Detailing over Multiple Days

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OWL8C6

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I have a black 2008 C6 that I picked up used with lots of work needed to remove the swirls, etc. I do not have the ability to spend the time to polish out the swirls in one continuous session. It will probably only be in 1-1/2 hour blocks of time.
What's the best way to 'protect' the vehicle in between sessions. It is always kept in a garage, but still gets dusty.
 
:welcome: To Autogeek Online! :props:

There is no set rule that the entire car must be completed in one session....that's unless you're working on a customers car and earning a living detailing.....Any car can be detailed 1 panel at a time.

The way that makes the most sense is to start at the top and work along with gravity.

Cover the car with soft cloths between sessions...
 
I actually share and recommend this approach in my how-to book for a couple of reasons,

1. Not everyone has the time to knock out a project from start to finish in a single day.

2. Older, more seasoned people don't want to over-stress themselves trying to do the entire project in one day.

3. If you're new to machine polishing, trying to do an entire car in one day can burn you out. The machine correction step alone to a single, average size car with neglected paint can take 4-6 hours and there's still plenty of steps to still do.

4. If the project is important to you then there's nothing wrong with taking your time, especially if you don't need to drive the car each day and even more especially if you're new to machine polishing.


The above are all great reasons to simply tackle a panel at a day or even a panel or two a weekend.

Panel = Door, or Hood, or Roof, or Fender.


Paperback
 
Do one panel per time block. Start with the roof and work your way down. What you want to do is wash your roof(dont worry about the rest of the car getting water spotted, just worry about the roof for now). Polish it out.

Then do the other panels one a a time. Wash, polish, seal. You will remove any water spotting from washing your roof earlier.
 
I've detailed a lot of SIV's in my life,

SIV = Special Interest Vehicles


It doesn't have to be old, or new or exotic or antique, it has to,

  • Make you look twice when walking by it in a parking lot
  • Be important to the owner

Those are kind of vague on purpose.


After detailing the owner's car the question often comes up on how to cover and protect the car. A quality car cover is a good option especially if you have,

Someone to help you carefully put it on and carefully take it off.
A clean place to store it when not in use - the garage floor doesn't count


Besides a car cover, another option is a soft, flannel bed sheet. Not the kind that are fitted or have elastic in the corners but flat bed sheets. Place one on the roof, one on the hood and one on the trunk lid.

The benefit is that,

  • You don't need any help to put them on or take them off carefully.
  • If they become dirty, you can simply wash and dry them in any normal washer and dryer
Purchase some small, rubber auto floor mats because they are heavy for their size and they will conform to a body panel and gently place one or two on the flannel bed sheet to hold it in place. You can also use small pieces of painter's tape.

Below is a 1952 DeSoto showing how I cover the roof after it is sanded, compounded, polished and waxed. Richard Lin and I did this project over the course of a couple days and the first thing we did was knock out the entire roof.

Knock out painted roofs first, then tackle the rest of the car...
1952 DeSoto - Roof has been sanded, cut, polished and waxed and is now protected with a soft flannel sheet
1951Desoto001.jpg




The below shows how I use sheets to cover exotic motors, but that's the same type of sheet to use to cover paint that is all polished and waxes.

The Soft Flannel Bed Sheet Tip


:)
 
Bumping this thread with a new question. I am planning to do a full correction on my car but don't have the time to do the whole car over a weekend. This time, however, instead of zanio or blackfire sealant I want to coat with the BlackFire Crystal Coating (used last weekend on my dad's car, which came out incredible - I did a one step though with Flex and PF2500 which worked really well). Unfortunately, as this is my daily driver, I can finish the roof, hood trunk one weekend, then have to drive it probably 250 miles over the week and then next weekend complete the bumpers and fenders and then drive the same number of miles and finally the doors on the last and final third weekend.

The car is only driven Friday night and Sunday night and the rest of the time it is garaged (but it does accumulate dust). As one can imagine, clearly not optimal but can you apply the coating panel by panel and get the same result as doing the whole project over a weekend? Clearly I don't want a weird looking car with first area looking different than the final area on the third week.

Another alternative is to do the correction for each panel and just apply some product (spray wax?) to the whole car (something that will last 1-2 weeks and is easy to remove with CG Citrus Red but will stop swirls and protect the corrected area), then the next week do the second phase and reapply the wax again and finally finish the car on the third week and apply the coating after removing the protecting product.

