MusicMan
04-15-2012, 08:10 PM
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/FirstPics1.jpg
There she is. A 1957 Chevy Belair. The story of how we got this job is just interesting as the detail itself.
I got a PM on AG a few weeks back from someone who I had never spoken to before. The message was titled "Flex Lesson"
I opened it up and it was from a guy in CANADA! I, for those of you who don`t know, live in Arizona. A little ways away.
Well Gordon, the guy who PM me, was going to be down in Arizona for a couple weeks. Apparently before he left Canada, he ordered himself a Flex 3401 kit but he had never used a Flex polisher before. He said he had read a few of my write-ups and was impressed with our work and the `details` i included in my write ups and thought a hands-on lesson from us would be a huge help.
He had suggested coming on site to one of our jobs but, i tend to like to keep the location of our jobs private. So I asked if he had any car we could perhaps use as an `practice` car to show him. I suggested maybe a rental car if he had one in town, or if the family members he was staying with had something they wouldn`t mind us using, we could do it that way as well.
His family member had a car alright...the one you see above. When Gordon wrote back and told me his uncle Ken owned a 57` Chevy that he had been wanting to get professionally detailed, i had to read it twice. NOT what i expected to say the least. We agreed to give his uncle a discounted price, give Gordon the lesson and in return, well we would be doing our first official classic car. A win/win/win all the way around.
We have worked on fairly high end cars before. Z06 Corvette`s, Lingenfelter Camaro`s, tricked out Mustangs...but a classic...this was a new avenue for us. We had been wanting for a very long time to get our hands on one and showcase what we could do...well, this was our shot.
Gordon informed us that it had been repainted over 20 years ago, but it was base coat/clear coat, not single stage. So while it was a base/clear paint job, it was still a pretty old paint job on a VERY nice car. As always, we would take the utmost care to be as careful and thorough as possible. I at the time had not seen the car, so asked Gordon if he could send me a few pictures and give me his assessment on the paints condition, just to get an idea of what we`d be working with.
He sent me the photos and of course, it looked beautiful...in the shade. He said he thought that the paint looked mint in condition...and again, in the shade and to untrained eyes...it did...but we will be showing a different side of the coin below.
We set a date when Gordon was not going to be busy so that way he could have a good amount of time to talk, pick our brains and see us and the Flex in action. We got there pretty early in the morning, around 9 a.m or so, unloaded our gear and took a few minutes to take in the beauty of this car. The garage that it sat in, as im sure you can see above, was very nice as well!
Gord wasn`t home when we got there, but his uncle Ken was. Honestly he couldn`t have been nicer if he had tired. Very hospitable and very trusting that we would take good care of his baby. We didn`t know it but, Ken was strongly reconsidering a new paint job because HE was very unsatisfied with how it looked. Apparently it had been `detailed` before with not so good results. That, on top of the fact that the only cleaning it got was from a California Duster or a spray detail wipe down, made for a VERY swirled and scratched up paint job that could easily be seen as something that couldn`t be repaired.
Kens wife was familiar with different finishes from craft work she did and when she came out to talk to us she let us know that she had figured out right away that the clear coat had been scratched. I LOVE, LOVE talking with owners who understand the concept of paint, scratches, defects and swirls. That is by far the most difficult part of my job is explaining to an owner that, yes your car is clean and shiny and waxed, but look at all these horrible swirls! Black car owners are easier to show the defects to...but lighter colors are very difficult. These two however, were ahead of the game in understanding about swirls/scratches. They were VERY bad though, so i can understand why they were considering a new paint job.
How bad? This bad:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore5.jpg
Not pretty right? Well guess what...it looked even worse under the brighter beam of the sun gun:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/SunGunBefore4.jpg
And of course direct sunlight was equally as horrible:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/SunSwirls2.jpg
So, we knew we had our hands full on this one. You see, being 26 years old...I dont really get to see a LOT of classic cars, just at shows that i go to, but then they are surrounded by OTHER classic cars and I dont really get to take in just how HUGE these things are. This is a lot of paint people. Even the nice sized sedans of today, don`t even get to the same ballpark as a big boy like this. A Cadillac or Lincoln of today can just go take a seat...because these oldies are BIG.
And not only are they big, they take a LOTTTTT of tape. My sister Dani literally spent over an hour just taping off all the chrome, emblems and trim on this bad boy to make sure no compound or polish got wedged up into an area that it didn`t belong!
Back to the story though...first thing was first after we were done admiring the car....it was inspection time. Now, to the untrained eye...this thing looked mint like Gord had said....and even to the trained eye, under light you`d see swirls galore yes but, you have to take a VERY close look when you do a walk around and really take note of what shape the car is in.
We walked around, saw some things that needed to be noted, but wanted the surface clean so the pictures would come out clear. We went ahead and did an Optimum No Rinse wash on it to get it nice and clean. The owner had never done a regular rinse/soap up/rinse/dry kind of a wash on it...and honestly..the car was very clean with the exception of some light dust. So an ONR was seemed to be the perfect choice to prep the car. Next we started taking pictures to document the issues we found...like these:
Here is some real nice orange peel, but also note the defect in the paint my sis is pointing at:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Defects12.jpg
Lower panels such as these always have little secrets they like to try to hide, but we usually find them :)
There was well over a dozen touch up paint spots all over the car. They were hard to see but again, we found em.
