Bella Macchina: Bugatti Veyron Super Sport Paint Correction

[Todd@RUPES]

Bob "Max" invited me to post some of my work on this forum at SEMA. Unfortunately this write up will not work (look right) with the auto resizing of pics. I will try again after the week-end. Happy fathers day everybody.

 

[Todd@RUPES]

 

[Todd@RUPES]

Final Pictures-Please click on the photo for a 800x resolution. Thanks

The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport is equipped with 'SS' 20 spoke wheels. This Super Sport's wheels
were finished with a 'Diamond Cut' two-tone and perfected by Bella Macchina.

The weave of the blue carbon glistened under the reflective finish of the finally polished lacquer.

The highly polished lacquer and clear weave made the Bugatti appear alive when walked around.

The gas fill cover, engine vents, and wheels were painted a bespoke blue at the factory and polished by Bella Macchina.

With a top speed of over 265 miles per hour, the Bugatti's front end is the proverbial 'nuke' to insects all over the world.

The swirl free sunlight reflections of highly polished and accurate paint.

The underside of the rear wing was polished as well, resulting in the accurate reflection of the hydraulic mechanism that
raises it (when traveling fast or 'armed'.)

The combination of a highly polished lacquer, carbon blue weave, and an a curvaceous body make the Bugatti Veyron
Super Sport stunning in bright light, at any angel.

Chris Schlumpf, of Bugatti USA, a professional photographer as well, sent a couple pictures of the Bugatti after
driving for several days

Jet Reception Pictures- Immediately after detailing the Bugatti Veyron, Bryan Burnworth hoped on a plane to return home.
I drove the Bugatti to the Jet Center Reception close bye were it was to be the star of the show.

Final Picture-

 

[Todd@RUPES]

Special Thanks to:

Bryan Burnworth- Peach State Detail, LLC- for flying down from Georgia, working 11 hours, and getting straight on a plane right after he finished. Up until the last minute we did think Bryan was going to make it. Then he showed up, grabbed the hose, and started spraying.

Mike Pennington from Meguiar's- For recommending me for the job and setting the entire thing up. Thank you for the trust!

Bob Willis- Auto Concierge and Richie Carbone- Richie's Custom Detailing- for volunteering to help out due to the time crunch. Unfortunately the Tampa International Airport was apparently pressuring Bugatti USA about having too many people walking around in a secured area. Irregardless the offer was awesome!

I hope the write-up was enjoyable, comments or critiques welcome!

PS sorry the write up is a little 'small' and the text difficult to read. It was originally formatted for a width of 936 pixels, so it comes across 'tiny' at 625.

 

[diablojota]

Amazing. What a magnificent job and what a stunning car. The color is beautiful.

 

[Todd@RUPES]

Amazing. What a magnificent job and what a stunning car. The color is beautiful.

Thank you.

 

[93fox]

Good to see you posting here too Todd! High quality work man! always the best. :xyxthumbs:


You should share the adventures with mr. X!!! Now that is something people are gonna love here!

 

[sohail99]

Wow!!

That is freakin amazing!! :xyxthumbs:

 

[LuxuryMobile]

Awesome work as usual. You truly set the bar in this industry and we all strive to reach it.

 

[WRAPT C5Z06]

Holy cow!! Wow!!! Wow!!!! rops:

 

[jkk7479]

Holy Awesomeness Batman! I'm speechless!

 

[jamores23]

wow. what a hell of a job on a hell of a car. must be fun to hit 265 in that

 

[Rayaz]

Ah....nice, awesome....end of words.

 

[A.P.A.D.]

Speechless!

 

[RTexasF]

The epitome of details, both the work itself and the vehicle. The write up itself is a work of art. Certainly a feather in your cap for future work. I offer congratulations to both of you.

 

[Rei86]

Great job and fantastic write up! Not a fan of the Bug but this part was strange:

Polishing Pad: Meguiar's DA 5.5 inch Finishing Disc
Backing Plate: Meguiar's W68 6 inch DA

Typo? Or is their a new pro technique?

 

[Perfections]

I'm a perfectionist when it comes to cars, and can't find a thing wrong with the detail, truly stunning work/writeup from one artist to another. And the car isn't that bad either

 

[Todd@RUPES]

Good to see you posting here too Todd! High quality work man! always the best. :xyxthumbs:

You should share the adventures with mr. X!!! Now that is something people are gonna love here!

Thank you for the compliments. In fairness, the reason I felt it was okay to take up Bob on his offer to post my work here with this particular thread is because the products used are mostly Meguiar's. This is Autogeek's site so it would be inappropriate of me to post work that features brands/products that are not sold by Autogeek. It has been a LONG time since I posted here so I am excited to share this detail.

