Well this vehicle belongs to a coworker and as always I’m more then happy to take a challenge and boy was this vehicle a challenge, by far the toughest vehicle I’ve ever detailed, you’ll see what I mean. Here is the vehicle as it was delivered to me: Excuse the floor in my garage, I haven’t been able to wash the floor due to winter :shakehead: Well the vehicle was quite clean so a quick ONR was done: Followed up with Yellow Riccardo clay bar: Once the entire vehicle was dry and ready to go here is what I was up against: Oh and I’m not even using my 3M Sun Gun. Well now that I knew what I was up against it was time to take some paint readings to see how much I had to play with this was done with my PosiTector 6000: The vehicle was taped up and the areas I was mostly worried about were the edges as they were showing low paint readings. The taping looked something like this: Now you might be wondering why I was so paranoid about the edges well this should help illustrate: Well as expected from the year of this vehicle it’s single stage paint, but not like any single stage paint I’ve ever worked on. This particular vehicle had tough and I mean tough single stage paint. I would compare this single stage paint to the new Mercedes ceramic clear coat, tough as nails. Well here’s what I mean, I used Menzerna Power Gloss partnered up with a Menzerna wool pad and these are the results: This vehicle had many, many deep scratches but this is how the entire vehicle looked like and this is after just one pass, here is the exact same area after a second pass: As you can see still many, many deep scratches. The entire vehicle was covered with deep scratches like this: Well after two passes with the wool pad I decided to step up to wet sanding with my air sander: Here is the same area sanded down and with a single pass of Menzerna Power Gloss with a Menzerna wool pad: Now these are better results, not a 100% as some swirls were still visible but these will be removed with the following steps. The point is that wet sanding was the only way I was going to remove all the deep scratches. Here’s a comparison of the left side which was wet sanded and compounded compared to the right side that hasen’t been touched: Another view: The difference is quite noticeable. Well now that I knew what it would take to get this vehicle to reasonable conditions of to work I go, here is the rest of the hood sanded down: Here is the same area compounded with Power Gloss, refined with Menzerna Intensive Polish: Now the results are quite satisfying but don’t go thinking this is 100% paint correction, not quite if you look closely at these two pictures above you’ll see the odd deep scratch. Here’s another picture, just take a look at the reflection of the lights, you’ll see the deep scratches: Well wet sanding sure did the trick, here is the top of the driver side fender before: After wet sanding with 1,500 grit followed up with 2,000 grit compounded with Power Gloss and refined with Intensive Polish: Again a big improvement but not 100%, I’d say more like 85%. The reason I could only go 85% is because if I kept wet sanding and compounding I would run out of paint and keeping in mind that this is the original paint. Now you might be wondering how much paint was I removing, well with the wet sanding and compounding I was removing a whopping total of 21 microns of paint, by far the most I’ve ever removed on a vehicle. So you can see why I was so paranoid about the edges. Well continuing on with the wet sanding: Well lucky for me I didn’t have to wet sand the entire vehicle, the sides were not as bad as the hood and the fenders, here’s what I mean before: After: Well some spots required a bit of a heavier compounding combo’s, in these areas I decided to go with 3M UK Compounding combined with Menzerna Intensive Polish: Here is a 50/50 of this combo: Polishing continues: Here is how the pads were looking at the end of each panel I polished: I sure didn’t look forward on cleaning these pads but oh well :shrug: Well vehicle is almost done, now for the scariest areas, I say scary because these areas were covered with thin edges. Here is a 50/50 of the area I’m referring to: Well the vehicle was finally all polished out and refined, again not a 100% but a big improvement, I say this because in some pictures I manually focused my camera to catch the deep scratches that were left behind. Well now for LSP, considering this is a coworkers vehicle I decided to use some Vintage but prior to that I applied a coat of HD Cleanse Professional, here are the end results: Well that about does it for this vehicle, now I didn’t keep track of how many hours I spent on this vehicle but this detail was spread out through a weeks time. What took the most time was the wet sanding. Hope you guys enjoyed the long and winded write up, like I said this vehicle is by far the most challenging vehicle I’ve ever detailed.
wow, surprised the SS paint on the car was that hard! Paint was really hammered but you brought it back to life, looks great! Should of got your little helpers to clean those pads for daddy, haha.
damn, that was tough. wetsanding turned out great. is that original paint? looks kinda thick for SS original
Wow, Carlos, did you ever have your work cut out for you there!!! Nice save on an awful colour. I couldn't believe my eyes on those areas where the paint was basically gone...that is scary indeed. Is it a lot faster using the air powered sander? Do you have to buy special paper for it? I have only ever sanded by hand. Nice to see you posting work again buddy!