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Defects11.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Defects3.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Defects2.jpg
I think you get the point right lol?
There was also a couple very funny looking spots on the hood. We couldn`t quite get them to show up in a photo but...it basically looked like two circles, one rather large...where it appeared some body work had been done prior to the paint job. Being that this was old school metal, either the two spots had some metal welded into some rusted out spots on the hood, or maybe it was filler that wasn`t sanded down and evened out properly. Either way, whatever it was, it was UNDER the paint...nothing we could do. But we spoke to Ken about it and he was already well aware of it and that it was under the paint and that nothing short of body work and a re-paint would fix it.
After all that fun was done, it was time to document what WE would be working on, the finish of the paint! And man, as you guys saw above, it was in really bad shape. Swirls all over, rather deep ones at that. But, the deep ones always receive the most severe of punishment! Between our Flex 3401, Griots Polisher and a couple PC 7424`s along with a few dozen pads to choose from and about a dozen different compounds/polishes....we were prepared for any fight these things might want to give us.
Here`s a bit more of an extended look at what we were dealing with. I literally took photos of every section of every panel on this car...and it allllllllll looked the same. HORRIBLE!
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore26.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore23.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore22.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore20.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore19.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore18.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore17.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore16.jpg
Ouch...those are ugly.
The hood was a mess...plain and simple:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore15.jpg
A bit more close up...
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore14.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore13.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore9.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore7.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore5.jpg
Now, at this point, i think anyone reading this, even someone who was not previously aware of what `swirls` were, now understands what they look like. They are scratches, 1000`s upon 1000`s of scratches in your paint. They`re very easy to instill but extremely difficult to remove the RIGHT way. There is a different between polishing the paint to a flawless, super high, crystal clear gloss through hours of meticulous work....and simply grabbing a high speed rotary buffer and whaling away at the paint, knocking it down but leaving buffer trails or `Holograms` all over the place and basically doing more harm than good.
As my sister said "The only thing worse than swirls are holograms and the only thing worse than holograms are when the person who put the holograms in the paint actaully gets PAID FOR IT!"
True words, true indeed! Fortunately for Ken and his family...thats not how we conduct our work. You`ll see what i mean shortly :)
Around the time we were taking the pictures of the swirls, Gord showed up and we finally got to meet him. One of the first things he said was "So the paint is in pretty good shape huh?" ....I smiled and asked him to come over to where i was. I had the sun gun near me and showed him the paint in a...different light so to speak:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/SunGunBefore2.jpg
"Oh wow! That light really makes a difference!"
Ah yes, the lesson had begun!
Lesson #1: Swirl Inspection! Get to know your enemy lol.
We continued around the car, i showed him some of the defects we had found and ALL of the swirls lol. I think before he had an idea of what to look for, but having us show him first hand in person really made it sink in. I had to clay the car, this was after all a 2 decade old paint job....SOMETHING was bound to be bonded to the paint that washing wouldn`t remove! Gord went in to change clothes, i continued claying and Dani, bless her heart...she kept taping lol
This is what i got off of half the hood....you can see the black and brown look to my previously purple clay:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Clay.jpg
Again, that was half the hood...my clay got in pretty nasty shape after finishing the whole car...so as always, it was a good thing to do before polishing. Polishing still dirty paint is a no no!
Round n` round we went....what a lot of paint to clay! It was even more taping though, like i said before, she spent over an hour just taping.
While Dani finished that up, Gord came back out and i gave him a run through on the differences between the Flex and the Griots and Porter Cable. Then gave him a run down on different pads, aggressions and different products we use. He had bought Meguiars 105/205 combo, which was exactly what we hoped to use on the Belair so, that was perfect!
Next part of the lesson was a very important one, the test spot. On a car like this, of this size, you DONT wanna buff the whole thing out only to find out "Oops, it didn`t finish down as good as i thought" and then have to REDO the whollllle car.
For this car, I decided to go strong with the Flex, Megs 105 and a Lake Country Hydro-Tech Cutting pad.
I explained to him that the purpose and goal of this first step, the compounding step, was to cut the swirls down to size. We weren`t expecting the paint to finish off perfectly clear and that we basically expect a light haze to be left over, especially on black paint.
I went on to do the test area with the combo listed above. And as expected, a nice haze was left over...but it was very uniform and very few, if any deeper scratches were left over. For those of you who aren`t familiar with what I`m talking about...we basically started with an area that looked like this, covered in swirls/scratches of varrying depths and sizes:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore18.jpg
And by compounding the surface with the appropriate product/pad/machine/speed and of course, most importantly..using good technique, we were able to level the paint out to a nice even `haze` which basically looks like very light marring. The marring however is much more fine and uniform than the previous swirled mess:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/CompoundHaze1.jpg
No, the camera is not unfocused, thats what its suppose to look like. Here is a closer look:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/CompoundHaze2.jpg
There it is "Hazy goodness" as we like to call it. Is it what we want the final product to look like? No. But it is the first step of many to get the paint refined down to the point we want it at.
