Rickrack & Rydawg: Breaking the Gloss Barrier! (lots of pics!)

[Rickrack]

As most of you already know, Ryan and I are now working together out of our new shop. It still needs some work to be up to our high standards, but it has been tough to find the time in-between doing cars and such to work on it. We have been working on some of the cars together and other cars by ourselves, depending on our busy schedules. Ryan and I decided to tackle this car together.







Some of you might remember the custom black Infiniti G35 I detailed a little while back http://www.autopia.org/forum/click-b...pe-custom.html . The owner of that car owns a high-end body shop and does lots of work on G35`s and other customs. This particular G35 had been vandalized in a parking lot along with another G35, so it received a complete repaint. The owner of the body shop was very pleased with the job I had performed on his car, so he contacted me about properly refinishing this car after it got out of the paint booth.







The body shop did all of the wetsanding on the car. I was told they used 1500 grit by hand, followed by 2000 grit by hand and 3000 grit Trizact by machine. They were too scared to polish the paint back to perfection, so it was up to Ryan and I to do so.









Below is what the car looked like when it arrived at the shop...

[Rickrack]

I started by giving the body a quick wash to remove any contaminants from the body shop.





I chose the front right fender as a test panel to see what products we would use and to see what we were up against. 3M Extra Cut Compound on a yellow Edge wool pad worked the best at removing the sanding marks that were VERY deep in the clearcoat. The pigtails left by the sander were so deep that it took me 4 to 6 complete sets of polishing just to remove the sanding marks. I have never experienced wetsanding scratches that were so hard to remove, due to paint being extremely hard. Believe it or not, we went through 3/4 of a bottle of Extra Cut on this car!! It was the hardest paint I have ever, ever, ever, ever, ever worked on in my 15 years of detailing.





After removing all of the sanding marks with the wool pad, we refined the finish with a yellow Solo foam pad using 3M Extra Cut Compound.







Below is what the fender looked like after refining it down with just Extra Cut Compound on a foam pad!

























I went to town with the wool pad with ECC to remove the sanding scratches. It took me a total of about 20 hours just to remove the sanding scratches, nevermind removing the compounding haze. After I was done removing all of the sanding scratches with the wool pad, both Ryan and I followed behind with the yellow foam and ECC to refine the finish, removing 90% of the compounding haze.



Me working...













Ryan working...













During pics...































The heavy compounding made a total mess of the shop with dust flying everywhere.

[Rickrack]

After the heavy compounding was completed, the car was soaked in foam, then extensively rinsed to remove all compound from the cracks and crevices.











Next, it was thoroughly washed, then wiped down with alcohol and brought outside for inspection. As you can see, it was slightly raining outside when the pics were taken.





These pics are after just compounding!



























Now that all of the sanding scratches were removed and the paint was leveled to perfection, it was time to polish the paint to an extreme gloss.









SIP on a yellow Solo foam pad worked great at restoring the paint to a high gloss finish and really seemed to sharpen the reflections.









After the car was polished with SIP, we decided to take it one step further and finesse the paint with 3M Ultrafina. After this step, Ryan and I were totally amazed at the depth, clarity, sharpness and reflectivity of the paint with absolutely no LSP. We were asked NOT to apply any LSP to the finish because the paint was still fresh and need time to properly cure.







After all of the polishing was completed, it was wiped down with 91% alcohol, followed by a wipedown with distilled water to remove any slight haze from the alcohol.











PLEASE NOTE: These after pics were taken of the car with no LSP!.









It was a very cloudy day when the pictures were taken, but I managed to get a few good pics when the sun peeked through.









Here is the finished product!!....

[Rickrack]

[Rickrack]

[Rickrack]

[Rickrack]

[Rickrack]

[Rickrack]

Thanks to everyone for checking out our work!







PS: Sorry for the large amount of pictures. I bought a new camera and got a little carried away. Some of the pictures were taken with my old camera as you can probably tell. I am still learning how to use the camera, so some of the pictures look different. The pictures were taken on different days in which the sun would only peek through for a few minutes at a time.









The total process ended up being:





Hand wash body to remove all body shop dust (no wheels & tires)





Buffed complete exterior with 3M Extra Cut Compound using a yellow Edge wool pad a total of 4 to 6 times to remove all of the sanding scratches (This was the hardest paint I have ever worked on !!)





Buffed complete exterior with 3M Extra Cut Compound using a yellow Meg`s Solo foam pad





Soaked car down with foam, thoroughly rinsed and washed complete exterior





Extensive cleaning of wheels, wheel wells and all jambs to remove excess compound





Wiped down exterior with 91% alcohol to remove any remaining polishing residue





Buffed complete exterior with SIP using a yellow Meg`s Solo foam pad





Wiped down exterior with 91% alcohol to remove any remaining polishing residue





Buffed complete exterior with Ultrafina using a blue CCS pad





Wiped down exterior with 91% alcohol to remove any remaining polishing residue





Wiped down exterior with distilled water to remove the slight haze left from the alcohol





No LSP was applied





Dressed tires and wheel wells with Super Blue dressing





Removed overspray from all exterior glass using steel wool with window cleaner





Cleaned exhaust tips with steel wool, followed by Deep Alum

[Todd@RUPES]

You have to love how wetsanded and orange peel free paint is just so true and reflective. Very nice work guys and great pictures. Seriously great work!!!

[Rickrack]

Thanks Todd!



Ryan and I were both blown away when we finall pulled the car outside after about 34 total hours of polishing.

[ScheerSpeed]

:shocked



WOW. amazing job!

[Rickrack]

Thanks!



My body is still killing me...

[TSC17]

Unbelievable guys...incredible work! Now I officially have polish-envy!

[Gen2]

I am really loving that orange peel free paint work, excellent work on that G35