First effort

beamerstrumpet

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3rd Time is a charm!
I have decided to use word to type anything that may be long due to having lost the first two posts I was trying to do and add pics to. I have now decided to use MS Word to do the typing in so I have a backup. Needless to say, not all the fun quotes and story will be in this edition! (too bad it was not a bad tale LOLOL)
I posted Fri night (7/12/13) that my blue Camry had gotten yellow DOT paint on it from the comm. service teens in the school parking lot. At least I think I did. I also posted that I went shopping Sat for some products, most of which being the HF DA and due to the timing of needing stuff, I did buy the HF pads and had to use the Crappy backing plate. The paint spots were not super bad, but enough to take a couple hours to do without messing the paint up. (We are going to submit them to the school for re-imbursement, total is $100.00 I am thinking that’s very cheap for what I have done so far) Thanks to the search button I was able to find the older topic on DOT yellow paint. I ended up using Acetone and a sharp plastic scraper. Even with Acetone soaked on some of the spots they needed a bit of help coming off. The spots also left some light marring on the paint and of course the Acetone pulled out all the protection from the paint. To start here is the car and the paint spots:In front of left rear tire
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The rest is self explainatory (p.s. pre wash pics also)
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Neighbors house reflection
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Thats most of it, there were a few spots on the hood, but the wife Had picked them of with her fingernail (errrr yep)
Sunday started the work. Here is my work area; I have had the tarps put up for a few weeks just to act as sun shade. Also a shot of my modest Detail kit, which I am quickly outgrowing! It is tight and for this job I parked the right side of the car closer to the privacy fence so I had room to sit and be under the edge of the tarps.
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My backyard area has a VW Bug waiting to get a new engine, So its the driveway for now. My humble kit:
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The DA fits in the top box and I have a seperate plastic bin for the MF's. Yep I see a HF $35.00 cart on the horizon, THough I was thinking of modifing my kids old Radio Flyer wagon.
I taped off the hood because by this point it had started to rain, and the water was driping off the tarp still close to the car. I did not feel like having water running down my back. I gave the whole car a foaming and wash, then clayed the hood and grill. With everything being as it was, I decided to forgo the cutting pad and went right to polishing pad and polish. It did heat up on me and I noticed some pad flakes, after my prime and I am thinking I may have not used enough product, but I used a bit more and some Mothers detail spray, kept my speed at 4 and pushed on not wanting to kill the only blue pad I had.
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R side polished first (cool fence line on left)
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Tried to get a befor and after shot but I think the dark tarp was preventing a good picture.
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The spots you see on the left are paint chips. this is after wax with black pad. I wish I could have gotten better shots and had some better lighting but as you can see this was what it looked like at the end.
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Time started, 1230pm, a few interruptions by the family and for food, finished at 730 pm and did my clean up. Will do better next goround. Is there a think as too bright for pics? I also tried a old school 1000 watt NDI inspection blacklight to look for defects but it did not seem to work. I see a big learning curve ahead.
Thanks for reading.
 
The sun is always best to check your work. But adjust the angle of your worklight, depending on color and metallic flake it can be very difficult to see defects. Next time try getting closer for your pictures to make the swirls stand out more.
 
The sun is always best to check your work. But adjust the angle of your worklight, depending on color and metallic flake it can be very difficult to see defects. Next time try getting closer for your pictures to make the swirls stand out more.
Work light?? :laughing: Heck the sun was not being friendly but it was not clean at that point LOLOL.ok closer, got it.
 
Good deal.. You got your first taste of DA polishing.

As for the photos, what I do is to take a few different photos at different angles. Some with no flash, some with forced flash. I do one of each at every angle and every height, some taken higher and some taken crouched down lower. Sometimes I'll turn on the macro function (the little flower) if i'm trying to get closer photos of small details.

When I get home I load up the photos and look through them and typically I find a few thread worthy photos.

Keep on working through the learning curve with your new polisher, and do anticipate a backing plate failure and be ready to lift it off the paint very quickly because sometimes they don't give much warning before they self destruct. Usually a few seconds of loud rumbling with a bunch of pad flop before the center arbor separates from the rest of the backing plate. In this situation, it doesn't take much to leave a deep scratch in the paint.

Get yourself a higher quality backing plate so you can compound and polish with confidence.
 