Next up was our polishing step. We had PLANNED to use Meguiars 205 Finishing Polish along with a Lake Country Polishing Pad, but, as any good and `detailed` detailer knows, what you plan to do and what ends up happening, don`t always go hand in hand.
We tried 205 on the polishing pad, but it still left some very very fine marring. MUCH lighter than that which you see above but, still enough to create an eye-sore to us. To put it in a word, unacceptable. This actually was really good though because it gave us a chance to show Gord exactly why we do a test spot and the possible negative outcomes that you actually avoid on the WHOLE CAR by simply doing the test spot first. It also helped to show why we continuously...CONTINUOUSLY check our work as we go along.
Our next step was to go to a softer Finishing Pad and try the 205 polish again to see if it would finish off better for us....it didn`t. The light haze was still there. THIS is why we carry multiple products, for those `just incase` moments where you have to go to something different.
So i got out our second finest polish, Menzerna`s PO85rd. Went straight for our finishing pad and gave it a go. It knocked out almost......almost.....all of the haze. We`re talking just a few minor `tic` marks that you really had to look closely to see. Almost....was not good enough. So we went on to our FOURTH polishing combo, Menzerna`s 106FA, which has been a life saver on soft black paints, combined with a blue finishing pad....and bingo, crystal clear mirror like reflection. Yes, THIS is what we were looking for!
Next my sis did our tape line down the middle so that we could completely compound and polish one side of the hood while leaving the other side untouched and thus be able to show Gord, Ken and all of you how it looks!
The outcome was spectacular to say the least. The right side is undone, the left side has been finished:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Hood5050Sun1.jpg
A different angle:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Hood5050Sun4.jpg
Close up:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Hood5050Sun7.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Hood5050Sun2.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Hood5050Sun3.jpg
Sorry but, damn that looks good!
Here is JUST the UNfinished side, in all of its swirly glory;
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/SunSwirls3.jpg
And in comparison, here is JUST the FINISHED side:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HoodSunFinished5.jpg
The sun don`t lie!
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HoodSunFinished4.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HoodSunFinished3.jpg
Please excuse the dust :)
Ken was nice enough to pull it out in the sun so we could get some photos like that. It was worth the extra time to snap them.
We had very high standards for this paint...and it was living up to them. Now it was time to roll up our sleves and get ready for some SERIOUS hours of work ahead.
Ken pulled the car back in and we snapped on last 50/50 picture but using our sun gun as the light source this time...and then we got back to work...
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/SunGun50501.jpg
This car, was BIG. Did i say that already? By the time we had completed 1/2 of it...it felt like we had done a full detail already. Along the way Gord would periodically come out and ask a few more questions as far as speed, technique, work flow etc and we would take time to explain everything to him. You see, he had a black corvette sitting at home back in Canada that he fully intended to restore some serious shine to...so we had to make sure he was fully equiped with as much knowledge as possible for when he got back there....and also to make sure he knew that he was getting into some SERIOUS hours of work lol.
We worked the hood, then down the drivers side....hitting the roof along the way. Here is a shot of my sister polishing it out:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/CoachPolish1.jpg
Menzernas is some GREAT polish, but it does require some extra work time. So as opposed to the typical 5 `passes` we would usually do per section, she would have to do 7-8 `passes` per section. Now that may not sound like a lot, but add that up through the course of DOZENS of `sections` and you`ll find that it takes a lot longer than you would think to make sure the polish has properly broken down and finished off as nicely as possible. Here she is carefully wiping away the polish:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/CoachPolish2.jpg
Now what you CANT see here is, under her feet are a couple of microfiber towels so that she is sure not to leave any footprints or dirt on the inside of the car where she`s standing. Detailing is about the details!
We finally made it around to the rear quarter panel and i thought...hmm there is a Belair emblem right here, what a perfect photo op! I decided to go ahead and do another tape line and do another 50/50 before and after photo.
If you look at the right halogen light, you can see on the right hand side of the light that it is still greyish and swirled, but the left side is black as black can be once again:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Belair50502.jpg
I was getting a lot of indirect light from the sun at this point so its a little difficult to see. Here is a zoomed in photo of the same tape line:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Belair50501.jpg
A bit clearer, but hey I didn`t make a super bright sun gun for nothin...it is PERFECT for times like these:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Belair50504.jpg
THERE WE GO! Close up please...:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Belair50503.jpg
A little compound dust but nooooooo swirls on the left side.
And of course, another perfect opportunity for a 50/50 shot was on the big broad trunk. Hey, this is a rare occasion to be able to polish out a car like this. Gotta make the most of it and show what we can do.
Let us first revisit just how swirled this poor trunk was:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/SunGunBefore1.jpg
Good lord man!
50/50...left finished, right unfinished (like i really needed to tell you at this point...)
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Trunk50502.jpg
How funny, i see this picture and i have the same thought as before..."Good lord man!" ....just in a good way!
*Whistles* "Hey sun gun, you`re up!"
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Trunk50503.jpg
At this point.....would it be overkill to post another 50/50 photo........?
HELL no it wouldn`t...this car is lookin sweet...brrrrring on another picture!
