Rookie Practice Session

AustinVette

AustinVette

Austin, Texas
I have a corvette which is the vehicle I would like to de-swirl and instill a show car shine.
I also have a classic 96 Ford Taurus to practice on.

Here is my plan for the Taurus
Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

  • Wash the Car - 2 bucket method
  • Rinse
  • Clay the car (which clay?, which lubricant?)
Everything I read about claying makes is sound pretty benign, except this article
BUFFING
What do you all think. I'm willing to try it on the Taurus, but what about my vette ?

  • wash the car
  • Rinse
  • Wet Sand with 2500
  • Rinse
  • Wet Sand with 3000
  • Rinse

I should have a PC7424 Monday and I will have orange, white, black and blue pads

  • Use a swirl remover with the orange pad (Which Swirl remover?)
What do I do from here ???

Pads products etc??


Once I'm comfortable with the PC, Is there anything I should do different with the Corvette. I seriously doubt I would be willing to wet sand the vette. Using the pads and polisher, How do I get the best result without damaging the car. What steps do I follow?

Thanks in Advance
 
Why do you want to wet sand is it beyond correction with a polisher.
Wet sanding on OEM finish will leave it too thin and it will suffer early clear coat failure especially if it sits out much.

Someone who has to ask for advice to clay and polish should not consider wet sanding.

You want to go from newbie to pro in a day. :eek:

My advice would be forget about wet sanding for now and learn the basics of detailing first.
 
black bart said:
Why do you want to wet sand is it beyond correction with a polisher.
Wet sanding on OEM finish will leave it too thin and it will suffer early clear coat failure especially if it sits out much.

Someone who has to ask for advice to clay and polish should not consider wet sanding.

You want to go from newbie to pro in a day. :eek:

My advice would be forget about wet sanding for now and learn the basics of detailing first.
Click to expand...

:bigups
 
You can find some Magic clay at Wal Mart or Meguiars clay it is all nearly the same.
What brand of pads did you buy you will need a cutting pad and a polishing pad
 
Vette paint is typically very hard (assuming it's all factory paint) so expect what works well on the Taurus to possibly NOT work well on the vette.

I am in Round Rock. Welcome to DC.

I'd pick up some meguars 105 and 205 at a minimum. If you want to go crazy and jewel the paint pick up some Menzerna PO85RD too.
 
AustinVette said:
That is exactly the kind of advice I'm looking for.

Thanks Ronkh and Black Bart.
Click to expand...
Austin it is real hard to give advice on what to do to paint when I have not seen what kind of shape it is in.

One thing that you should always do that even many experienced detailers don't do is use the mildest combo that will produce the results that you are looking for.

The clear coat is the thickness of a human hair think about that before you go sanding or using a compound on it.

The reason you see so many talking about using Meg 105 with a cutting pad is they lack patience and if doing it for a living they want to get it done fast and start on another one.

This is or can be the big advantage to doing it your shelf rather than hire it done.

Always do a small test spot and if it don't come out right then step up but never go at a job with the wet sand first approach you should always start with the mildest combo.

I recently had to polish on my vette to remove minor scratch I used a LC Gray pad with Menzerna Final Polish-II this is very very mild.

Here is how it turned out you can see for your shelf if it came out clear.


PaintCorrectiononVette_9_2.jpg





PaintCorrectiononVette_9_1.jpg
 
OK I have seen him on tv but only watched his show a couple times.
As far as keeping kids off the lawn the dog takes care of that.

Where I live it is rural and I see few people going by and I know everyone that does go by, Nothing like the Big City where traffic roars all night long.
 
I do a lot of wetsanding but there's no way I would sand on a Vette no matter how bad the paint was. Especially if this was my first stab at it. Like these guys, I don't even like using compound in them. Most of the write ups I do here are of vehicles that have been sanded and buffed with very hard compound and any other extreme measure that has to be taken, so I can't say its wrong because in some rare cases its the only way. I just can't imagine this is one of those cases.
 
black bart said:
you can find some magic clay at wal mart or meguiars clay it is all nearly the same.
What brand of pads did you buy you will need a cutting pad and a polishing pad
Click to expand...
♠
Lake Country Pads, Orange, White, Black and Blue.

