imported_RadMon
New member
Just wanted to drop the group here a note and give a personalized thanks for all of the postings given here by those of you who help out often!
Muchas gracias!!!
You see, I've been browsing the forums and archives here for a few weeks trying to suck up all I can about detlling, especially as it relates to paint care.
Since both I and the wife only have cars about two months old, I needed to find something else to experiment, er, ah, I mean, train on that's a little older. Luckily, I have a father-in-law that washes his Nissan pickup about once a year.
So I asked him if I could use his vehicle as a detailing guinea pig and he readily agreed (since I don't think he would really care if I ended up scraping the paint off the panels anyways).
I must say that I did pick an excellent specimen upon which to apply some of my recently acquired paint care knowledge (a little bit can be such a dangerous thing
)
If anyone ever wanted a text-book definition of oxidation and water spots, then this would be your example. This thing had water spots upon water spots to the Nth degree. It even had what I would have to call water streams. It didn't help that the vehicle is flat black (non-metallic) but luckily, since he rarely washed it, it had next to no scratches/swirls.
Looking at the products in my inventory, the best thing I had to tackle the problem was 3M PI FC. So, the 3M, Terry applicator and I sat down for the job at hand on a corner of the hood which had the worst damage. I did a one foot square and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed until it was dry and then buffed it off. I was amazed to see what a great job it did. That one square looked like it had just driven off the showroom floor. Two hours later the entire vehicle was done and did it look hot! You'd never have believed it was the same truck and I was still amazed at what a mirror finish it had at this point after just one product application. There was still much left to do but I was already salivating over the finished product in my mind
I figured I needed to step down to a finer polish so I brought Meg's DCPC to bear and about 1.3 hours later the entire vehicle was looking even better. By this time I had gone through 3 medium-size Terry towels that had started white but were now perfectly black (and headed for the trash heap).
I gave her a real good wash to make sure all residual "gunk" was gone and buffed her dry with a PakShak MF. I had recently picked up a bottle of Mother's Reflections so I thought I'd use that for a final polish/sealant. It did a good job bringing a nice sheen to the clear coat. But I did find that if I let my attention lapse and applied it too thick it was a bit of a bear to buff off.
To make the finish less "shiny" and more glossy/wet I figured I'd top it with #26 which I had used in the past on my two black cars (I have a silver metallic these days which get's Pinnacle Glaz) with great success. And, as a topper, I applied a quick coat of Meg QD (but not FI).
Stepping back and patting myself on the back, I figured I'd just made this 9 year old truck look pretty dog-gone new and probably added at least 1K to its value :xyxthumbs
With the hard work done, I turned to the windows, wheels, tires, interior trim and vacuuming. By the time I was done my father-in-law hardly recognized it when I dropped it off.
My mother-in-law thought the truck was nice and "shiney" but she couldn't get over how good the tires and wheels looked (BlackFire cleaner with Meg's Endurance). Of course these were nothing compared to the hours I spent on the paint job but that didn't deter here amazement of the clean tires!
So that was my Saturday fun. And a lot of the process and materials came about thanks to all here who post about their efforts and help the newbies of the detailing world!
Many thanks to all and here's hoping my future detailings are as successful and rewarding!
P.S. Sorry, but no pics. I was so eager to get working and so tired after getting done (7.5 hours later) that I could have cared less about pictures at that point. Just picture a crappy black pickup (before) and a mirror-like black pickup (after) in your head and you'll be all set
Muchas gracias!!! You see, I've been browsing the forums and archives here for a few weeks trying to suck up all I can about detlling, especially as it relates to paint care.
Since both I and the wife only have cars about two months old, I needed to find something else to experiment, er, ah, I mean, train on that's a little older. Luckily, I have a father-in-law that washes his Nissan pickup about once a year.
So I asked him if I could use his vehicle as a detailing guinea pig and he readily agreed (since I don't think he would really care if I ended up scraping the paint off the panels anyways).
I must say that I did pick an excellent specimen upon which to apply some of my recently acquired paint care knowledge (a little bit can be such a dangerous thing
)If anyone ever wanted a text-book definition of oxidation and water spots, then this would be your example. This thing had water spots upon water spots to the Nth degree. It even had what I would have to call water streams. It didn't help that the vehicle is flat black (non-metallic) but luckily, since he rarely washed it, it had next to no scratches/swirls.
Looking at the products in my inventory, the best thing I had to tackle the problem was 3M PI FC. So, the 3M, Terry applicator and I sat down for the job at hand on a corner of the hood which had the worst damage. I did a one foot square and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed until it was dry and then buffed it off. I was amazed to see what a great job it did. That one square looked like it had just driven off the showroom floor. Two hours later the entire vehicle was done and did it look hot! You'd never have believed it was the same truck and I was still amazed at what a mirror finish it had at this point after just one product application. There was still much left to do but I was already salivating over the finished product in my mind
I figured I needed to step down to a finer polish so I brought Meg's DCPC to bear and about 1.3 hours later the entire vehicle was looking even better. By this time I had gone through 3 medium-size Terry towels that had started white but were now perfectly black (and headed for the trash heap).
I gave her a real good wash to make sure all residual "gunk" was gone and buffed her dry with a PakShak MF. I had recently picked up a bottle of Mother's Reflections so I thought I'd use that for a final polish/sealant. It did a good job bringing a nice sheen to the clear coat. But I did find that if I let my attention lapse and applied it too thick it was a bit of a bear to buff off.
To make the finish less "shiny" and more glossy/wet I figured I'd top it with #26 which I had used in the past on my two black cars (I have a silver metallic these days which get's Pinnacle Glaz) with great success. And, as a topper, I applied a quick coat of Meg QD (but not FI).
Stepping back and patting myself on the back, I figured I'd just made this 9 year old truck look pretty dog-gone new and probably added at least 1K to its value :xyxthumbs
With the hard work done, I turned to the windows, wheels, tires, interior trim and vacuuming. By the time I was done my father-in-law hardly recognized it when I dropped it off.
My mother-in-law thought the truck was nice and "shiney" but she couldn't get over how good the tires and wheels looked (BlackFire cleaner with Meg's Endurance). Of course these were nothing compared to the hours I spent on the paint job but that didn't deter here amazement of the clean tires!
So that was my Saturday fun. And a lot of the process and materials came about thanks to all here who post about their efforts and help the newbies of the detailing world!
Many thanks to all and here's hoping my future detailings are as successful and rewarding!
P.S. Sorry, but no pics. I was so eager to get working and so tired after getting done (7.5 hours later) that I could have cared less about pictures at that point. Just picture a crappy black pickup (before) and a mirror-like black pickup (after) in your head and you'll be all set