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Trunk50504.jpg
Now, on a serious note here. You may notice in my reflection that I`m wearing a dust mask. Recently the two of us have been wearing them on all of our polish out jobs. As I`m sure you`ve seen in some pictures, the car is covered in compounding dust. When we polish, our face is literally about a foot from the polisher and you can imagine just how much dust is flying off in our face...add that up over 10-12 hours and you can imagine how it may effect your breathing. The mask is annoying as hell, i wont lie. Im sure it will be even worse in the summer when it hits 110+ degrees. But i can always wipe sweat away....i can`t however grow new lungs. And considering i dont have the money or time to go and get cut open and have them replaced...i`d rather just wear the mask. This job took us 12 hours....from 9 a.m to about 9:30 p.m. MUCH of that time was spend compounding and polishing...this was a very long detail...but i can honestly say i could breath much easier and didn`t have the congested feeling i often have had after other polish out jobs. What good is it to spend 1000`s of dollars on detailing supplies, equipment, machines etc....only to kill yourself in the process...when a simple, very cheap, dust mask could save a LOT of problems later on down the road. I can`t say its 100% protection, but i can say it made a huge difference for me.
With that being said...........ON WITH THE SHOW!
One more interesting note that my sister happened to bring to my attention. As unbelieveable as it may seem, the dust mask does not work effectively when left on your knee!
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/WillsPolish1.jpg
Thank you Dani, oh so much, for having the incredible insite to not only point this out to me, but to capture it on camera as well. This folks, is true love that only a sister can give. I however am just stupid enough to go ahead and post the picture for everyone to see!
Ok in all seriousness, i just wanted a picture of me without the dumb thing over my face, but she did catch me several times throughout the detail with my mask on my head and she would kindly point out that i dont breath through my forehead. It was an honest mistake! Its very difficult for someone to understand what you`re saying with that thing over your mouth...iiiiiiiiii just happened to forget to put it BACK over my mouth when i was done blabbing!
One more photo from behind. You may notice in the reflection that there is another car behind me. It is a 1968 Pontiac Beaumont. If i remember correctly what Ken told me, he said it is the body of a Chevelle but with GTO parts. A very interesting car...equally as awesome as the Belair......and yup, you guessed it, Ken was so impressed with how the Belair turned out, he had us back out next week to do the Beaumont...but thats another write up :)
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/WillsPolish2.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/WillsPolish3.jpg
Notice to the far right the little PC hooked up with the 4" pad. If you don`t have 3" and/or 4" pads, you`re not detailing the whole car! Those little pads are a must for getting into tight areas, getting small running boards, and other tight spots depending upon the car. Its nice having 2 polishers hooked up at once so that i can seemlessly switch from large to small pads and not have to screw around with changing backing plates. My sis thought i was insane somewhere around the time when i bought either our 4th or 5th polisher lol...we now have 6, and they all get used. Usually at least 4 per detail. The time it saves makes it money well spent.
By the time we finally got back around to the hood, it was well past dark. Gord had just about had his fill of Flex/polishing lessons for that day and was about to head out to happy hour lol. We on the other hand, still had to wash the car again via Optimum No Rinse and then prepare to wax it.
We went with DoDo Juice Supernatural Hybrid Paste Wax. We had used it on a corvette a week or so before and it make it look so wet it seemed like it was gonna run off the car onto the driveway.....I wanted to see how it would look on black.
It did not disappoint...not in the least. It went on buttery smooth and came off just as nicely. We applied it the same way we usually do. I used the PC with a finishing pad to apply to the large areas and Dani came behind me to get the small tight areas that my pad wouldn`t fit in. We make sure every inch is covered and protected. We allowed it to cure, packing up most of our gear in the mean time and also talking with Ken on what he can do to keep the paint in as good of condition as long as possible. MAINTENANCE is key! He bought about a dozen microfibers from us...he first brought out a few that he had been using, they kinda looked like the old walmart or sams club ones i use for tires lol. He asked if they would be ok and i just very honestly told him they might be ok to dry his rims off with, but i wouldn`t go near them with the paint. He had already pledged never to go near the paint with the California Duster again, so he took the next step and bought some high quality microfibers to dry the paint with after washing. I also brought him a sample of ONR the next week so that way he could have most of what he needed to do an effective and safe wash. This car gets dusty, not dirty, so an ONR wash would be perfect to help maintain it.
As i said, it was pitch black after we finished polishing...not quite as black as this paint looked...but hey it came close hehehe. We grabbed a few after photos..and even in the dark it looked awesome:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Finished.jpg
Wow, can i say wow? Cause honestly thats about all I`m coming up with here!
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Finished2.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Finished1.jpg
You really can`t tell where the floor ends and where the paint begins. It was that reflective. This next shot looks like a picture taken in a house of mirrors:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Finished6.jpg
Kinda looks like you could just walk right into the paint doesn`t it?
Now of course, the reflectino was awesome. In the shade or dark it was pretty nice before we even touched it....the real test would be to see how it looked in the sun. And since we JUST happened to be coming back the next week to do his OTHER beautiful classic...why, that would be the perfect time to grab some sun shots!
I asked Ken if he would mind pulling it out for us the following week when we came, and he was more than happy to abblige. When we got there to do the Beaumont, it was already sitting out on the drive way, parked and ready for its photo shoot.