What Does CCS stand for? It doesn't appear in the Acronym list.

I also picked up the meguiars clay kit today.
 
AustinVette said:
♠
Lake Country Pads, Orange, White, Black and Blue.

What Does CCS stand for? It doesn't appear in the Acronym list.

I also picked up the meguiars clay kit today.
Click to expand...

Collapsed cell structure, I don't care for them myself.

I like the LC VC pad but only know of one place to get them that is Steve also known as Poorboy
 
black bart said:
Austin it is real hard to give advice on what to do to paint when I have not seen what kind of shape it is in.

One thing that you should always do that even many experienced detailers don't do is use the mildest combo that will produce the results that you are looking for.

The clear coat is the thickness of a human hair think about that before you go sanding or using a compound on it.

The reason you see so many talking about using Meg 105 with a cutting pad is they lack patience and if doing it for a living they want to get it done fast and start on another one.

This is or can be the big advantage to doing it your self rather than hire it done.

Always do a small test spot and if it don't come out right then step up but never go at a job with the wet sand first approach you should always start with the mildest combo.

I recently had to polish on my vette to remove minor scratch I used a LC Gray pad with Menzerna Final Polish-II this is very very mild.

Here is how it turned out you can see for your shelf if it came out clear.
Click to expand...

Here is a picture of my "practice car"
trunk.jpg


This is probably the worst of the swirl marks. Tomorrow I should have the PC, Lake Country Orange, White, Yellow and Black Pads. M105, M205 and M34. I actually plan on starting on the hood and it has been washed and clayed and will be re-washed tomorrow.

This is a pic of the hood.
hood.jpg


What would y'all recommend?
 
I think most would recommend you use a orange pad and 105 but I think I would try a white pad first.
It all depends on how fast you want to do it.

Like I said in earlier post you should use the mildest combo that will work and do a test spot to see what it will take to get results.

If you spend enough time you can remove defects with a mild combo so it comes down to how much time you are willing to spend on it.

105 with a Orange pad should be fast.
What ever you decide to use be sure to prime your pad before starting.
Proper priming is especially important with the 105 polish.

When you are finished post a photo and get a close shot so we can see what the paint looks like.

The practice on this is a good idea before you start on the vette.

The good thing is it is hard to screw up with a DA the rotary is the one you need to really be careful with.
 
The PC and pads showed up today so I took them out to the garage and played on the taurus a bit. Per Black Bart I took the conservative approach.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank everyone that helped me with some direction and the rest of y'all who didn't reply to this post but provided some great reading matierial elsewhere in the forum.

Summary of Today
First I changed out the weight in the PC for the 6 inch which matches my backing plate. Then I put a white LC pad on the PC and primed the pad with M105. I then added 3 dime size "drops" to the pad and spread them with the motor off, then I spread them some more with the motor on 3. I turned the PC up to 5 and polished the hood of the Taurus using the horizontal -vertical pattern and overlapping 50%. I wiped of the 105 with a microfiber cloth and repeated the above for the drivers side hood, fender and bumper.

I was ready to move on the the M205. I wasn't sure if I should re-use the same white pad so I pulled another white out of the box and primed it with M205 and repeated the above process. My final pass was with a black pad and M205.

Overall I was pretty impressed with what the PC can do with a couple of pads and polish. The left front corner of my Taurus looks new (minus the dings and that scrape from that pole that jumped out in front of me at the Texas History Museum)

Whats Next
Next up I think I may try a burnt orange pad (This is Austin Texas after all) with the 105, and the white with the 205.

Now the question of final polish (wax ??). I have another clean black pad and a blue finishing pad. I was hoping for some free Natty's Blue, but I'm not sure how that's going to work out. (Come on Poor Boy, I could be a lifetime customer, and the post was creative, maybe even funny :rofl. (okay, It wasn't that funny)

Okay, I'll stop begging and get back on topic. What should I use after the blue pad and the M205? I probably have some Nu Finish in the garage, but I suspect there's something better.

Thanks again for the help this far.:bow (I'll post pictures soon)
 
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