only w/o the use of buffers and achieved maximum results?

is like compare apples with oranges

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Scottwax over on Autopia used to do everything by hand.

I count Scott as a very good friend and he's been to a number of my classes over the years not that I could teach him anything but more of a professional comradery.

I was given permission to invite members from Autopia to Meguiar's for one of my Saturday classes only it was a special Autopia at Meguiar's class in 2004, back then Scott was still doing all his work by hand and I believe after leaving SoCal that weekend he was switching over to machine.

Autopia Detail Day at Meguiar's

Many of the pictures in the below thread are missing but there are still some still showing. I took the below picture,

Scott is the guy that Barry Meguiar has his right hand on Scott's shoulder...

The question by the OP,

My question is have any members detailed a car totally by hand only w/o the use of buffers and achieved maximum results?

My good friend Cosmin's answer,

is like compare apples with oranges

Cosmin's right... while you can get very good results working by hand with practice, patience and lots of experience, the human hand cannot duplicate what a machine can do when it comes to removing below surface defects and then maximizing gloss and clarity.