I have to say that in my many years car detailing quite a large number of cars from Fords to Holdens, BMW'S, Mercs and so on, nothing, and I mean NOTHING, comes close to the beauty of this automobile.Not even the expensive upper class plastic like Ferraris and Lamborghinis come close to the beauty of this automobile in my opinion anyway. Although the front bumper wasn't on because it was sent for re-chroming, the car still looked beautiful even with missing parts. Missing bumper and it still looked good!!I actually felt excited and privileged to be given the opportunity to work on this beautiful machine that is the English MGA.
They sure as hell don't make them like this anymore. These were beautiful cars with curves, sex appeal of its era, pure metal, nothing complicated about them but the sheer beauty of looking at these cars, especially after completed like this, just screamed in my ears................" DRIVE ME ". Jeremy Clarkson would have been a lucky boy in his years.
It was so hard to have this car sitting in my back yard waiting for its rightful owner to arrive to pick it up that I couldn't help but sit there, look at it and, just relax and drink a beer. Yes folks, this was it. This was by far the most beautiful vehicle I had ever worked on in my entire life and I was so happy to know that I was the one to clean it up and get it to its current state as it is now.What was this vehicle at my workshop for ? Paint correction what else ? I have to admit, this car did not have the best of paint jobs on it with a lot of pitting, deep scratches and porous looking surfaces in various areas but far be it that it needed a spray job. The owner was actually trying to avoid the outlay of a spray job which on a car like this wouldn't be cheap.
Hell, they quoted me 15000 dollars to spray my Datsun coupe, I'd hate to think what they would quote for this. This car was also a little bit different to the rest of everything else that I had detailed. Looking at it, it appeared to be acrylic paint. The paint looked pretty dense unlike the naturally glossy and thin looking two pack. When I asked the owner if he knew anything about the paint work, he mentioned to me that the paint job was a home job. Well, there was only the usual way to find out and that was to put a buff to the paint and see what Mr Makita had to tell me. Sure enough it was acrylic. After I explained the ins and outs of this job to the customer, he was immediately concerned about removing too much paint as he wanted to retain as much of his paint as possible.
I suggested we go just a soft abrasive which in my books was a stage 2 to just eradicate all the top surface damage to improve its appearance and depth of color and he was pretty happy with that. The only problem with this car was that it had pretty extensive damage which was deeper than top surface and this my friends was sitting like a thorn in my butt. I knew I wasn't going to be happy with the result merely from a stage 2 treatment and the problem was I didn't perform a test while the customer was here so I didn't know exactly what the pending result would be.When I first began, I initially did start with a soft paint cleaner to see the result and I was as I suspected pretty much on the nail.
Although I was getting rid of a lot top surface damage, the next percentage down was extensive and it stood out like a sore thumb. I wasn't happy with this result and knew the owner would not be happy with it after completion but, I still had the owners request in the back of my mind. " Don't remove too much paint " and this being acrylic, it was very soft. The pad on the buff was already rich red with dead paint and I hadn't even started. The only way to get rid of a huge chop of this damage was to go cutting compounds.Understanding that this really was the only way out, not taking off too much material was still priority one. The combo I put to use was pretty simple.
I immediately reached for some Megs cutting compound with a standard Megs polishing pad and when I tried this, although it was working somewhat, I still wasn't digging just deep enough. So I went one further. I changed to a waffle polishing pad. I didn't want to go to soft on the polishing pad as I needed some cutting ability to rip some of this damage out and this combo worked perfectly so I continued this method all over the entire car. I was taking out just enough damage but not too much paint.
This result was working really well all over the vehicle. As I was removing this next level of damage, there was really only the deeper scratches left behind with some pitting and some peely looking areas which hadn't been sanded. If this car was mine, I would have gone all out and just removed everything possible by just swapping the compound and going straight to a wool pad and maybe have carried out some wet sanding to remove some peel in certain areas.
I have to admit the paint was fairly dull and with the amount of scratches on the top surface, I knew this car was going to look good even just by getting rid of the top chop alone and this would achieve the set goal in my mind. I knew that If it satisfied me, the customer would be blown away. Having found the method to get rid of a lot of the top damage while not sacrificing too much, I just continued all the way right round the entire car and it was coming up just divine.
I knew that if I eliminated the majority of the damage which was just lower than top surface, the remaining damage would not even really be noticeable all that much and that's what the owner really wanted. The idea was to also achieve all this with no more than three passes. The cut, the de-swirl and last but not least the paint sealant products.
Being acrylic paint, the job was basically halved in time as well. This whole job took only about six hours to complete. Mind you, there really wasn't that much car to buff anyway so I knew it wasn't going to be that big a job, even if it was three passes to complete the entire process. When this was done, it was time to switch over to a finishing pad and straight to the Flex killer DA. What a machine.I could polish my head with this buffer and get a shine and even with some growth. The 205 worked really well to get rid of all the swirls the cutting compound would have left behind. The color of this car was now really starting to come out this fine automobile. I couldn't wait to see the finalised result.
When the de-swirling process was done and dusted, it was time to apply the sealer and what sealer was the best to apply for an English car but Autoglym, even though it was acrylic. Just kidding ! I wanted to get the best possible gloss out of this paint job which wasn't that easy given the customers request and the condition of the paint so I finished off with Autoglym sealers.
