A long road trip south of the border to Newcastle for this one, and a stay overnight, as my usual long distance cruising speed has had to be almost halved since I was pulled last month doing over a ton. I was contacted by the owner about a month ago, and the pics he e-mailed through were scary! A very bad case of the swirls, on a limited edition 350Z GT4 with full bodykit. I had estimated that this one would take me 8-10 hours, and in the end it took 11 hours, due to a heavy rain shower late in the day.
When I arrived at 8am the sun was beaming down, and the first thing I noticed were the swirls - not good on a car that draws a lot of attention. I didn’t need the halogens to tell me how bad this one was going to be, but I figured the paint would be soft – this turned out to be correct, but what I didn’t plan on was extremely thin paint. Put simply, if I hadn’t of had my paint thickness gauge with me, I would have done one of two things to this car. Either I wouldn’t have corrected half the defects (by going at it too gently), or I would have removed too much clear (by treating all panels the same). I have seen a few arrogant remarks posted on forums recently concerning the need for paint gauges – in my opinion they are an essential tool, even for PC only users like me. Hopefully the rest of this thread will show you why…
Here’s how the car looked when I arrived…
Looks great, but in the sun the problems soon become visible…
And more unpleasant up close…
The owner had very kindly washed the car the night before and garaged it overnight, so a full wash was not required – I simply quick detailed the whole car with JEFFS Werkstatt Quick Wash and a couple of plush towels. Then I set to work claying with Meguiars Detailing Clay – this only took 30 minutes, as the car was very clean – only the doors shows signs of significant contamination, on most other panels the clay came up clean. I then masked off all the trims, and set to work on the roof, which looked like this…
Lots of brush marks, swirls and even the odd rotary trail. I took paint readings with my PosiTest DFT over the whole panel, and found an alarming average thickness of ~80 microns, with some areas only reading 70 microns. I started out with Blackfire SRC Finishing Polish using a LK green finishing pad. I made a light initial attempt (1st pass at speed 1 to spread, then multiple passes at speed 4 until ready to buff) and observed little improvement, and no significant amount of paint removal (precision of paint gauge is +/- 2 microns). I then repeated, this time using more pressure and speed. Once again, no big signs of improvement, and no significant paint loss, so I switched to a LK orange light cut pad and did the same again. This time, I saw a noticeable improvement in the defects, at the expense of 4 microns across the panel. However, with the defects persisting and the paint thickness down to ~65 microns in places, I decided that would do. The results were satisfactory…
I then did the rear end of the car, and followed the same procedure as above. Much of the rear end was composite, meaning I could take no paint thickness readings, so I assumed the roof results would be applicable to these panels and backed off before all of the defects were completely out. I then moved along the drivers side, starting with the quarter panel. Here’s the befores…
And the afters… I had more paint to play with here (~90 microns on average), so I made two attempts with the light cut pad and the SRC Finishing Polish.
The same procedure was used on the door…
And the wing…
Here’s some close up shots of the work on the wing…
Then I decided it was time for lunch… so I sat down and looked at the work done so far.
Felling refreshed, I tackled the other side of the car, using the same method as before (SRC Finishing Polish via LK orange light cut pads, two attempts per panel as long as paint thickness averaged more than ~90 microns. Here’s an after shot of the quarter panel…
Before shot of the door…
And after…
Before shot of the wing…
And after…
By this time, the sky was darkening and threatening rain, so I switched to a LK black glazing pad and went over all of the areas I had corrected with Blackfire Gloss Enhancing Polish (at speed 3, multiple passes until drying and ready to buff) – this took about 20 minutes, and I applied it to all panels before going back to the starting point to buff off. I then applied Blackfire Wet Diamond by hand to the same areas, which took another 20 minutes. At this point I stopped and drew breath, as the spits of rain were easing, and I was only left with the bonnet to do. Here’s a couple of shots after the above work…
Next up, I tackled the bonnet. The brush marks in it were bad, but fortunately the paint thickness was greater than on the rest of the car (~100 microns on average). As I had not achieved full correction on many of the other panels, for fearing of removing too much paint, I laid into this one a bit more with SRC Compound using a LK orange light cut pad. One attempt did the trick (1st pass at speed 1 to spread, then multiple passes at speed 5 until the residue turned translucent, indicating that the abrasives were done). Paint thickness readings revealed this had removed ~10 microns from the bonnet, and left a lot of heavy micromarring. However, one pass attempt with SRC Finishing Polish applied using a LK green finishing pad took this out completely, leaving a perfect finish. I then went over the bonnet with the Gloss Enhancing Polish and Wet Diamond, as described above for the other panels. No photos of this work I’m sorry to say, as time was pushing on and the few that I took suffered from poor lighting. I finished up on the front bumper, using the method described above for the rear end of the car.
With the correction done, I turned to the finishing touches. The wheels got Poorboy’s Wheel Sealant and the tyres Blackfire Long lasting Tyre Gel. Just as I finished this task a heavy shower passed over and soaked everything! However, this seemed to clear the sky a bit, and within half an hour the sun made a reappearance, so I quickly rinsed the car off and dried it carefully using waffle weave towels after soaking all surfaces liberally in Blackfire Deep Gloss Spray (to help the water sheet off and help prevent towel marks). By this time it was well past my estimated finishing time, and with the owner expecting guests, we called it a day – forgive the wet wheels in the final shots. So, maybe my best detail yet in terms of what I corrected safely, and what I left safely in place – the owner understood these decisions, and I hope the benefits of having and using a paint gauge are clear. I wouldn’t have been able to fully correct the bonnet without it, and I may have gone too far on the roof.
Here’s the afters…
WX51TXR vs Limited Edition 350Z GT4 - My best work yet? -
07-11-2006, 07:10 AM
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