350z, Lx470, Mdx, M45

[Scottwax]

2004 Nissan 350Z. The owner had it wetsanded to remove the orange peel and the shop was around 95% successful. Very little left, most is around the emblems because they didn't remove them. The also did an outstanding job buffing it out, I didn't see any rotary swirls. He said they had lights all over the car when they buffed it. Anyway, they didn't do any sealing so he called me out to do that.



Obviously, no need to do any heavy polishing, the only area that might have benefited was the rear bumper which had a light to moderate halo swirls...but if wetsanding and rotary buffing didn't remove them at all, then the problem is apparently with the repaint on the bumper-specifically, the swirls are under the paint. Oh well, the rest of the car is as good as it gets. I used Werkstatt's Prime via PC and a blue Propel finishing pad and sealed with Acrylic Jett.



Only 5 pics, it started to rain as I shot the last one-ironically, it is the first one posted here and you can see the rain drops if you look closely.

 

[92MX83]

Wow... like you could dive right into that paint! Glad the shop got the heavy polishing step right. Awesome as always, Scott!

 

[Scottwax]

2004 Lexus LX470. My son and I had 2 hours, 20 minutes to detail as much of it as we could. Nasty paint transfer on the passenger side of the rear bumper too, which the Cyclo, two Propel lite cut Cyclo pads and Optimum Hyper Compound made short work of. The whole car then got Pink Moose using a white LC polishing pad via PC and finished with Poorboy's EX. It really needed deeper polishing but there just wasn't time. PM got about 85% of the defects, more than enough for the customer but probably not enough for the average autopian. Looked a lot better though. My son vacuumed, took a wet MF to the whole interior, spot cleaned a few areas with Woolite/water and used the same on all the mats. All the leather got Turtle Wax Leather Conditioner. The interior turned out really well, especially with the time limitations. We started at 1:25 PM and finished at 3:45 PM on the dot, exactly when he said he needed to leave.



Only 3 pictures though, he came out to leave while I was taking them. Not the best lighting either. I wish I could have taken some interior shots, it really looked good for what my son did.

================



2007 Chevy Corvette Z06. Monthly customer, he has had me wax it each time for the last 3 months. With regular waxing, he has decided he wants me to use Pinnacle Souveran. This time he told me how well it has been holding up. He says it beads like crazy in the rain and when he rinsed it off at the local coin-op, most of the dirt was gone when he finished. I also washed his girlfriend's F150 (you can see it in the background) that I detailed last month and sealed with my 80/20 blend of Meguiars #16 and FK's Pink Wax and it was still very, very slick. Looked freshly waxed when I finished.



Anyway, here are a couple pics of the Z06 with it's 3rd coat of Souveran....

 

[Scottwax]

2006 Infiniti M45. Last waxed in mid June with Poorboy's EX-P over a 6 month old application of Prime/AJ. Here it is, early November and it still looked really good, had decent slickness and good beading. This time, he had a few minor paint transfers and light tar on the bottom 3rd of the car. I went over it using a white LC polishing pad via PC with Optimum Poli-Seal and sealed with Werkstatt's Acrylic Jett.

 

[Scottwax]

2004 Acura MDX. Pretty much been adding Acrylic Jett x 2 every 2-3 months on it since late last year. He runs it through a touchless car wash 3-6 times a week (weather dependent) and dries it off himself. Definitely a real torture test for any wax or sealant but Acrylic Jett has been holding up very well. I've been taking care of his cars for more than 10 years now and he has been the happiest with Acrylic Jett.



Needed some light polishing this time, so I did the same on this one as the M45 (they work together), Poli-Seal topped with AJ. This MDX ought to show for sure if AJ over Poli-Seal has similar durability as Prime/AJ. That would be a huge plus for me since Poli-Seal is $35 a gallon from my distributor, basically double what a 16 oz bottle of Prime costs. Poli-Seal definitely has more cut too.



I've posted this MDX several times, so just a few pics to show you what the combo looks like.

 

[Pats300zx]

Wow.....Scott that 350Z is awesome. Love the HRE's :spot

 

[sftempest66]

Always a plesure to read your details, you do some amazing work!!! Do you usually finish out with EX? And when you do, how long do you let it sit for? I really want to put another coat of nuba on after I apply the EX-P, but it tends to smear, I think its because the ex hasn't fully bonded yet? I'm not sure

 

[klnyc]

Wow that Z350 is wetter than wet Mad prop rest of the rides :goodjob

 

[euro]

80/20 #16inkWax...how similar is it to the look of Souveran? Would a little FK1000P added to this mix push it to Souveran level?



