Pictures: 1966 Orange Chevy Nova Super Sport Extreme Makeover

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Pictures: 1966 Orange Chevy Nova Super Sport Extreme Makeover


Here's a few pictures from the project car last night....We used BLACKFIRE car care products!

The Autogeek Extreme Team...

From left to right....

Jay, Tim, Den, Annti, Marc, Frank, Giacomello, Craig, Sherman, John and Thom

:dblthumb2:


Here's some pictures showing the condition of the paint before we perfomred the magic....

:nomore:

 

[Craig Parker]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Chevy Nova Extreme Makeover

Excellent work Mike, and to the Autogeek Extreme Team:dblthumb2:

 

[Pats300zx]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Chevy Nova Extreme Makeover

Wow....from a Nova owner I have to say...AWESOME :dblthumb2::dblthumb2:

 

[BRLAHTI]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Chevy Nova Extreme Makeover

looks awesome guys! great work!

 

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Chevy Nova Extreme Makeover

Wow incredible work Gentlemen! That Nova glistens now!

 

[House of Wax]

Gorgeous

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Chevy Nova Extreme Makeover

Mechanical Decontamination

After wiping Thom's car clean using Detailer's Waterless Auto Wash the next thing to do was inspect the paint. To do this we used the Baggie Test.

Results

The paint failed the baggie test horribly. The paint on this car el like sandpaper. So the first point of order would be to remove whatever contaminants were bonded to the paint and for this we chose

Detailer's Universal Clay Lube + Nanosking Autoscrub pads and towels. A few of the guys had never seen these products before so this was a great learning experience.



Den is on the passenger side, Frank is opposite on the driver's side and Annti is working with a Nanoskin Towel on the front of the hood.

This is Sherman, this was his first time to Autogeek's Thursday night Extreme Makeover. Sherman was here doing a Will Call for some products when he saw Thom drive up and into the garage. I greeted Sherman and invited him to stick around and have some fun working on a cool car and so he did.

The owner Thom and his uncle John are in the background testing out the Nanoskin towels. This was the first time they had used this type of product instead of detailing clay.

This is Giacomello, he's a member of our forum but this is his first time to be a part of the AG Extreme Makeover Team.

Note: As we worked around the car removing the contaminants you could already see the gloss start to increase as gloss starts first with a smooth surface.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Chevy Nova Extreme Makeover

How to tape-off a car

This Nova has single stage urethane paint which will tend to be softer than a urethane clearcoat.

This Nova also has a LOT of raised body lines creating the design of the body panels hard edges forming the shape of the body panels.

Soft paint and raised body lines mean we have to be carefully when machine compounding or we could burn through. To avoid any mistakes, we taped-off all the raised body lines and edges of body panels using 3M Blue Vinyle Tape.

Tip
When taping off a car, start by anchoring the end of the tape to the area you want to protect and then pull out 2-3 feet of tape in your other hand. Use the hand that's holding the roll of tape to steer the tape as you use your other hand to press the tape firmly against the paint. This is how steer tape follow curves and also straight areas.

:xyxthumbs:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Chevy Nova Extreme Makeover

Machine Free For All!

For some projects we'll pick and use a specific type and even brand of tool for the project. Tonight I told the guys it's a free-for-all! That means, everyone can choose and use whatever tool they wanted to use.

First, since we has a few new guys that had never used some of these tools, I did a quick demo with each type of tool while at the same time demonstrating how to do a "test Spot".


Rupes Bigfoot Orbital Polishers

First we tested the green medium foam pad with the Blackfire SRC Compound.

Key Points.

No need to prime pad, simply place product directly onto the face of the foam pad, place the pad against the paint, use a medium speed to spread the product out then begin making SLOW overlapping passes with just a little more than the weight of the tool for downward pressure.

After doing the test spot, I'm pretty sure we're working on single stage paint...

The green pad with the compound wasn't removing defects fast enough so we test out the Rupes Blue Coarse Foam Pad and this did the trick.

Flex 3401 Forced Rotation & Forced Oscillation Orbital Polisher

Next I demoed how to use the Flex 3401. For this tool we did prime the pad and since the Rupes cutting pad worked best we did the test spot with the Flex 3401 using the Lake Country Hybrid Orange Foam Cutting Pad. This combination also worked perfect to remove the swirls and scratches.

Porter Cable 7424XP

Next up was a demonstration on how to correctly use the Porter Cable 7424XP, which would be the same for the Meguiar's G110v2 or Griot's Garage Orbital Polisher since they all work in the same manner.

For this we used the Lake Country 5.5" Orange Flat Pads and a real slow arm speed on the 6.0 speed setting of the tools and this also worked really well using good technique and 7-8 section passes only tackling small sections at a time.

Note the black mark on the backing plate and the firm downward pressure. The mark is so your eyes can monitor pad rotation and the downward pressure is to force the abrasives to take bites out of the paint.

Time to turn the guys loose....


