my first Porsche detailing-wasn't totally happy though

T

tssdetailing

New member
I feel like I had some hit n miss areas here and I'm looking for input as to what I may have done wrong. This little car took quite a while for me working on it and i'm just not stunningly satisfied with some of the after shots considering what I've been able to do in the past. Look at the afters and you'll see there is some hazing and holograming left over. If you look at the front fender and rear quarter-you'll see what I'm saying. Bad pads? Bad technique? Bad chemical? For each step, I started on the hood, moving clockwise around the car. I switched to a new pad after doing the trunk....er...engine hatch. Process: Washed car outside with PW and DP soap, clayed, washed again inside with ONR, dried with MF towel. Taped up all the clear-bras. Used a FlexDA with orange Kompressor pads and Adams Machine Haze & Swirl remover. Step 2 with white Kompressor pad and Adams Fine Machine Polish. The white pad kept feeling like it was 'binding up.' It would skip A LOT and i couldn't keep a fluid motion like the orange let me. I constantly would spray it with Adams QD to prime it, but to no avail it would still seem to bind up an hop around. I switched to some random white pad that came with my Flex on the driver's side and that pad it didn't hop at all. It was flat faced, but had a long, rounded edge to it. I really want to blame it on him. As soon as I had finished he came down, and picked up an MF and started whiping the car...like as if I hadn't been there for 6 hours polishing it???? :angry Just kept walking around it, whiping it...But looking at the pix, it really looks more buffer related.



Sorry for the long tale, any help would be appreciated.





Before

porscheFenderBefore.jpg


After

porscheFenderAfter.jpg


Close up of above, see the hazing???

porscheFenderAfterClose.jpg






Before

porscheDoorBefore.jpg


After

porscheDoorAfter.jpg






Before

porscheQuarterBefore.jpg


After

porscheQuarterAfter.jpg




Looks pretty slick from back here

porsche.jpg
 
Porsche paint sucks big, green donkey thingies because it's soft and sticky. The only thing that will give you a good finish on them (IME) is the least abrasive polish you have, finest pad and technique OR a DA. Your pad must be cleaned religiously, little to no pressure when finishing and keep it at about 900.
 
M105 with an orange pad does some pretty good leveling on Porsche clear, but hazes the heck out of the finish (in comparison to other paint). The good thing though is the marring is so shallow that Menzerna 85rd with a white pad brings it back and creates an incredible finish. This is with a DA.
 
I think the car looks really good. If I was the owner of that car with swirls THAT bad, I'd be happy for any improvement. IMO, that is a huge improvement.
 
Well, it could have been a couple of things that were giving you trouble... First off, Porsche paint is very tricky to deal with. They do not like to be polished via rotary and can behave very weird, depending on what products you use. When working on Porsche paint, I reach for my PC every time.



One thing I noticed is that you washed the car with ONR. This may have been causing some issues due to the polymers in it, which can cause some trouble (buffer hop, sticky paint, gumming, spitting, etc...). Whenever I am prepping a car for polishing, I do my best to remove any and all traces of previous waxes, sealants, spray waxes, silicon, etc to ensure the paint is as clean as possible. A good degreaser usually does the trick.



As far as products go, the new DA version of M105 works great using an orange pad on Porsche paint. Since it is such soft paint, it corrects pretty quickly and can be followed behind with 85rd on finishing pad. I detail quite a bit of Porsches and love doing them once you get the hang of what products to use. As Jesse mentioned, it is very important to keep your pads clean throughout the detail. I would definitely try switching up the products next time.
 
I always had great success with black Porsche paint, always seems to correct real easy for me.



First I'm not sure if you're using a rotary or DA, I assume rotary based on the holograms.



I get my results mostly with just a white pad, Menz SIP at about 1500rpms, then finish at 1000rpms.



Then the second step is to finish down with a black pad, Menz FPII at 1200rpms. It usually turns out flawless.



I think you just need to work on it with a final polish and pad.



Josh
 
from where you are at, a white pad and a finishing polish would do rather well IMO on the softer paint



After every ONR wash prior to a paint correction (when hose and CGWG is not avail) I hit the whole car with IPA
 
Thanks for all the feedback I was really afraid everyone was going to tell me I shouldn't have touched it after the pix. I guess the guy was happy with it, as he just sent me a referal for his brother =)



I gatherd the following from this thread:

I need pad cleaner

M105/205 and 85rd

Don't polish after ONRing unless i've stripped the ONR residue.
 
M105 and orange pad will leave alot of hazing on the paint. I would fallow with M205 with a white pad, then 85rd with a black pad. The M205 should get rid of all the haze and the 85rd should really bring up the gloss
 
sullysdetailing said:
M105 and orange pad will leave alot of hazing on the paint. I would fallow with M205 with a white pad, then 85rd with a black pad. The M205 should get rid of all the haze and the 85rd should really bring up the gloss
Click to expand...



Why use 205 if 85rd can do the job of removing the 105 haze? Seems like you should only need 1 finishing step with a DA if you know what you're doing.
 
JoshVette said:
First I'm not sure if you're using a rotary or DA, I assume rotary based on the holograms...
Click to expand...



I think he did it all with a Flex 3401 :think: So those would possibly be "pseudo holograms" from the M105 hazing the paint and/or from residual oils from the M205.



Thoughts: clean the pads more often, make sure they're dry afterwards, use #34 when buffing off M105 residue, use something to clean off the residual oils from the M205 (that last one can be a huge PIA).
 
LOL, funny that you corrected him by pointing out i used a Flex DA but missed that I said I used Adam's polishes. :funnypost My theory is that the Adam's "fine machine polish" just didn't finish it off as properly as it should have. It's not really a hologram per say, but i guess some strange buffer imprints that didn't polish out.
 
tssdetailing said:
LOL, funny that you corrected him by pointing out i used a Flex DA but missed that I said I used Adam's polishes....
Click to expand...



Heh heh, yeah...guess I'm just sooo used to pseudo holograms being related to the M105/M205 approach! That and I'm probably getting different threads mixed up :o
 
i dont know david, I think the jump from 105 to 85rd on soft black is a bit much...I would MUCH rather go with 105/orange, 205/white, 85rd black rather than 105/orange to 85rd black. but then again, I did just that the other day and it worked out ok, but that was harder paint.
 
i used 105 for the first time today on some nissan black paint. it left so many micro scratches. i'm not used to using megs, only menz but i got the 105 free so i said wth. i followed up with sip on a black pad and my flex. came out nice



here is a pic, it sucks cause all i had was my iphone. my camera disappeared from my truck??

d8ced155.jpg
 
I have a couple regulars with black aka nightmare paint. First time I worked on it, PC on speed 5, white LC 6.5" pad and FPII left haze on the paint after I had corrected it with SIP/Makita/white 6.5". I actually couldn't get the PC to work AT ALL, even trying 85rd/lc black, so I ended up finishing perfectly with the rotary, FPII and 6.5" black pad. Did a pass to spread at 600, 1 pass at 1200, then 2-3 at 900.



This of course doesn't help much seeing as you have a Flex. For you, if you get a chance to take another shot at a panel on that car, the only thing to do is pick up a few pad/polish combos and give them a shot.



I'd highly recommend getting 2-3 each of black and white LC 5.5" pads (I buy mine from detailedimage.com) and then M205, FPII and 85rd to try out. Try each on different sections and see what happens.



Good luck.
 
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