Black 2003 Corvette Z06

J

Jason M

New member
This Vette' almost ended me. It was the most difficult paint I have ever worked on. It was really hard but also liked to mar up very easy. It had really deep rotary swirls and hollograms from the used car lot I assume. Here was my process:

Gold Class wash with Chenille mit, Wheel Brightner on wheels, APC on tires and fender wells, Safe D-Greaser and Hyper dressing in engine bay.

Mild clay with Quick Detailer for lube

#83 via 8006 pad and rotary

#80 via 8006 pad and rotary X 2

#80 via 8006 pad and DA

#9 via 8006 pad and DA

NXT via 9006 pad and DA X2



Not a ton of pics as it took me about 16 hours and two days so the owner took the afters the next day. I wasn't able to get it to 100%. More like 90%-95%. But considering where it started I was happy and the owner was thrilled.



Here is the trunk lid before. You can see the deep swirls, hollograms and water etching:

vette_trunk_before.jpg




And a before shot of the side. Some pretty good swirls going on for sure!

vette_side_before.jpg




And here is an after of the trunk:

vette_trunk_after.jpg




And finally an after of the side:

vette_side_after.jpg
 
Yikes .... 16 hours! Was that a paying job? Difficult to price out something like that. Good effort on your part. Looks like you cleaned up a lot of the marring.



I agree, black Corvette paint is very difficult. I just did one like that and it was swirled and had water spots. The owner didn't want to pay for deep polishing, only light 1 step polish then wax. As you might expect, it came out better but not stellar.
 
a friend's brother has a red corvette (2004 i think?) and i turned down the offer for me to do it...i don't have a rotary and after all of the discussion on here about the difficulty...i didn't even want to bother with just a PC.



nice job!
 
Yeah, paying job. To say I underbid is a gross understatement. The PC with a polishing pad and #83 didn't do a damn thing to the paint. Even with three passes it had barely any effect. The rotary with a cutting pad did the cutting the quickest (duh) but then it would take #83 on a polishing pad X 2 to remove the marring left behind. Coming up with the combo that worked was over half the battle.
 
Thanks for the compliments! It was a true PITA but well worth it. I just don't really understand how a paint can be SO hard and still mar so easily?
 
Jason M said:
Thanks for the compliments! It was a true PITA but well worth it. I just don't really understand how a paint can be SO hard and still mar so easily?
Click to expand...



Very typical with black paint. Audis are the same way.



The paint looks way better than what you started with, I bet the owner was thrilled with the improvement. :)
 
I have worked on numerous Audi's, a couple Mercedes and a couple newer VW's that had pretty hard clear. While they all had pretty hard paint I didn't notice them being NEARLY as touchy with the marring. Usually after the rotary I am able to go right to #80 on a DA and have a ready for LSP finish with no marring. I may have just been a little too autopian. I always have to remind myself of where the paint started and where it ended up.



And yes, the owner was thrilled. I have seen pics on 3 different websites now by him stating how amazed he is with the results. So mission accomplished.



On another note, I spent at least a half hour or more giving him lessons on how to wash and dry. I even gave him a new chenille mit of mine. I'll be seeing this car again in 4-6 months and wanted to make sure he was well educated in the correct way to wash. I don't want to have another 16 hour multi day detail when I see it again! And thanks for the compliment Scottwax!
 
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