Detailed my wifes new car.

[89s1]

Just picked up a new (to me) car and took it to give it a little bit of TLC.

I'll show a couple of pictures of the shape the paint was in to give you an idea of the work ahead of me.

you can see some of the swirlmarks in the paint here

Some under the lights inside


It needed a really good wash first of all.

Then ran over the paint with a meguiars clay bar

I taped off an area to do a before/after line to give an idea of the results the polishing gave. Here is the before

Then once the polishing was done and the tape was removed.

Close-up


All done, ready to get dirty all over again.

[FLARE]

wow! What a difference... time for me to get to it!

Great job!

[S13_Ryan]

awesome job. huge difference

[GQBalla]

wow very nice - how long did it take?

[94boosted]

Yah that's awesome. May I ask what you used for a polishing compound and how you did it?

[grocko]

Excellent job!

[rc2002]

That's incredible. Nice work.

When you say polish, I assume it was a power polish? Or was it old fashioned elbow grease?

[89s1]

took about 4 hours, but there was another guy there and we were chatting a bit and had a cpl beers.

I have a large selection of products as I run the detailing department and do all of my own ordering.

for this I used mild megs clay and 3M compound where needed, then finished with a product called crystal shine.

Crystal shine does amazing things on black, heres another job I did using it. (not a car, but hey...)





Rediculars!

[89s1]

Originally posted by richardchan2002
That's incredible. Nice work.

When you say polish, I assume it was a power polish? Or was it old fashioned elbow grease?

power polisher for sure.

I wax by hand, but not polish.

[joyridder]

nice work! Now thats a boat

[Amysicle]

That looks really nice!

You mentioned you run the detailing department? Where do you work?

[Graham_A_M]

How much for an exterior clay and polish? (or whatever you did to the acura) ?.

[G-ZUS]

Originally posted by Graham_A_M
(or whatever you did to the honda civic) ?.

fixed

[Redlyne_mr2]

wow that boat is amazing.

[corsvette]

Looks awesome!where can a guy pick up some of that Crystal Shine?my black vette would benifit for sure,also what does a clay bar do?

[Jed Bouscal]

Just a heads up, if it's a C5 or C6, your paint will be almost twice as hard as that Honda, and your process will have to reflect that.

Originally posted by corsvette
Looks awesome!where can a guy pick up some of that Crystal Shine?my black vette would benifit for sure,also what does a clay bar do?

[sneek]

Werd, but if it is a 1992 Vette its a C4. SMC is kind of a weird material to polish on top of. C4's usually have pretty hard paint as well, but they also have sharp and THIN edges. I have seen tons and tons of vettes with burnt edges. Also in the C4 the moldings around the tail lights made of some sort of rubber material. I would do that portion by hand, as even a DA could take off paint there. If you are going to detail it, I would suggest edging first by hand, then taping everything up. I did a C4 a few years ago, and it took a few days...

[corsvette]

I should leave this job to a pro then,i have never polished it,only hand wax,but it has lots of swirl marks.Any ideas what i should pay for this?

[CausalInfluence]

^ go to jed bouscal at mobile reflections^ he posted up there. Hands down the BEST detailer in the business.

[sneek]

Originally posted by corsvette
I should leave this job to a pro then,i have never polished it,only hand wax,but it has lots of swirl marks.Any ideas what i should pay for this?

That's probably a good thing that your vette has never seen a polisher. As I said above these cars aren't the easiest to detail. Jed knows what he is doing! A polisher in the hand of an in experienced detailer or a seasoned hackjob would probably only lead to burnt trim pieces and burnt edges. Some surfaces you simply cannot polish. I have seen chunks of paint come off of the rear of some c4s. In this industry experience and skill means a lot. Probably more than materials or price combined.