haris300
New member
- Apr 1, 2014
- 999
- 0
Hi everyone. I've been excited to try Essence for a while now, so I thought I'd share my experience with using it as a one step correction polish before applying CQuartz.
I've already used this stuff as a finishing polish after compounding on another car, so this time I decided to experiment with Essence as my only product paired with some cutting pads to see how it would correct.
I chose to use it on my 1990 Mazda Miata. The previous owner had it repainted in the past and the finish was overall in pretty bad shape. I haven't done much to keep it looking good in the previous years. The most it would get is a quick application of Hydro2 after a wash. It's a blast to drive though! I figured now would be an opportune time to make it look half decent.
I gave the car a quick wash and decon and got to work. After experimenting with a few pad options, I decided on sticking with some thin cutting pads. I did half the car with Meguiars foam cutting discs and the other half with Lake Country ThinPro grey cutting pads. I polished in 2x2 work sections on speed 4.5 on my G21. This product offers a good amount of work time and is unbelievably easy to wipe off.
This paint was very soft and easy to correct, so I was surprised to see little to no haze left over after using an aggressive cutting pad.
I was glad the aggressive pads finished down fairly well. I also experimented with a ThinPro black finishing pad on the hood to further refine the finish. I was happy with how the rest of the panels looked after the first step and decided to leave it at that.
Of course it wasn't a flawless finish but a majority of the defects were gone. There were a few left over RIDS and minor imperfections, but nothing enough to bother me on a car like this.
I tried to isolate some examples of the remaining defects in the photos to give a fair representation of the correction results.
Since this product fills, I was curious to see how much actual correction I was getting. I used BLACKFIRE SRC finishing polish with a black Lake Country foam pad to remove the Essence from the drivers side door and did a wipe down with IPA and inspected my results. Hopefully this was enough to remove the product. I didn't notice any change in the severity of defects from before but it did appear less glossy when the Essence was polished off. My eyes could have easily fooled though.
I also used some Buff and Shine 3 inch grip pads on my PE8 for intricate areas. Some areas still had the original single stage paint so I ended up removing quite a bit of oxidation.
I'm already doing a test on another car to see how durable Essence is on its own, so I decided to slather the Miata with some CQuartz UK. Application was a breeze and I liked not having to do an Eraser wipe down.
It rained the next day, but luckily I got some photos of it in the daylight once the clouds went away.
I'm very happy with how this car looks considering how much neglect it gets detailing wise.
Essence performed exactly as I hoped it would. I'll definitely be using this as my finishing polish when coating vehicles in the future.
My apologies for the large photos. First time using Imgur.
Thanks for reading!
I've already used this stuff as a finishing polish after compounding on another car, so this time I decided to experiment with Essence as my only product paired with some cutting pads to see how it would correct.
I chose to use it on my 1990 Mazda Miata. The previous owner had it repainted in the past and the finish was overall in pretty bad shape. I haven't done much to keep it looking good in the previous years. The most it would get is a quick application of Hydro2 after a wash. It's a blast to drive though! I figured now would be an opportune time to make it look half decent.
I gave the car a quick wash and decon and got to work. After experimenting with a few pad options, I decided on sticking with some thin cutting pads. I did half the car with Meguiars foam cutting discs and the other half with Lake Country ThinPro grey cutting pads. I polished in 2x2 work sections on speed 4.5 on my G21. This product offers a good amount of work time and is unbelievably easy to wipe off.
This paint was very soft and easy to correct, so I was surprised to see little to no haze left over after using an aggressive cutting pad.
I was glad the aggressive pads finished down fairly well. I also experimented with a ThinPro black finishing pad on the hood to further refine the finish. I was happy with how the rest of the panels looked after the first step and decided to leave it at that.
Of course it wasn't a flawless finish but a majority of the defects were gone. There were a few left over RIDS and minor imperfections, but nothing enough to bother me on a car like this.
I tried to isolate some examples of the remaining defects in the photos to give a fair representation of the correction results.
Since this product fills, I was curious to see how much actual correction I was getting. I used BLACKFIRE SRC finishing polish with a black Lake Country foam pad to remove the Essence from the drivers side door and did a wipe down with IPA and inspected my results. Hopefully this was enough to remove the product. I didn't notice any change in the severity of defects from before but it did appear less glossy when the Essence was polished off. My eyes could have easily fooled though.
I also used some Buff and Shine 3 inch grip pads on my PE8 for intricate areas. Some areas still had the original single stage paint so I ended up removing quite a bit of oxidation.
I'm already doing a test on another car to see how durable Essence is on its own, so I decided to slather the Miata with some CQuartz UK. Application was a breeze and I liked not having to do an Eraser wipe down.
It rained the next day, but luckily I got some photos of it in the daylight once the clouds went away.
I'm very happy with how this car looks considering how much neglect it gets detailing wise.
Essence performed exactly as I hoped it would. I'll definitely be using this as my finishing polish when coating vehicles in the future.
My apologies for the large photos. First time using Imgur.
Thanks for reading!
