The Reverse Test Spot

[Mike Phillips]

The Reverse Test Spot


One time I had a chance to work on a very cool 1954 Corvette for Corvette Mike. I had never met Mike before and he hired me based upon a recommendation by Mike Kennedy from Meguiar`s.

I showed up for the job with my Brinkman Swirl Finder Light to inspect the finish myself but to also show Mike the true condition of the paint before I started working on it. I found out that Mike would be out of the office till that evening.

While I knew that he knew the finish was a wreck otherwise why would he hire me to work on the car, I also knew that it`s easy to forget how horrible a finish started out after it`s been restored. Because this was the first time I worked for this gentleman I wanted to make a great first impression and since I couldn`t do a normal Test Spot on the hood or deck lid to show him the before and after results BEFORE buffing out the car, I decided to tape off a section on the hood and then buff out the entire car except this one spot.

Then when he arrived I would show him the true before condition of the paint with the Brinkman Swirl Finder Light and after showing him I could then quickly restore that one section to match the rest of the car.

I called this The Reverse Test Spot but never found time to post the write-up for this project. Since I still have all the pictures I`ll post the write-up on here in the near future because there`s some very interesting procedures I did to this particular car that I think others might enjoy seeing.

Until then, here`s what the Reverse Test Spot looks like; instead of taping off a small section to work on while leaving all the surrounding paint undisturbed, you tape off and cover a small section and then disturb all the surrounding paint.

(The word disturb in this case means to correct and polish the paint to a high gloss )


The Reverse Test Spot




Here`s what the paint looked like before when highlighted with the Brinkman Swirl Finder Light






After shots...










Think outside the spot...

[JaredPointer]

Lot`s of Mike`s in that story....

Nice car - Maybe one day I will be allowed to spring for something like that.

[Mike Phillips]

I actually still have all the pictures I took during this project, lots of pictures.

The dash and everything inside had overspray on it and I clayed everything in the interior I could without going nuts...

I also am really glad I did the The Reverse Test Spot on the hood or no one would have remember how horrible the paint was before it was machine polished.