How to polish around A LOT of vinyl graphics?

T

tssdetailing

New member
I'm curious how should one go about buffing the paint of a race car that is covered in a lot of vinyl stickers, sponsor logos and lettering/graphics? None of which can be removed

Slow setting on a D/A???

Hand polish?

just say no!?!?!? :cry:
 
My car has a ton of black vinyl stickers on it (check out pics of the "superbee" package on Dodge's web site, etc), and the only way to keep from inadvertently polishing or waxing them is to tape them off. It takes a while to do it, but while you're polishing or waxing, you'll run into the tape a few times and think, "wow, I'm glad I took ten minutes to tape those stickers off".
 
post some pics if possible otherwise as stated before tape off the stickers as much as possible. It sounds as if there is a ton of stickers and if my visual is correct it might almost be better to do it by hand if there is that much graphics on it.
 
here are a few of them that I could find.



magRedVette.jpg


redZ06.jpg


daveFormula.jpg
 
is there anything you can do to vinyl stickers and such. as for as waxing because i know your not supposed to. I assume you can clay bar them if your carful. but what is the best method to clean them and maby make them shine.



for example my girlfriends car that im doing has stripes down the center...so whats the best way to approach these
 
you cant just polish over them with a mild polish like 85rd??? You are not going to want to compound them, but they still need a cleaning just like the rest of the car from time to time. I did it with Megs 66 on a car a while back and saw the car again a few months later and it had no ill effects...



that car looks to be a PITA if you have to tape it all off. Besides, just how perfected do you want to get a car like that? If perfection is necessary, removal of the graphics/lettering is necessary anyway
 
Jaws2008 said:
is there anything you can do to vinyl stickers and such. as for as waxing because i know your not supposed to. I assume you can clay bar them if your carful. but what is the best method to clean them and maby make them shine.



for example my girlfriends car that im doing has stripes down the center...so whats the best way to approach these
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I'd think a wipe down with ONR or a QD, shouldn't need a polish...then I'd personally coat them with some 303 or w/e dressing you like to use on vinyl /plastic
 
Like the other guys said, tape them off. Don't bother with individual letters, just tape the around the outside edge. When you get done, I'd suggest Plexus or Novus #1 spray over the lettering and the paint around it.



Race cars have to look good from the stands, at that range most the time just getting the rubber off the car and putting on a decent but not perfect shine is more than enough.



Robert
 
If you tape around them and polish the whole car and it still looks bad around the lettering, you might just have to try a glaze with a lot of fillers in there and do it by hand.
 
nyyankees22 said:
If you tape around them and polish the whole car and it still looks bad around the lettering, you might just have to try a glaze with a lot of fillers in there and do it by hand.
Click to expand...



No offense but that wouldn't be proper removal of defects then, just simply masking them.
 
Labster said:
No offense but that wouldn't be proper removal of defects then, just simply masking them.
Click to expand...



Spending hours removing defects around lettering on a race car so it'll have a really good finish as it rubs against other cars and the wall, gets hit by track debris and banged around in a trailer might not be the best use of a detailer's time or the client's money.



I have a client who restores race cars. He was taking a car to the salt flats for speed week and had me detail it to near show car standards as part of the prep. Now, I know the reason. He wanted people to see the kind of work he and his shop do but I still couldn't help joking with him, saying, "You know Jim, you're going to drive over there, open the trailer, people are going to see this car in the trailer, and as you roll it out and it hits the salt they're going to say, "Man, that was beautiful." He laughed because he knew exactly what I meant. For him, in that situation it made a difference but on the typical race car, for race prep, we don't do that level. We make it look good from the stands and spend the money on things that make the car go faster.





[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zn8DKH6RMo"]Just for the title.[/ame]





Robert
 
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