Aston Martin V8 Vantage

[Dave KG]

This Sunday past was the first Aston Martin that I have detailed, and I have been looking forward to it for quite some time

On arrival, the car was already in superb condition - a credit to its keeper, the paintwork was in excellent condition with little or no swirls, and the whole car was generally very clean and well presented as the before shots show:





The wheels simply needed a good clean with Bilberry Wheel Cleaner, arches with Meguiars All Purpose Cleaner. The car was then washed, rinsed and dried ready for claying. The owner had already washed the car for us, so it was simply a case of making sure everthing was spotless and no dust or dirt was present on the car before the claying stage which could have inflicted deep scratches and marring.

The car was clayed with Meguiars Mirror Glaze Mild Blue clay, using Last Touch as a lubricant. Light pressure only, the clay was gently sweeped from side to side until it felt like it was running smoothly. The face of the clay showed the amount of grime being pulled out of the paintwork, especially on the lower regions where road grime and the odd remaining tar spot resided...



Whenever the face of the clay begins to look like the above, fold the clay in on itself to reveal a clean side and continue claying

Once clayed, the car was rinsed, and dried and rolled into the garage rto examine the paint condition... as you can see from the before shots, the paintwork was already in superb condition - little or no swirls, and already a good gloss and level of clarity allowing the flake to ping:















Silver can hide a multitude of sins though! Careful inspection of the paintwork using the strip lighting of the garage highlighted the odd region of deeper marks in the paintwork, like these just above the door handle region (likely nails from opening the door)...



These regions were corrected using Menzerna Intensive Polish on a Meguiars W8006 polishing pad as follows:

• Spread at 600rpm
• Begin working at 1200rpm until residue well spread
• Work at 1800rpm with medium pressure until the residue turns clear

The corrected the marks...



No refining was carried out at this stage, this was left for the next stage which was applied to all of the paintwork to enhance the gloss and sharpen the finish a little to allow the large flake present in the paint to ping through at its best. Meguiars #205 Ultra Finishing Polish was chosen for this stage, applied using a 3M Blue Finishing Pad with a Double Zenith technique:

• Spread at 600rpm
• Begin working at 1200rpm with light pressure
• Work at 1500rpm for a couple of minutes with firm pressure
• Reduce pressure, maintaining 1500rpm, slowing machine movement speed down
• Refine at 1200rpm, supporting the weight of the rotary, slow machine movements

The end results of this stage of machine polishing, which in the case of this car was simply to enhance the already very good finish are shown below. The camera, set to autofocus, has focussed on the flake in the paintwork to show the clarity of the finish by the amount of flake ping present...

[Dave KG]

Adjusting the focus of the camera allows us to focus on the Sun Gun light as well to highlight the clarity from the reflection of the light also (remember, the light reflection and the flake are at two different focal points with metallic finishes):



The finish after machine polishing under the garage and natural lighting showed an enhancement to the depth and gloss from the machine polishing...







Before cleansing and sealing the paintwork, there were other little bits and pieces of detailing to take care of .. One was the grille which was covered in caked on polish and was faded and milky. All Purpose Cleaner and a brush was used to remove caked on polish from the corners of the slats, followed by Briliant #2 Aluminium & Stainless Polish to remove the milky look and then followed with Jeffs Prime Acryllic, a product I have found to work well at protecting bare metals such as stainless and ally. Work in progress, you can see two regions which have been treated in the pic below:



Protection in this case, I opted for Jeffs Acryllic - Prime followed by three layers of Trigger. I find this system to work well on silvers, and opt for it on silvers with strong flake as I find the flake pings just a tiny bit better than with the wax such as Collinite which gives a slightly more "liquid silver" look. Ultimately, both will work superbly, the differences are tiny, but Jeffs was what I felt would work best here today. Results in the garage after cleansing and protection...













The detail was completed with glass being cleaned by Stoner Invisible Glass, plastics dressed with All Seasons Dressing and buffed to a matt look (and to ensure no streaking), tyres with Meguiars Endurance. Wheels with FK1000P, Tailpipes with steel wool, then Briliant #1 Metal Restorer then Briliant #2 Chrome & Hot Area Polish.

Outside, in the glorious sun (I'm getting used to this for after pics! ), the end results:

















Another excellent day of detailing, and my first Aston Martin as well so a very special detail this was for me That said, I relish any car, be it Ferrari or Fiesta - if its got paint (or not in the case of certain Rolls Royces!), I'll polish it!

[bufferbarry]

absolutly stunning! as always dave great write up on a great car. To be honest I need customers like that who keep there car that nice. thats amazing. good job man

[Shaun Carollo]

Great job on that silver paint, looks awesome.

[Accumulator]

Dave KG- Great work (per usual ) on a beautiful car.

Two Qs:
- How are people supposed to avoid marring the paint with that type of door handle? I've never understood how you could open the door when the car's dirty without causing marring

(and, since I always bring up the SunGun...)

-With M205, do you ever have an oily haze (I call it "pseudo holograms") that's only visible under the SunGun?

[EisenHulk]

Another superb detail, Dave.

I always enjoy your posts! That Vantage could not look any better.

[karburn]

Splendid work. I really like the shots when you get the camera down low. Much better than the snapshot look. Very professional.

[dmw2692004]

awesome work, just awesome! car looks great!

[OCDinPDX]

James Bond would be proud to drive that car. Unfortunately we all know what eventually happens to the Bond cars.

Very nice work.

[Dave KG]

Originally Posted by Accumulator

Dave KG- Great work (per usual ) on a beautiful car.

Two Qs:
- How are people supposed to avoid marring the paint with that type of door handle? I've never understood how you could open the door when the car's dirty without causing marring

(and, since I always bring up the SunGun...)

-With M205, do you ever have an oily haze (I call it "pseudo holograms") that's only visible under the SunGun?

Opening the door - with difficultly, I tend to push in with thw face of my fingers and pop the handle out, but it isn't the easiest to do, you have to be careful not to mark the paint.

With the #205, as all polishes, I always wipe down with IPA before assessing the finish but before the IPA wipedown I have seen a little oily residue left by the polish which has on occassion confused for light hologramming - quick IPA wipe and the residue is gone though, but always worth checking

[Thats Fresh]

lovely. now thats flake!

[Accumulator]

Originally Posted by Dave KG

Opening the door - with difficultly, I tend to push in with thw face of my fingers and pop the handle out, but it isn't the easiest to do, you have to be careful not to mark the paint...

Yeah, OK, I wondered if there was something I was missing. I just can't imagine getting away with it if/when the car was really dirty.

.I have seen a little oily residue left by the polish which has on occassion confused for light hologramming - quick IPA wipe and the residue is gone..

OK, I'm having trouble getting the oils off (or is it *out of* ) some paints with the IPA for some reason Many, many wipes with undiluted IPA..it's becoming irritating. And it's not like I'm using an excessive amount of M205 or anything.

BTW, I'm finding that 3M SunGun increasingly useful