:buffing:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Orange Chevy Nova Super Sport Extreme Makeove

Not a lot of shots of the compounding step, I think that's because everyone was compounding to get this first step, also the LONGEST step for any multi-step process, over with.


Tim working on the roof with the Flex 3401

Sherman trying out the Flex 3401 on the hood....

Jay, Sherman and Tim testing out the Rupes TA50

Giacomello using the Flex 3401

This is me using the Flex PE14 on the top of the fenders....

This is the lip of paint on the bottom of the trunk lid....

I call this Finger Painting - It's where you take your product spreader and spread out a thin layer of compound or polish to,

A: Spread the product out.
B: Lubricate the area being buffed.

 

[RaskyR1]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Orange Chevy Nova Super Sport Extreme Makeove

Drool! :drool:

Some day I'd really like to have a resto mod '66-'67 Nova SS!!!

 

[antti@561detailing]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Orange Chevy Nova Super Sport Extreme Makeove

Next time I want to try this rupes ta50...seems like very useful tool...

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Orange Chevy Nova Super Sport Extreme Makeove

De-Taping
After compounding we de-taped the car. Here's why....

1. Machine polishing is less aggressive than compounding so there's less risk of burning through the paint.

2. By removing the tape and then polishing we will remove the tape-line plus polish the paint under the tape to even out the gloss and clarity of the paint that was not compounded.


Teamwork....

Mark, (from Canada) and Frank carefully removing 3M Blue Vinyl Tape....

Sherman removing tape...

Craig removing tape off the hood....

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Orange Chevy Nova Super Sport Extreme Makeove

Machine Polishing

Next we're going to maximize the gloss and clarity and bring out the full richness of color in this single stage paint by machine polishing using soft foam polishing pads and Blackfire SRC Finishing Polish.

Teamwork....

:dblthumb2:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Orange Chevy Nova Super Sport Extreme Makeove

Machine Waxing

Next were going to apply Blackfire Midnight Sun Ivory Carnauba Paste Wax only we're going to let the machine do all the work. Machine waxing is not only faster but the machine does a way better job than the human hand could ever do.

Like the compounding and polishing steps, I let the guys pick the tool they want to use and let them have at it....

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Orange Chevy Nova Super Sport Extreme Makeove

Break time!

Everyone works hard, not just physically but also mentally as doing this type of work on the this type of car requires focused concentration.

So time to take a pizza break while we let the wax dry to a haze.

Here's what a thin layer of a machine applied paste wax looks like...

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Orange Chevy Nova Super Sport Extreme Makeove

Removing the wax
This is the moment we've all been waiting for... this is the moment we've all been working towards, this is the moment where we see the final results....

For this everyone dawns microfiber gloves as they make holding microfiber towels effortless and prevent any accidental fingerprints from getting on the paint. When the paint is polished to this high a level ANY defect will now stand out like a sore thumb.

Now it's time for the beauty shots....


:dblthumb2:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Re: Pictures: 1966 Orange Chevy Nova Super Sport Extreme Makeove

Here are the results....

The Autogeek Extreme Team...

From left to right....

Jay, Tim, Den, Annti, Marc, Frank, Giacomello, Craig, Sherman, John and Thom

:dblthumb2:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Excellent work Mike, and to the Autogeek Extreme Team:dblthumb2:

Wow....from a Nova owner I have to say...AWESOME :dblthumb2::dblthumb2:

looks awesome guys! great work!

Wow incredible work Gentlemen! That Nova glistens now!

Gorgeous

Thanks guys for the compliments.

Most people that would have looked at this car in any parking lot, garage or on display at a car show would have thought it looked great.

Once a person learns the art of polishing paint and with this skill how to inspect and diagnose paint defects then a person can appreciate the car but see so much potential for how the finish could look.

That's what we do here at Autogeek, we take something nice and make it better, make it as perfect as it can be and at the same time, do our best to educate and pass on the skills to the owner on how to do this type of work so they can keep their car looking like you see in the after pictures.

Polishing paint is an art form, not a grinding process. I requires the right pads, products and tools and also the human elements of care and passion.

When you combine all these things together then you can take a diamond in the rough and turn it into a glistening gemstone.

Detailing cars, and specifically polishing paint is a very rewarding craft, art form and for some of us... a passion that's in our blood. And the guys that come to these Thursday projects all have this passion and it's reflected in the after pictures you see for the 1966 Nova and all the cars and even boats we detail here at Autogeek.

Remember, if you don't live near Stuart Florida but find you're going to be in our area in the future, be sure to check and see if we have a project coming up as you're always welcome to join us and be part of the team that creates these rolling works of art.



:xyxthumbs:

 

[Giacomello]

It has been a pleasure to meet you all at AG garage. I really enjoyed being among the Team and make this '66 Nova shine!! Keep her beautiful Thom!
I will try my best to be present on a future makeover project.:awesome:
Loved the pizza by the way....