There she is. A 1957 Chevy Belair. The story of how we got this job is just interesting as the detail itself.
I got a PM on AG a few weeks back from someone who I had never spoken to before. The message was titled "Flex Lesson"
I opened it up and it was from a guy in CANADA! I, for those of you who don`t know, live in Arizona. A little ways away.
Well Gordon, the guy who PM me, was going to be down in Arizona for a couple weeks. Apparently before he left Canada, he ordered himself a Flex 3401 kit but he had never used a Flex polisher before. He said he had read a few of my write-ups and was impressed with our work and the `details` i included in my write ups and thought a hands-on lesson from us would be a huge help.
He had suggested coming on site to one of our jobs but, i tend to like to keep the location of our jobs private. So I asked if he had any car we could perhaps use as an `practice` car to show him. I suggested maybe a rental car if he had one in town, or if the family members he was staying with had something they wouldn`t mind us using, we could do it that way as well.
His family member had a car alright...the one you see above. When Gordon wrote back and told me his uncle Ken owned a 57` Chevy that he had been wanting to get professionally detailed, i had to read it twice. NOT what i expected to say the least. We agreed to give his uncle a discounted price, give Gordon the lesson and in return, well we would be doing our first official classic car. A win/win/win all the way around.
We have worked on fairly high end cars before. Z06 Corvette`s, Lingenfelter Camaro`s, tricked out Mustangs...but a classic...this was a new avenue for us. We had been wanting for a very long time to get our hands on one and showcase what we could do...well, this was our shot.
Gordon informed us that it had been repainted over 20 years ago, but it was base coat/clear coat, not single stage. So while it was a base/clear paint job, it was still a pretty old paint job on a VERY nice car. As always, we would take the utmost care to be as careful and thorough as possible. I at the time had not seen the car, so asked Gordon if he could send me a few pictures and give me his assessment on the paints condition, just to get an idea of what we`d be working with.
He sent me the photos and of course, it looked beautiful...in the shade. He said he thought that the paint looked mint in condition...and again, in the shade and to untrained eyes...it did...but we will be showing a different side of the coin below.
We set a date when Gordon was not going to be busy so that way he could have a good amount of time to talk, pick our brains and see us and the Flex in action. We got there pretty early in the morning, around 9 a.m or so, unloaded our gear and took a few minutes to take in the beauty of this car. The garage that it sat in, as im sure you can see above, was very nice as well!
Gord wasn`t home when we got there, but his uncle Ken was. Honestly he couldn`t have been nicer if he had tired. Very hospitable and very trusting that we would take good care of his baby. We didn`t know it but, Ken was strongly reconsidering a new paint job because HE was very unsatisfied with how it looked. Apparently it had been `detailed` before with not so good results. That, on top of the fact that the only cleaning it got was from a California Duster or a spray detail wipe down, made for a VERY swirled and scratched up paint job that could easily be seen as something that couldn`t be repaired.
Kens wife was familiar with different finishes from craft work she did and when she came out to talk to us she let us know that she had figured out right away that the clear coat had been scratched. I LOVE, LOVE talking with owners who understand the concept of paint, scratches, defects and swirls. That is by far the most difficult part of my job is explaining to an owner that, yes your car is clean and shiny and waxed, but look at all these horrible swirls! Black car owners are easier to show the defects to...but lighter colors are very difficult. These two however, were ahead of the game in understanding about swirls/scratches. They were VERY bad though, so i can understand why they were considering a new paint job.
How bad? This bad:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore5.jpg
Not pretty right? Well guess what...it looked even worse under the brighter beam of the sun gun:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/SunGunBefore4.jpg
And of course direct sunlight was equally as horrible:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/SunSwirls2.jpg
So, we knew we had our hands full on this one. You see, being 26 years old...I dont really get to see a LOT of classic cars, just at shows that i go to, but then they are surrounded by OTHER classic cars and I dont really get to take in just how HUGE these things are. This is a lot of paint people. Even the nice sized sedans of today, don`t even get to the same ballpark as a big boy like this. A Cadillac or Lincoln of today can just go take a seat...because these oldies are BIG.
And not only are they big, they take a LOTTTTT of tape. My sister Dani literally spent over an hour just taping off all the chrome, emblems and trim on this bad boy to make sure no compound or polish got wedged up into an area that it didn`t belong!
Back to the story though...first thing was first after we were done admiring the car....it was inspection time. Now, to the untrained eye...this thing looked mint like Gord had said....and even to the trained eye, under light you`d see swirls galore yes but, you have to take a VERY close look when you do a walk around and really take note of what shape the car is in.
We walked around, saw some things that needed to be noted, but wanted the surface clean so the pictures would come out clear. We went ahead and did an Optimum No Rinse wash on it to get it nice and clean. The owner had never done a regular rinse/soap up/rinse/dry kind of a wash on it...and honestly..the car was very clean with the exception of some light dust. So an ONR was seemed to be the perfect choice to prep the car. Next we started taking pictures to document the issues we found...like these:
Here is some real nice orange peel, but also note the defect in the paint my sis is pointing at:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Defects12.jpg
Lower panels such as these always have little secrets they like to try to hide, but we usually find them :)
There was well over a dozen touch up paint spots all over the car. They were hard to see but again, we found em.