The result thus far was impressive to say the least. I achieved what I set out to achieve and that was to remove only enough material without sacrificing too much paint and achieving the best possible shine that could be achieved from this paint job given its current condition. If it had been two pack, the finish again in gloss would have been even better again but being acrylic, I could only do my best. The results show hereunder. I took as many shots of this car that I could in varied light as these cars don't come along often but I can only get so many images on this forum. Car detailing the way it should be......Enjoy !
They sure as hell don't make them like this anymore. These were beautiful cars with curves, sex appeal of its era, pure metal, nothing complicated about them but the sheer beauty of looking at these cars, especially after completed like this, just screamed in my ears................" DRIVE ME ". Jeremy Clarkson would have been a lucky boy in his years.
It was so hard to have this car sitting in my back yard waiting for its rightful owner to arrive to pick it up that I couldn't help but sit there, look at it and, just relax and drink a beer. Yes folks, this was it. This was by far the most beautiful vehicle I had ever worked on in my entire life and I was so happy to know that I was the one to clean it up and get it to its current state as it is now.What was this vehicle at my workshop for ? Paint correction what else ? I have to admit, this car did not have the best of paint jobs on it with a lot of pitting, deep scratches and porous looking surfaces in various areas but far be it that it needed a spray job. The owner was actually trying to avoid the outlay of a spray job which on a car like this wouldn't be cheap.
Hell, they quoted me 15000 dollars to spray my Datsun coupe, I'd hate to think what they would quote for this. This car was also a little bit different to the rest of everything else that I had detailed. Looking at it, it appeared to be acrylic paint. The paint looked pretty dense unlike the naturally glossy and thin looking two pack. When I asked the owner if he knew anything about the paint work, he mentioned to me that the paint job was a home job. Well, there was only the usual way to find out and that was to put a buff to the paint and see what Mr Makita had to tell me. Sure enough it was acrylic. After I explained the ins and outs of this job to the customer, he was immediately concerned about removing too much paint as he wanted to retain as much of his paint as possible.
I suggested we go just a soft abrasive which in my books was a stage 2 to just eradicate all the top surface damage to improve its appearance and depth of color and he was pretty happy with that. The only problem with this car was that it had pretty extensive damage which was deeper than top surface and this my friends was sitting like a thorn in my butt. I knew I wasn't going to be happy with the result merely from a stage 2 treatment and the problem was I didn't perform a test while the customer was here so I didn't know exactly what the pending result would be.When I first began, I initially did start with a soft paint cleaner to see the result and I was as I suspected pretty much on the nail.
Although I was getting rid of a lot top surface damage, the next percentage down was extensive and it stood out like a sore thumb. I wasn't happy with this result and knew the owner would not be happy with it after completion but, I still had the owners request in the back of my mind. " Don't remove too much paint " and this being acrylic, it was very soft. The pad on the buff was already rich red with dead paint and I hadn't even started. The only way to get rid of a huge chop of this damage was to go cutting compounds.Understanding that this really was the only way out, not taking off too much material was still priority one. The combo I put to use was pretty simple.
I immediately reached for some Megs cutting compound with a standard Megs polishing pad and when I tried this, although it was working somewhat, I still wasn't digging just deep enough. So I went one further. I changed to a waffle polishing pad. I didn't want to go to soft on the polishing pad as I needed some cutting ability to rip some of this damage out and this combo worked perfectly so I continued this method all over the entire car. I was taking out just enough damage but not too much paint.
This result was working really well all over the vehicle. As I was removing this next level of damage, there was really only the deeper scratches left behind with some pitting and some peely looking areas which hadn't been sanded. If this car was mine, I would have gone all out and just removed everything possible by just swapping the compound and going straight to a wool pad and maybe have carried out some wet sanding to remove some peel in certain areas.
I have to admit the paint was fairly dull and with the amount of scratches on the top surface, I knew this car was going to look good even just by getting rid of the top chop alone and this would achieve the set goal in my mind. I knew that If it satisfied me, the customer would be blown away. Having found the method to get rid of a lot of the top damage while not sacrificing too much, I just continued all the way right round the entire car and it was coming up just divine.
I knew that if I eliminated the majority of the damage which was just lower than top surface, the remaining damage would not even really be noticeable all that much and that's what the owner really wanted. The idea was to also achieve all this with no more than three passes. The cut, the de-swirl and last but not least the paint sealant products.
Being acrylic paint, the job was basically halved in time as well. This whole job took only about six hours to complete. Mind you, there really wasn't that much car to buff anyway so I knew it wasn't going to be that big a job, even if it was three passes to complete the entire process. When this was done, it was time to switch over to a finishing pad and straight to the Flex killer DA. What a machine.I could polish my head with this buffer and get a shine and even with some growth. The 205 worked really well to get rid of all the swirls the cutting compound would have left behind. The color of this car was now really starting to come out this fine automobile. I couldn't wait to see the finalised result.
When the de-swirling process was done and dusted, it was time to apply the sealer and what sealer was the best to apply for an English car but Autoglym, even though it was acrylic. Just kidding ! I wanted to get the best possible gloss out of this paint job which wasn't that easy given the customers request and the condition of the paint so I finished off with Autoglym sealers.
The result thus far was impressive to say the least. I achieved what I set out to achieve and that was to remove only enough material without sacrificing too much paint and achieving the best possible shine that could be achieved from this paint job given its current condition. If it had been two pack, the finish again in gloss would have been even better again but being acrylic, I could only do my best. The results show hereunder. I took as many shots of this car that I could in varied light as these cars don't come along often but I can only get so many images on this forum. Car detailing the way it should be......Enjoy !
