Dr Buff
New member
- Dec 26, 2010
- 46
- 0
We have had quite a number of cars that we have carried out our detailing duties on that we also admired and also felt privileged to have been given the opportunity and being trusted with such cars. We're not talking cars here of Euro marques like Ferraris or Lambos that are leased but rather cars that are loved and collected. We are so thankful to our customers to be trusted with such cars. So lets get to it. First off, the Boss 335 FPV
The image pictured above here of course is the completed result. Naturally the car did not look like this when it came to me. Many vehicles that I have received from customers which are new all have the one same complaint. When they picked up their car from the dealer and even new cars such as this, they are covered in swirl marks,scratches and all sorts of damage.This one in particular wasn't any different.
This isn't car detailing that we are carrying out but rather paint correction.Being new of course you don't often get any paint or panel damage but just to be sure we took paint measurements. We carried out a complete check of all paint thicknesses to ensure we were working with factory paint and to no surprise it all cam back good averaging between 140 to 160 microns so after this we started taking a look at some of the damage and as usual paint correction was needed.We went all out with this car because the owner just wanted everything that can be removed completely gone.
This car was vixon red. I think that's how it's spelt. Incredible how it looks orange under artificial lighting and rich red in natural lighting. Anyway, on with the job. We took a snapshot of swirls and scratches on this car and it's not uncommon to see paint damage like this from dealers even on new cars.
We of course immediately went straight for the hard stuff and just chose the toughest pads and compound combo's to get rid of all the chop on the surface of this car.My first choice of tool was a rotary buffer. Can't beat these tools for fast correction work. I put this tool to use with a wool pad and Meguiars 105. This is clearly a killer combo and just rips out everything in a hurry.
Naturally there is going to loads of swirl marks after this so other measures would follow to ensure the finished product is of pristine finish. Paint correction as one would know is not necessarily known as car detailing but most people who own cars don't understand this. This paint correction job took in total 25 hours to complete. I've done BMW Ceramic paint jobs which have taken 13 hours to complete and we are talking rock hard paint.
Ceramic may be a lot harder to cut ( my back knows about that ) but it is also much easier to work with in terms of finishing. Swirl marks are less prevalent because the paint is much harder. The finishing look is also better with no sticky paint issues and the compounds just glide over paint. Two pack on the other hand may be easy to cut but can and sometimes do take longer to complete because of the other inherent issues that come with achieving that killer look. This FPV had sticky paint which made the job so much more difficult.
I immediately started with the wool pad and got ripping into the boot of the car to commence removing swirls and scratches. I completed section by section because I didn't want to keep going round the car all the time. The damage on the car was pretty much even all over the vehicle. Thank God it wasn't atrocious as some other cars that I've had but it presented sticky paint issues. Meguiars wasn't reacting to well with this paint but I didn't want to waste time trying different compounds and combinations so I just kept at it.
What I did first was cut the surfaces with the wool pad set to about 1800RPM on the buff and got started with that. The goal however was to get the best possible flattest finish possible. Under normal practice I would have just de swirled with finishing pads and compounds after this but being sticky paint and marring too easily I wanted to be sure that cutting left overs were well and truly gone so I did what I like to call a two stage cut which is basically a refined finish with this paint correction procedure.Instead of going straight to the finishing compounds I changed the wool pad to a finishing a Meguiars pad and re cut again. What a result that brought !
De Swirling With A Finishing Pad
This was basically the entire procedure all over the entire vehicle.I wanted to be 1000% sure there would be no trace of swirling, marring or anything of the sort left over after this procedure so I invested in the extra pass of flattening the surface. You will notice the combination used herein the images to the right two separate machines but with the same finishing pads, however, there are two different finishing compounds.Don't you just love paint correction ? It really is an art and science and when you know how to wave buffs over paint like they are magic wands,you can achieve some pretty spectacular results. The finishing compounds involved were used on the same pads but what I changed was the direction of the cut.
Applying Finishing Pass With Megs 205
Applying Finishing Sealers
Seeing that I had finished with a rotational cut using the finishing pad and cutting compound, I also wanted to ensure that I would finish in the same cutting direction using a finishing polish. Because rotational is stronger than orbital, I continued with that to ensure everything left behind from cutting compounds would be removed.
I immediately after this changed to the flex which is a killer tool for finishing and even cutting and completed the job. I actually finished off with a sealer which Meguiars no longer manufactures and only keep this for my own vehicles and closest of friends. The work was the same all over the car. Nothing changed and that combination although it involved not working too well with sticky paint, it served quite well.
Considering the circumstances with the paint, I persisted and completed the car with that method and it paid off real well. Naturally there was the rest of the car of course.With the decals of course comes a crap load of masking up. The last thing i needed was to accidentally run wool pads over FPV Stickers so I masked them up just to be safe. I also commenced on masking up other edges as well. Here are all the remaining images on this so called car detailing service and the results that it produced. Enjoy !