BTW, that 350Z looks ridiculous....I love the whole package.

 

[Scottwax]

Always a plesure to read your details, you do some amazing work!!! Do you usually finish out with EX? And when you do, how long do you let it sit for? I really want to put another coat of nuba on after I apply the EX-P, but it tends to smear, I think its because the ex hasn't fully bonded yet? I'm not sure

I mostly use EX w/carnauba, sometimes I go with EX-P on light metallics. I let both sit around 30 minutes before removing, although it was maybe 15 on that LX470 due to time contraints. I rarely top either. Most of my customers just aren't interested in eleventy billion layers of this and that. They want a single protective coating and either EX does quite well on their own.



euro-never used FK1000P so I can't answer that part. The mix is more like Natty's Blue than Souveran, less bright than S100/P21S. Basically all the good things about #16 with added wetness.

 

[steelwind101]

Great work, its always a joy to see what you have been up too.



There are lots of tyre marks on the drive way with the Vette on!!

 

[spotter]

I have never seen any of your work that doesn't look spectacular but I personally thought the white Infiniti with the OptiSeal/AJ looked especially good......lot of depth for a white car.

 

[3Dog]

Scott, since I have not tried Opti-Seal yet.......are you using it more as a Prime (base) than as Jett (sealant)?

TY in advance

 

[1 Clean WS6]

Just beautiful Scott!! That 350 is simply stunning!! :2thumbs:

 

[03TLS]

What if any harm do you think running it through a waterless wash has either on the durability or even worse introducing swirls etc??

 

[Scottwax]

There are lots of tyre marks on the drive way with the Vette on!!

Believe me, that isn't a driveway you want to back out of. At least there is enough room after backing up and manuvering around a bit that you can drive straight out.



3Dog-I am using Poli-Seal mostly as an LSP and as a base for carnaubas on my own car. I used AJ over it on the MDX because the owner is so happy with how well it holds up, figured in the interest of simplicity, I'd do the same with the M45.



03TLS-what waterless wash? I am not sure what you are talking about.

 

[lemans23]

Scott, I've been meaning to ask you this. What kind of camera are you using? Are you shooting film and scanning it in? I only ask because all of your shots seem to be purposely "mis"exposed to show more gloss (I do the same thing, otherwise it's hard to see what it looks like in person), which is what happens when you use a film scanner. I'm just wondering, it's just what I've noticed as I'm a photography lover



There's no need to tell you good job because the results speak for themselves frankly. Flawless as usual.

 

[Scottwax]

Scott, I've been meaning to ask you this. What kind of camera are you using? Are you shooting film and scanning it in? I only ask because all of your shots seem to be purposely "mis"exposed to show more gloss (I do the same thing, otherwise it's hard to see what it looks like in person), which is what happens when you use a film scanner. I'm just wondering, it's just what I've noticed as I'm a photography lover



There's no need to tell you good job because the results speak for themselves frankly. Flawless as usual.

Nikon N60 using Kodak High Definition film. I have it processed at Walgreens and they scan the negatives onto a CD. I use the xat.com image optimizer to resize and compress the pictures.



There is no attempt to alter the exposure. I shoot pics on auto and I guess even with matrix metering, when a black car fills most of the frame, the light meter can't compensate for a much lighter background. Conversely, white cars in the full sun get totally washed out. I have tried everything to try to get the lighting as natural as possible but the camera doesn't seem to cooperate. And, to be quite honest, I find some pictures that are fully digital look a bit flat to me. Print film naturally seems to have more pop. To be honest though, the pictures never seem to live up to what I see with my own eyes anyway.



My old Cannon and Minolta didn't seem to have a problem with exposure but they were also fully manual. I have messed around with the manual settings but it doesn't seem to work well. With my old cameras, I could read the background and subject and average the two if the difference was too much.



I took photography in college so I could fix pictures that didn't turn out right via the enlarger, you know, like burning in underexposed areas, etc. Now that I have my film processed, that is out of my control.

 

[gmblack3]

Nice work Scott!

 

[03TLS]

Sorry scott,

I meant the touchless car wash. How big of an effect do you think it has on the durability and also do they seem to introduce swirls or any other defects??