First Place for Worst Paint - 1942 Olds Extreme Makeover

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

First Place for Worst Paint - 1942 Olds Extreme Makeover


Bar none, the paint on this car gets First Place for Worst Paint. I don't think I've ever worked on a car with worse paint.

If you think it looks bad in the pictures you should see it in person...

Here's my Test Spot

Process

Step 1: Compound 3 times using Meguiar's M100 with Lake Country 7.5" Wool Cutting Pad on Flex PE14 about 1200 RPMs

Step 2: Polish 1 time using Pinnacle Advanced Finishing Polish with Lake Country Yellow Foam Hybrid Light Polish using Flex 3401 on the 6.0 Speed Setting

Step 3: Machine wax using Blackfire Black Wax on the Griot's 3" Mini Polisher using a Rupes 4" White Foam Finishing Pad on about the 4.0 speed setting.

And yeah... when I was doing the compounding step I was pushing hard...

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Just to document the "before"

:bolt:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

More before.....

The word trashed comes to mind....


:dunno:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

I don't think the word horrific is descriptive enough....

Where's the Ugh.... emoticon?

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

And she doesn't look any better in the sunlight....

:dig:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Well that's our project tonight.... hope all the guys come ready to work harder than they ever have....


Pizza gets here at 7:00pm and we need to be through the rotary compounding step before we eat....


:xyxthumbs:

 

[Don M]

Where's the Ugh.... emoticon?

I think the one you want is the vomit emoticon, that's just disgusting that they would let a classic car get like that.

 

[haris300]

nooooo

 

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Man that is horrific paint!

Looks like you have to chop pretty hard!

 

[lawrenceSA]

WOW that paint looks trashed. I bet the owner is going to be super happy with the transformation once completed.

 

[EVOlved]

Wow no responses to how this went tonight I guess it beat everyone up.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Wow no responses to how this went tonight I guess it beat everyone up.

I'd say yes... this was a tuff buff...

A couple of guys asked me if we could get better results by wetsanding the paint and the answer is "yes" except that I personally didn't want the responsibility for completing a full wetsand cut and buff without making any mistakes on paint this neglected and I also knew it that to do it right and to do it safely would require starting on a Saturday morning when everyone is fresh, not at the end of the day after everyone including me has already put in a full day's work.

So we cut her hard using M100, then polished and then waxed and stuck a fork it her and called her done.

Hang tight for the after pictures.... one thing for sure... I'm really glad I documented the heck out of the before condition... it's just too easy for people to forget where we started from....

 

[Pinpoint_Precision]

Wow, that looked disgusting for a beautiful car. I can't wait to see the after.

 

[Tato]

Wow, that looked disgusting for a beautiful car. I can't wait to see the after.

+1 here, can't wait! Just too busy today, but I'll be following the updates. Hope everything went fine.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

First, here's the products we ended up using...

The shop sounded like a Hornets Nest with all the rotary buffer chopping on the car. Here's a shot of the buffing pads we used for the first step with the M100

Hang tight as I take process the after shots....

:xyxthumbs:

 

[EVOlved]

Had to sneak in a teaser there huh Mike. Looks like all the hard effort paid off.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

First step was to compound this paint job hard. For this we used the Meguiar's M100 Pro Speed Compound which is specifically formulated for use with wool pads on rotary buffers. I know some of you guys use it with foam pads on dual action polishers and more power to you but I trust the chemists at Meguiar's to actually know what they're doing.


Here's Den chopping on the trunk lid.... Den knows a little bit about working on black cars.

Here's John running a DeWalt 849X, this is a beast of a rotary buffer....

Down if front is Jim and Jim actually works for Florida Sportsfisherman and not only is he a car guy he's also a boat guy!. Jim's using a Makita rotary buffer.

This is my buddy Jeff and Jeff is a truly a master behind a rotary buffer. He can make a rotary buffer dance over the paint while making using one of these tools as easy as using a Porter Cable 7424XP....

Up top working on the roof is Chris, Chris is also a "Car Guy" and we may see his 1941 Cadillac Convertible here at the show car garage in the next week or two....

Mr. Robert DiTerrlizzi! Wheeling the hood to perfection! I think Robert was given a rotary buffer to play with as a kid growing up instead of toys because he sure knows how to use one!

Back to Jeff chopping away on the paint on the hood....

Teamwork gets the job done right and fast....

This is Craig using a DeWALT 849X

Note his hand on top of the D-Handle? I recommend taking the D-Handle off of these tools and throwing them away. I keep on a few on some of the tools for teaching purposes. The fact is, the farther your hand is away from the head of the tool the more energy is required to control the buffer and the more the buffer will wear down your arm and shoulder muscles.

Place your hand on the head of the buffer
Now look behind Robert and see how Craig has slid his hand under the D-handle and placed it right on top of the head of the DeWALT rotary buffer? That's how you make controlling a rotary buffer a lot easier and a lot less taxing or exhausting to you.

Also in the below picture you'll see Robert, he's using the brand new Makita and not his hand is right on top of the head of the buffer.

#2 Production Flex PE14
This is my personal Flex PE14 with the #2 Serial Number for production units given to me by Bob Eichelberg, the President of Flex Power Tools North America when the Flex PE14 was introduced to the market.

Here's Frank working on the passenger side....

And back to Den working on the back of the Olds....

Al joined us too, here he is wiping compound off the hood....

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

We started at about 4:30pm and finished the rotary work by around 7:00pm and that was perfect timing to take a Pizza break!

:dblthumb2:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Next up.... machine polishing.....

For this polishing step the first product I tried was Meguiar's M205 Ultra Finishing Polish but it actually dulled the results down created by M100 and was a real paint to wipe off. My guess is that because this is an old single stage paint for whatever reason the paint just didn't take well to the M205 formula which is a real exception to the rule because M205 works on just about anything.

That's why we test to a small spot first before buffing out an entire car.


Next I tried M82 Swirl Free Polish and also M86 Solo Cut & Polish Cream and the M82 gave us the best results so that's what we went with using Lake Country Black foam finishing pads as well as Meguiar's black foam finishing pads. I let the guys pick whichever dual action polisher they preferred.

As you look through the pictures, notice the gloss and clarity of the paint....



Here's Frank using the Flex 3401

Jeff with the Flex 3401

In the back is Craig with a PC and in the front is John with a Flex 3401

Here's Al going to town with the PC....

Here's Chris using a Flex 3401 with a 5" Hybrid black foam finishing pad on the LC 4" backing plate.

John on the front of the roof....

Looking good and ready for machine waxing!


:buffing:

 

[Justin at Final Inspection]

WOW!!! Looks like you put the guys to work on this one Mike!!!!! Looking forward to the after shots!!