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Defects11.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Defects3.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Defects2.jpg
I think you get the point right lol?
There was also a couple very funny looking spots on the hood. We couldn`t quite get them to show up in a photo but...it basically looked like two circles, one rather large...where it appeared some body work had been done prior to the paint job. Being that this was old school metal, either the two spots had some metal welded into some rusted out spots on the hood, or maybe it was filler that wasn`t sanded down and evened out properly. Either way, whatever it was, it was UNDER the paint...nothing we could do. But we spoke to Ken about it and he was already well aware of it and that it was under the paint and that nothing short of body work and a re-paint would fix it.
After all that fun was done, it was time to document what WE would be working on, the finish of the paint! And man, as you guys saw above, it was in really bad shape. Swirls all over, rather deep ones at that. But, the deep ones always receive the most severe of punishment! Between our Flex 3401, Griots Polisher and a couple PC 7424`s along with a few dozen pads to choose from and about a dozen different compounds/polishes....we were prepared for any fight these things might want to give us.
Here`s a bit more of an extended look at what we were dealing with. I literally took photos of every section of every panel on this car...and it allllllllll looked the same. HORRIBLE!
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore26.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore23.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore22.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore20.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore19.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore18.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore17.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore16.jpg
Ouch...those are ugly.
The hood was a mess...plain and simple:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore15.jpg
A bit more close up...
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore14.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore13.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore9.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore7.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore5.jpg
Now, at this point, i think anyone reading this, even someone who was not previously aware of what `swirls` were, now understands what they look like. They are scratches, 1000`s upon 1000`s of scratches in your paint. They`re very easy to instill but extremely difficult to remove the RIGHT way. There is a different between polishing the paint to a flawless, super high, crystal clear gloss through hours of meticulous work....and simply grabbing a high speed rotary buffer and whaling away at the paint, knocking it down but leaving buffer trails or `Holograms` all over the place and basically doing more harm than good.
As my sister said "The only thing worse than swirls are holograms and the only thing worse than holograms are when the person who put the holograms in the paint actaully gets PAID FOR IT!"
True words, true indeed! Fortunately for Ken and his family...thats not how we conduct our work. You`ll see what i mean shortly :)
Around the time we were taking the pictures of the swirls, Gord showed up and we finally got to meet him. One of the first things he said was "So the paint is in pretty good shape huh?" ....I smiled and asked him to come over to where i was. I had the sun gun near me and showed him the paint in a...different light so to speak:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/SunGunBefore2.jpg
"Oh wow! That light really makes a difference!"
Ah yes, the lesson had begun!
Lesson #1: Swirl Inspection! Get to know your enemy lol.
We continued around the car, i showed him some of the defects we had found and ALL of the swirls lol. I think before he had an idea of what to look for, but having us show him first hand in person really made it sink in. I had to clay the car, this was after all a 2 decade old paint job....SOMETHING was bound to be bonded to the paint that washing wouldn`t remove! Gord went in to change clothes, i continued claying and Dani, bless her heart...she kept taping lol
This is what i got off of half the hood....you can see the black and brown look to my previously purple clay:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Clay.jpg
Again, that was half the hood...my clay got in pretty nasty shape after finishing the whole car...so as always, it was a good thing to do before polishing. Polishing still dirty paint is a no no!
Round n` round we went....what a lot of paint to clay! It was even more taping though, like i said before, she spent over an hour just taping.
While Dani finished that up, Gord came back out and i gave him a run through on the differences between the Flex and the Griots and Porter Cable. Then gave him a run down on different pads, aggressions and different products we use. He had bought Meguiars 105/205 combo, which was exactly what we hoped to use on the Belair so, that was perfect!
Next part of the lesson was a very important one, the test spot. On a car like this, of this size, you DONT wanna buff the whole thing out only to find out "Oops, it didn`t finish down as good as i thought" and then have to REDO the whollllle car.
For this car, I decided to go strong with the Flex, Megs 105 and a Lake Country Hydro-Tech Cutting pad.
I explained to him that the purpose and goal of this first step, the compounding step, was to cut the swirls down to size. We weren`t expecting the paint to finish off perfectly clear and that we basically expect a light haze to be left over, especially on black paint.
I went on to do the test area with the combo listed above. And as expected, a nice haze was left over...but it was very uniform and very few, if any deeper scratches were left over. For those of you who aren`t familiar with what I`m talking about...we basically started with an area that looked like this, covered in swirls/scratches of varrying depths and sizes:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HalogensBefore18.jpg
And by compounding the surface with the appropriate product/pad/machine/speed and of course, most importantly..using good technique, we were able to level the paint out to a nice even `haze` which basically looks like very light marring. The marring however is much more fine and uniform than the previous swirled mess:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/CompoundHaze1.jpg
No, the camera is not unfocused, thats what its suppose to look like. Here is a closer look:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/CompoundHaze2.jpg
There it is "Hazy goodness" as we like to call it. Is it what we want the final product to look like? No. But it is the first step of many to get the paint refined down to the point we want it at.