While I would love to share the adventures with Mr. X, but the some of the products used are not sold by Autogeek.

Wow!!

That is freakin amazing!! :xyxthumbs:

Thank you!

Awesome work as usual. You truly set the bar in this industry and we all strive to reach it.

Thank you very much. I am lucky to work on the caliber cars I do and try to truly do my best.

Holy cow!! Wow!!! Wow!!!! rops:

Thanks Mark.

Holy Awesomeness Batman! I'm speechless!

Thank you JKK>

wow. what a hell of a job on a hell of a car. must be fun to hit 265 in that

Don't know about going 265 in it, but I did get to 'open' it up a little bit. The sound that it makes when the blow off valves open to release boost is insane; almost like the atmosphere is being returned to normal.

Ah....nice, awesome....end of words.

Thank you Ravaz

Speechless!

The epitome of details, both the work itself and the vehicle. The write up itself is a work of art. Certainly a feather in your cap for future work. I offer congratulations to both of you.

Thank you RTexasF. To be honest the write up probably took as long as the detail.

Great job and fantastic write up! Not a fan of the Bug but this part was strange:

Polishing Pad: Meguiar's DA 5.5 inch Finishing Disc
Backing Plate: Meguiar's W68 6 inch DA

Typo? Or is their a new pro technique?

Very astute observation!!!! If you look in the picture you will see the "oversized" backing plate being used. It extends across the entire back of the pad instead of leaving a 1/4 inch gap.

DA (dual-action) polishing is very similar to sanding in its functional theory, so I will use sanding as an example. Lets take 2000 grit paper (again just for an example).

If you sand using your hand, your finger tips will create an uneven finish. The sand paper sheet will contort to the shape of your fingers/hand which will cause some of the abrasives to spread apart (were the paper is stretched) and some of the to back tighter/clump. This is lack of a uniform surface will cause some of the abrasives (particularly where the paper is stretched and sanding surface isn't uniform) to press into the surface to much and you get tracer scratches. Another good example would be those guys/gals that lay on a bed of nails. As long as the nails are uniformly spread and packed tight enough together this isn't a problem. However remove some of the nails or spread them apart, instead of laying on 1000 nails you lay on just 20. With a greater percentage of your body weight focused on less, randomly placed nails, you are going to be making a trip to the ER soon!

Back to sanding... Now instead of sanding using your hand you use a firm (but flexiable) sanding block. This block (if it is the size of the paper engaging the surface) will press the abrasives engage the surface evenly, and you will get a much smoother finish. This would be similar to using a backing plate that is the same size of the pad.

What if we take that sanding block and cut in half? Half the paper will engage evenly but the paper that has no backing is going to scrunch up and cause pretty bad scratching. In the case of a microfiber disk (or pretty much any pad) on a dual action polisher, the outer edge of the pad is gong to scrunch and contort, like your fingers pressing sand paper into the surface. You will get an increase in surface marring. A dual action polisher moves the pad similar to a 'Scrambler' ride at the carnival. It is orbiting at a high speed while spinning around a central point. The pad is stopping, accelerating, and moving in different directions very quickly, and this movement is exaggerated at the pad's edge (where the backing plate doesn't normally extend to) because of the higher pad velocity.

The finishing microfiber disk has a softer foam backing so this problem is even greater. M205 can be a tricky polish to get to finish perfectly (hence many people finish with Menzerna or whatever else) and when using the standard backing plate it is very possible to get micro marring. In fact the only way we could get a perfectly swirl free finish on this paint (free of micro marring/ haze) was to increase the backing plate size (to keep the edges of the pads engaged firmly against the paint like sanding with a block), use short work times, and firm pressure.

I know that's a long winded answer and I hope it makes sense. I will try to re-read it later today and clear up any confusion I likely created.

I'm a perfectionist when it comes to cars, and can't find a thing wrong with the detail, truly stunning work/writeup from one artist to another. And the car isn't that bad either

Thank you for the compliments!

 

[CEE DOG]

Excellent work Todd! (of course) :dblthumb2:

I really love the awesome diagrams and the whole set up that explains to the customer what they started with and what they received in exchange for their money.

rops:

 

[Todd@RUPES]

Excellent work Todd! (of course) :dblthumb2:

I really love the awesome diagrams and the whole set up that explains to the customer what they started with and what they received in exchange for their money.

rops:

Thanks Corey, I hope all is well. Give me a call some time.

Todd