Love Bug in need of a little love

House of Wax

House of Wax

Active member
Just a quick little background......I'm a complete amateur who's lurked here for years and just took care of our own vehicles. Over the past couple of months I've tossed around the idea of getting into doing some jobs on the side. I've got a good job, so I have no intentions of a full time gig, but I do really enjoy detailing and have been thinking it'd be a nice change of pace to pick up some detailing jobs as opposed to just working O.T. at my current job. I am nowhere near making a decision on this, but figured in the mean time I'd like to do some work for people i know to become better all around at every process and start building up a "resume" so to speak.



I picked up my mother in law's VW Beetle because I knew she doesn't take care of it. I was right.....it was trashed. I was completely hesitant to post this here 1) Because it's a little intimidating to say the least considering the talent that usually posts and 2) the finished product wasn't even up to my standards. Figured the only way to get better at everything including showing off the work is to just dive in and start doing it.





Products/process:



Washed with Optimum car wash using 2BM and lambswool wash mitt

Clayed with Meguiars clay using ONR for lube



All polish/sealant steps were done with a PC and various Lake Country pads



Meguiars 105/yellow cutting pad

Menzerna Final Polish/white pad

Poorboy's World Black Hole Glaze/black pad

Collinite 845/red pad



Interior was cleaned with Simple Green and then topped with Aerospace 303



Glass was cleaned with Stoner's



All interior microfibers were just random towels and the exterior ones were a variety of Pakshak towels.



On to some pictures.....





How I brought the car home:































































 
After wash and clay (the paint literally felt like fine grit sandpaper all over the entire car. God bless clay bars):



































I won't plaster all of the defect pictures I have, but the whole car top to bottom looked like these pictures.





Here's a couple of bad 50/50 shots. I need to keep working on how to capture these shots. The difference was much more drastic in person



Hood





Driver's side door

 
And finally some after shots. This is where I got disappointed with the project. Due to some things popping up through the weekend that took up more of my time than I intended, I flat out ran out of time to get the interior done the way I wanted to and to get the after shots including the halogen shots to show the improvements made. I literally could've spent most of a day on the interior it was so bad. Anywho, it does look better so I decided to post everything up anyway:









































































 
Some final thoughts on the project:



Even though it didn't turn out as well as I was intending, I'm still glad I did it. It was in by far the worst shape of any car I've ever done. I actually just kind stared at it for awhile after I got home trying to decide where to begin lol.



As far as the defect removal goes, I think I was really in need of a more aggressive type of pad. It was the first time I had ever used Meguiars 105 and the yellow pad had the most cut of anything I currently have. I went over everything twice with that combo and while it took out a lot of defects, I still didn't get it to where I wanted it. I picked up a Dewalt rotary earlier this summer because I wanted to add it to my arsenal for use on our boat and eventually cars. I figured I gotta bite the bullet and try it sometime so I busted it out on this car. I didn't end up using it long though because the pads I had bought for it were intended to be used on our boat (i haven't gotten around to that, so the pads were still new) and the size of the pads just proved to be too awkward on the small curved panels of this car. I'm really glad I tried it out though because I didn't mess anything up, I could tell the cut on the areas I used it were more effective than the PC, and I'm really interested in using if more due to it being more quiet/smoother than the PC.





I really need to work on the photography skills to better portray all the work. All in all though, it was a good experience. Bringing it back to my mother in law and seeing her almost in tears sure made the work all that much more worthwhile.





Thanks for checking my thread out. I hope none of it got too boring or long winded. If anyone has any constructive criticism or comments, please share.
 
You and I are on the same boat when it comes to 50/50 pictures. I just can't nail them down haha!



I too do paint correction when I have time because I really love doing it and I also love my full time job. But you posted some great results!!!!



The more you practice at finishing down the paint, the better your outcomes will be. Keep at it.
 
I've got some goodies coming in Wednesday that should fill in the gaps of things I'm missing for cutting. I've got some microfiber cutting pads and some different size pads for my rotary, so that should help a ton moving forward. I've always been a little nervous to get too aggressive, but the more I do the more I'm getting over that. Seeing Barry's Bentley wet sanding job was a bit of an eye opener lol
 
Looks great! Remember that not every detail is a full on paint correction and complete interior detail. In fact in this industry 95% of what goes on is interior details with wash and waxes.



Even though there are lots of guys on here that do perfection for a living, most of us just do big improvements in our day to day packages.



I guess my point is don't compare yourself to someone who perfects Lamborghini's for a living, they are on a totally different level and get paid to work at that level, work at the level you are at and do your best with every job. You don't have to be embarrassed that you aren't working on exotics every day. :)
 
She literally almost started crying haha. I found out from my wife that her mom is still talkin to her co-workers about it and took my father in laws truck to work one day that it was raining so she didn't get her car dirty lol.
 
The initial condition of the car was so bad that ther's only so much you could do. In spite of that, it's a real transformation. Solid work, and good luck building the portfolio.
 
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