I really like the idea of coatings and want to spend a lot of time making sure the paint is in perfect condition before the coating, hence my time predicament. I have two flexes, 6.5 pads and 5 pads and the whole assortment of menzerna polishes, including the 3in1 and tons of pads to complete the correction polishing phase.

Any thoughts comments appreciated.
 
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Assuming you don't put any swirls in on the newly detailed sections, I can't see it being a problem.

That's what I've been doing to my truck. One panel a day or every other day. I'm doing the whole process though, up to the very end where I put on two coats of jetseal and 1 coat of fuzion.
 
mbpress01 said:
Bumping this thread with a new question. I am planning to do a full correction on my car but don't have the time to do the whole car over a weekend. This time, however, instead of zanio or blackfire sealant I want to coat with the BlackFire Crystal Coating (used last weekend on my dad's car, which came out incredible - I did a one step though with Flex and PF2500 which worked really well). Unfortunately, as this is my daily driver, I can finish the roof, hood trunk one weekend, then have to drive it probably 250 miles over the week and then next weekend complete the bumpers and fenders and then drive the same number of miles and finally the doors on the last and final third weekend.

The car is only driven Friday night and Sunday night and the rest of the time it is garaged (but it does accumulate dust). As one can imagine, clearly not optimal but can you apply the coating panel by panel and get the same result as doing the whole project over a weekend? Clearly I don't want a weird looking car with first area looking different than the final area on the third week.

Another alternative is to do the correction for each panel and just apply some product (spray wax?) to the whole car (something that will last 1-2 weeks and is easy to remove with CG Citrus Red but will stop swirls and protect the corrected area), then the next week do the second phase and reapply the wax again and finally finish the car on the third week and apply the coating after removing the protecting product.

I really like the idea of coatings and want to spend a lot of time making sure the paint is in perfect condition before the coating, hence my time predicament. I have two flexes, 6.5 pads and 5 pads and the whole assortment of menzerna polishes, including the 3in1 and tons of pads to complete the correction polishing phase.

Any thoughts comments appreciated.
Click to expand...

I've never had an issue doing a coating over multiple days. Important tip, WHILE POLISHING go at least a full pad width past any panels seams if you plan on coating over multiple days. That way, you have already corrected part of the panel adjacent to the coating and don't have to tape over the coating or risk polishing it by accident.

For example, if you are going to coat the front bumper, hood and quarter panels one day, then while doing the polishing step for these panels, also polish 1 pad width on to the front doors and A-pillars.

I did this same treatment last night for a car that is getting clearbra today. Customer contacted me thursday last week and had already scheduled the clearbra; he wanted it on ASAP to avoid rock chips. I was booked for the weekend so I told him I'd get the front ready for clearbra Monday and Tuesday evenings and then finish out the car the following weekend.
 
My 2 cents:

Take a MF & general purpose cleaner & dust off everything in the garage, I even clean the light bulbs.

Next sweep up real good, followed by a hosing, out.

Get the dust factor down

Keep the garage door down, as much as possible.

Hood, roof, trunk, will get the dust, so block these, at quitting time.

I generally take two days, (no big hurry) to clean my garage before detail

Next day insure surgical cleanliness, when uncovering do so carefully, so as not to spill the load of dust, onto your ride

I also take a half hour to an hour, at the end of work to, clean up, the mess. Makes work more pleasurable, next AM

I suffer from C.R.S (can't remember S*@t), so I place a little piece of tape, so as where to start the next day
 
I've a full-size pickup that I like to keep pretty clean. Like a few have said, us old guys don't have the energy to clay-polish-wax the whole thing at once.

I actually do a separate section (front/middle/rear/wheels/chrome) each week when I wash it. I keep a three ring binder in the garage with calendar pages that I record the dates I do whatever to it. Otherwise, I'd be skipping sections, and doing the same one three weeks in a row.

When I'm not driving it, and it's just sitting under it's cover in the garage, and I want to polish a section, I'll just clean that section with some instant detailer and some clean microfiber towels.
 
I purchased Meguiars D114 for this very reason. My thinking is after a quick wipe down I should be good to go the next day or even a few days between
 
I'm glad y'all bumped this cuz I never woulda thought about looking for it. Tons of great tips in this thread! Hats off to everyone!
 
And if you haven't built-up your arsenal of pads yet, (like me), you don't have to worry about running out of pads.
 
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