Next up was our polishing step. We had PLANNED to use Meguiars 205 Finishing Polish along with a Lake Country Polishing Pad, but, as any good and `detailed` detailer knows, what you plan to do and what ends up happening, don`t always go hand in hand.
We tried 205 on the polishing pad, but it still left some very very fine marring. MUCH lighter than that which you see above but, still enough to create an eye-sore to us. To put it in a word, unacceptable. This actually was really good though because it gave us a chance to show Gord exactly why we do a test spot and the possible negative outcomes that you actually avoid on the WHOLE CAR by simply doing the test spot first. It also helped to show why we continuously...CONTINUOUSLY check our work as we go along.
Our next step was to go to a softer Finishing Pad and try the 205 polish again to see if it would finish off better for us....it didn`t. The light haze was still there. THIS is why we carry multiple products, for those `just incase` moments where you have to go to something different.
So i got out our second finest polish, Menzerna`s PO85rd. Went straight for our finishing pad and gave it a go. It knocked out almost......almost.....all of the haze. We`re talking just a few minor `tic` marks that you really had to look closely to see. Almost....was not good enough. So we went on to our FOURTH polishing combo, Menzerna`s 106FA, which has been a life saver on soft black paints, combined with a blue finishing pad....and bingo, crystal clear mirror like reflection. Yes, THIS is what we were looking for!
Next my sis did our tape line down the middle so that we could completely compound and polish one side of the hood while leaving the other side untouched and thus be able to show Gord, Ken and all of you how it looks!
The outcome was spectacular to say the least. The right side is undone, the left side has been finished:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Hood5050Sun1.jpg
A different angle:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Hood5050Sun4.jpg
Close up:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Hood5050Sun7.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Hood5050Sun2.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Hood5050Sun3.jpg
Sorry but, damn that looks good!
Here is JUST the UNfinished side, in all of its swirly glory;
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/SunSwirls3.jpg
And in comparison, here is JUST the FINISHED side:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HoodSunFinished5.jpg
The sun don`t lie!
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HoodSunFinished4.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/HoodSunFinished3.jpg
Please excuse the dust :)
Ken was nice enough to pull it out in the sun so we could get some photos like that. It was worth the extra time to snap them.
We had very high standards for this paint...and it was living up to them. Now it was time to roll up our sleves and get ready for some SERIOUS hours of work ahead.
Ken pulled the car back in and we snapped on last 50/50 picture but using our sun gun as the light source this time...and then we got back to work...
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/SunGun50501.jpg
This car, was BIG. Did i say that already? By the time we had completed 1/2 of it...it felt like we had done a full detail already. Along the way Gord would periodically come out and ask a few more questions as far as speed, technique, work flow etc and we would take time to explain everything to him. You see, he had a black corvette sitting at home back in Canada that he fully intended to restore some serious shine to...so we had to make sure he was fully equiped with as much knowledge as possible for when he got back there....and also to make sure he knew that he was getting into some SERIOUS hours of work lol.
We worked the hood, then down the drivers side....hitting the roof along the way. Here is a shot of my sister polishing it out:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/CoachPolish1.jpg
Menzernas is some GREAT polish, but it does require some extra work time. So as opposed to the typical 5 `passes` we would usually do per section, she would have to do 7-8 `passes` per section. Now that may not sound like a lot, but add that up through the course of DOZENS of `sections` and you`ll find that it takes a lot longer than you would think to make sure the polish has properly broken down and finished off as nicely as possible. Here she is carefully wiping away the polish:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/CoachPolish2.jpg
Now what you CANT see here is, under her feet are a couple of microfiber towels so that she is sure not to leave any footprints or dirt on the inside of the car where she`s standing. Detailing is about the details!
We finally made it around to the rear quarter panel and i thought...hmm there is a Belair emblem right here, what a perfect photo op! I decided to go ahead and do another tape line and do another 50/50 before and after photo.
If you look at the right halogen light, you can see on the right hand side of the light that it is still greyish and swirled, but the left side is black as black can be once again:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Belair50502.jpg
I was getting a lot of indirect light from the sun at this point so its a little difficult to see. Here is a zoomed in photo of the same tape line:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Belair50501.jpg
A bit clearer, but hey I didn`t make a super bright sun gun for nothin...it is PERFECT for times like these:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Belair50504.jpg
THERE WE GO! Close up please...:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Belair50503.jpg
A little compound dust but nooooooo swirls on the left side.
And of course, another perfect opportunity for a 50/50 shot was on the big broad trunk. Hey, this is a rare occasion to be able to polish out a car like this. Gotta make the most of it and show what we can do.
Let us first revisit just how swirled this poor trunk was:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/SunGunBefore1.jpg
Good lord man!
50/50...left finished, right unfinished (like i really needed to tell you at this point...)
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Trunk50502.jpg
How funny, i see this picture and i have the same thought as before..."Good lord man!" ....just in a good way!
*Whistles* "Hey sun gun, you`re up!"
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Trunk50503.jpg
At this point.....would it be overkill to post another 50/50 photo........?
HELL no it wouldn`t...this car is lookin sweet...brrrrring on another picture!