Yes, I too was completely blown away by how hard the paint was :yikes: but everything has a solution :thumb: Yea, helpers were busy with home work :shrug: that's okay I didn't mind doing everything my self on this vehicle :nod: Glad you enjoyed it. Yes, this is original paint although I suspect the reason why the paint was so tough and so beat us is because it must have been re-sprayed a couple of times many, many years ago. In some spots readings were as high as 1,000 microns but for the most part very reasonable readings with plenty of paint to spare, but still very tough paint. Glad you enjoyed it richy eace: Yes, the edges sure had me worried, I'll be seeing this vehicle again to touch up all these edges and a few other spots. As for the air sander, well in the past I would wet sand all by hand but since I had to wet sand the entire hood and fenders I figured I'd sure the air sanders. As far as special sand paper, there's nothing special about them to be honest besides finding the right size my air sanders but you can use any kind of sand paper you'd like. The sand paper I use has some foam embedded in it for extra cushion I used this due to me being so paranoid around the edges of this vehicle. I actually prefer to wet sand by hand but the air sanders serve their purpose. Thank you super and Rocket, glad you guys enjoyed it and thank you for the feed back eace:
wow, nice turn around, if i recall correctly white clearcoat has something in it that makes it hard as rocks...could be on the repaint they used a white with some tint to get that light blue
Superb work! Now, about that floor... what's the coating, epoxy? How does it recover from winter grit? I'm considering the full Monte epoxy job on the Garage Mahal where I have to deal with winter grit as well as a long gravel driveway that gets trapped in the tire lugs and dragged inside. Hate to get the floor dialed in only to have it scratched up beyond recognition. The ArmorCoat I'm considering is a full job including etching and double epoxy coating. I've seen the product on warehouse floors after 10 years of use with lift trucks and floor traffic and it still looks brand new but I'm thinking my usage may be a bit more of a challenge for it. Appreciate any feedback. Thanks... TL
I always thought SS were on the medium/soft side (only polished a few of them). Anyhow, paint looks great. Love them 50/50. :thumb::thumb:
:nod: I agree, I too thought single stage paint was supposed to be medium soft but this one sure too me by surprise, glad you enjoyed the write up and thank you for the feed back, very much appreciated eace: Thank you, glad you enjoyed it :chest: Well the floor has been holding up remarkably well, I mean this stuff held it's own against Tardis :nod: :nod: I sprayed Tardis to a vehicle wile it was in my garage, I just about passed out...but the floor, it's coat never even got soft. I went with Ucoat it, I did my share of reading on this stuff and all I read was positive feed back. When the temperature warms up I'll just rinse all the mud, rocks and all other stuff that's currently on my floor with out any issues. But in all honesty the key to anything is prep work, if you don't prep your floor properly no matter how good the epoxy is it simply wont bond to the concrete. Also, you have to follow the instructions to a "T". Seriously, you can't deviate from the instructions doing so will not give you good results. I mean I spent a whole day prepping the floor, my dad let me borrow a floor polisher he owns and I scrubbed the floor for hours and with various degreasers...any who if your going to do any floor coating pay extra close attention to the prep work, prep work is key :nod: :nod: Any who, I'm pleased with Ucoat It, I give it my :thumbs: Thank you for the feed back, glad you enjoyed it eace: :nod: the end results are always enjoyable, but it takes a bit of work to get it just right. Glad you enjoyed it eace:
We used Rustoleum brand epoxy on the floor of the shop at my work... it has held up to 4 years of ABUSE... I mean everything you can think of... even driving the Bobcat in the shop... Epoxy is FTW!!!
I agree, I'm glad I went the Epoxy type of product, I was going to tile my garage floor but I was convinced to go with an Epoxy type of product.
Super job Carlos. How did you take care of the taped areas? Did you just compound with a rotary after wet sanding? Can't see a tape line so I assume you did something to it.
I've seen very good reviews on UCoatIt.... one of the reasons I'm going with ArmorCoat is the manufacturer is about 40 miles from me. They're saying the same about prep so I figure floor polisher, etch, the whole 9 yards. This is a job I don't want to have to do twice. I saw the write up on the black Sierra and almost swallowed my tongue when I saw the floor! :yikes: I had to go back and make sure I saw what I thought I saw! Whew... different workspace :doh: Thanks for the info.. TL