Congratulations for tackling this job and seeing it through to completion. Looks like a lot of hard work but the results look great!

I see the Beach Towel Tip on the windshield...


:xyxthumbs:


LOLOLOL
Yes I did! I actually absorbed 90% of your book on the first read and watched your vids, which are very good, to try and learn all of this I can.

My biggest road block right now aside from my learning curve (which is not the block, but the challenge) is getting the time to do this for 4 to 6 hours a shot. I still have young boys (10 and 12) and I need to hang out with them on the weekends since I work nights.

Sunday is usually my day for projects. I did try to get them interested in learning how to do this with me. I used the angle that "Hey you know if you start learning this stuff now, you will be really good at it and you can have a way to make some $$ by the time you get to high school + your ride will be the best looking one in the lot!"
No takers Call of Duty and HALO won out. Im the MAN Right now to them it looks like a chore.
Right up there with scooping the dog poop out of the back yard.:bolt:
 
Were you able to get the paint off the wheel?

Well actually on the wheel cover, nope, I didnt try to hard. The wheel covers are a $15.00 set of covers from Auto Zone. All I did was spray more matte black over them. The plan there is to get a new set. For the steel rim underneith I used a plastic scraper to get the paint off. I also want to pull the wheels, tape the tire off, scuff the steel with my 90degree air tool and some wire brushes then paint them with some graphite wheel paint. Then I will see if I like the gloss black /chrome or the all black matte . Originally they were like this:
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but they had been curbbed a few times. Last weekend I tried to touch up the black and sprayed some clear on after, it was not compatable with the one out of 4, dont know why, and started to peel the black. So I just hitall of them with matte, and I think I like it better that way. OH and while lookng for these on line to get the pic, someone on Amazon wants 50+ a set LOLOLOL. I wrote them a review asking if they were on crack.

Good deal.. You got your first taste of DA polishing.

As for the photos, what I do is to take a few different photos at different angles. Some with no flash, some with forced flash. I do one of each at every angle and every height, some taken higher and some taken crouched down lower. Sometimes I'll turn on the macro function (the little flower) if i'm trying to get closer photos of small details.

Ok I tried some of that, good hint on the Macro.

Keep on working through the learning curve with your new polisher, and do anticipate a backing plate failure ... Usually a few seconds of loud rumbling with a bunch of pad flop before the center arbor separates from the rest of the backing plate. In this situation, it doesn't take much to leave a deep scratch in the paint.

THIS IS VERY GOOD TO KNOW LOLOL I have to watch for that

Get yourself a higher quality backing plate so you can compound and polish with confidence.

Its on the list along with a 5 pack of pads. I just can not decide on LC, CG hex, or Buff and shine. another memeber noted that I should have 4 pads for each step. Is this about par?
 
good job!!!!
I like your cart too.
Always keep your work area clean.


LOL Thanks, really for 20.00 bucks it can’t be beat. I just outgrew it very fast. I seem to be doing that a lot now. So I am thinking after I get the HF cart, Ill reassign this to hold my air tools and Body tools (what few I have) which then frees up a smaller box. I really am putting off purging my garage shelves, but I think its time for a side walk sale.
Anyone want a colman duel fuel stove or a set of sea ray split fin flippers? LOLOLOLOL:p

As to keeping clean,,, blowing out the driveway was something I forgot to do as I was hyper focoused on trying to get the care done.
 
LOLOLOL

Yes I did! I actually absorbed 90% of your book on the first read and watched your vids, which are very good, to try and learn all of this I can.

Very good...



My biggest road block right now aside from my learning curve (which is not the block, but the challenge) is getting the time to do this for 4 to 6 hours a shot. I still have young boys (10 and 12) and I need to hang out with them on the weekends since I work nights.

Sunday is usually my day for projects. I did try to get them interested in learning how to do this with me. I used the angle that "Hey you know if you start learning this stuff now, you will be really good at it and you can have a way to make some $$ by the time you get to high school + your ride will be the best looking one in the lot!"
No takers Call of Duty and HALO won out. Im the MAN Right now to them it looks like a chore.
Right up there with scooping the dog poop out of the back yard.:bolt:


Been there done that know exactly the position you're in...

Makes your results ever more satisfying...


:dblthumb2:
 
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