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Trunk50504.jpg
Now, on a serious note here. You may notice in my reflection that I`m wearing a dust mask. Recently the two of us have been wearing them on all of our polish out jobs. As I`m sure you`ve seen in some pictures, the car is covered in compounding dust. When we polish, our face is literally about a foot from the polisher and you can imagine just how much dust is flying off in our face...add that up over 10-12 hours and you can imagine how it may effect your breathing. The mask is annoying as hell, i wont lie. Im sure it will be even worse in the summer when it hits 110+ degrees. But i can always wipe sweat away....i can`t however grow new lungs. And considering i dont have the money or time to go and get cut open and have them replaced...i`d rather just wear the mask. This job took us 12 hours....from 9 a.m to about 9:30 p.m. MUCH of that time was spend compounding and polishing...this was a very long detail...but i can honestly say i could breath much easier and didn`t have the congested feeling i often have had after other polish out jobs. What good is it to spend 1000`s of dollars on detailing supplies, equipment, machines etc....only to kill yourself in the process...when a simple, very cheap, dust mask could save a LOT of problems later on down the road. I can`t say its 100% protection, but i can say it made a huge difference for me.
With that being said...........ON WITH THE SHOW!
One more interesting note that my sister happened to bring to my attention. As unbelieveable as it may seem, the dust mask does not work effectively when left on your knee!
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/WillsPolish1.jpg
Thank you Dani, oh so much, for having the incredible insite to not only point this out to me, but to capture it on camera as well. This folks, is true love that only a sister can give. I however am just stupid enough to go ahead and post the picture for everyone to see!
Ok in all seriousness, i just wanted a picture of me without the dumb thing over my face, but she did catch me several times throughout the detail with my mask on my head and she would kindly point out that i dont breath through my forehead. It was an honest mistake! Its very difficult for someone to understand what you`re saying with that thing over your mouth...iiiiiiiiii just happened to forget to put it BACK over my mouth when i was done blabbing!
One more photo from behind. You may notice in the reflection that there is another car behind me. It is a 1968 Pontiac Beaumont. If i remember correctly what Ken told me, he said it is the body of a Chevelle but with GTO parts. A very interesting car...equally as awesome as the Belair......and yup, you guessed it, Ken was so impressed with how the Belair turned out, he had us back out next week to do the Beaumont...but thats another write up :)
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/WillsPolish2.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/WillsPolish3.jpg
Notice to the far right the little PC hooked up with the 4" pad. If you don`t have 3" and/or 4" pads, you`re not detailing the whole car! Those little pads are a must for getting into tight areas, getting small running boards, and other tight spots depending upon the car. Its nice having 2 polishers hooked up at once so that i can seemlessly switch from large to small pads and not have to screw around with changing backing plates. My sis thought i was insane somewhere around the time when i bought either our 4th or 5th polisher lol...we now have 6, and they all get used. Usually at least 4 per detail. The time it saves makes it money well spent.
By the time we finally got back around to the hood, it was well past dark. Gord had just about had his fill of Flex/polishing lessons for that day and was about to head out to happy hour lol. We on the other hand, still had to wash the car again via Optimum No Rinse and then prepare to wax it.
We went with DoDo Juice Supernatural Hybrid Paste Wax. We had used it on a corvette a week or so before and it make it look so wet it seemed like it was gonna run off the car onto the driveway.....I wanted to see how it would look on black.
It did not disappoint...not in the least. It went on buttery smooth and came off just as nicely. We applied it the same way we usually do. I used the PC with a finishing pad to apply to the large areas and Dani came behind me to get the small tight areas that my pad wouldn`t fit in. We make sure every inch is covered and protected. We allowed it to cure, packing up most of our gear in the mean time and also talking with Ken on what he can do to keep the paint in as good of condition as long as possible. MAINTENANCE is key! He bought about a dozen microfibers from us...he first brought out a few that he had been using, they kinda looked like the old walmart or sams club ones i use for tires lol. He asked if they would be ok and i just very honestly told him they might be ok to dry his rims off with, but i wouldn`t go near them with the paint. He had already pledged never to go near the paint with the California Duster again, so he took the next step and bought some high quality microfibers to dry the paint with after washing. I also brought him a sample of ONR the next week so that way he could have most of what he needed to do an effective and safe wash. This car gets dusty, not dirty, so an ONR wash would be perfect to help maintain it.
As i said, it was pitch black after we finished polishing...not quite as black as this paint looked...but hey it came close hehehe. We grabbed a few after photos..and even in the dark it looked awesome:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Finished.jpg
Wow, can i say wow? Cause honestly thats about all I`m coming up with here!
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Finished2.jpg
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Finished1.jpg
You really can`t tell where the floor ends and where the paint begins. It was that reflective. This next shot looks like a picture taken in a house of mirrors:
http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff374/Wills_WindowsAndWheels/Kens%201957%20Belair/Finished6.jpg
Kinda looks like you could just walk right into the paint doesn`t it?
Now of course, the reflectino was awesome. In the shade or dark it was pretty nice before we even touched it....the real test would be to see how it looked in the sun. And since we JUST happened to be coming back the next week to do his OTHER beautiful classic...why, that would be the perfect time to grab some sun shots!
I asked Ken if he would mind pulling it out for us the following week when we came, and he was more than happy to abblige. When we got there to do the Beaumont, it was already sitting out on the drive way, parked and ready for its photo shoot.