Am I the only one who goes for no flaws?

It seems to me that I am just spending too much time on correction....hours upon end with SIP and PGC trying to get every single little defect on every crevice then finessing the heck out of the car for more hours upon end with PO85rd.

I just a little discouraged b/c I spend so much time now a days on correcting I seem to dread details b/c I know the horrid frustration ahead, and its starting to lose its fun factor.

I'm wondering I see a lot of people getting great results with just 106FF or FA and I just can't ever seem to get any correction with just that...BUT I was maybe wondering if those of you who do just FF or w/e just remove light stuff and don't worry about every little flaw.

I'd just like to know if i'm the only one.

 

ampbmw glazes will become your friend! your going to polish your cc away.
try the cg glazes and i hear hd cleanse from zymol is a pretty good filler.

 

Well it all comes down to what the customer wants or if your doing this for plesure then pase your self. I mean if your detailing your own vehicle you need to take two things into consideration, the difects and the clearcoat. I mean if you want to get the vehicle flawless yes your going to spend a few hours out there and your also going to be bringing down the clearcoat. Now I've used 106FF and FA on only very minor stuff, I personaly like 85RD3.02 it has a very nice bite to it and usually finishes down LSP but I sometimes go over it with 85RD.

Keep in mind that in order to do true paint corrections in my mind it's a minimum process of two stages, to remove imperfections you have to make it worse first and then bring it back to life...again just my opinion.

But to be honest it all depends on the type of vehicle you'r up against, some vehicle have a very nice clearcoat where one pass removes all imperfection others as you found out have clearcoats that are just brutal to work with.

I don't know but I must be nuts or something but I enjoy a challenge and always look forward on trashed vehicles, it just makes it more interesting to detail but that's just me :crasy:

 

I think it has to do with how much clearcoat you are willing to sacrifice and will the car even remain swirl free. We all know that even simple wipe downs and washing, no matter how careful, are going to induce some micro marring.

I feel that if you are can keep you car 90% swirl free you care will be better than 80% percent of the cars on the road.

 

You know what I find ... I find that I'm my own worst critic. I can't tell you how many times I have taken a car back to a customer and with a long face said "I did my best but I just couldn't get this area right here like I wanted it". The whole time I'm saying it the customer has heard about 2.5 words because they are so ecstatic with the car they are about to do backflips!

I agree with Pat on this one too. You know I never turn down a paint correction job but unless the person is going to get me to maintain it always it really seems kind of useless. I get the car back to a great looking condition and then off they go and a month later they are driving through the swirl-o-matic:complain:. People don't understand (even when you tell them) that you can polish like that only so many times.

I think you are probably being your own worst critic and the majority of car owners out there couldn't tell the difference between a 100% flawless job and a 80% one. Just my opinion of course.

 

How many hours do you spend dude
With a car thats heavily swirled, I've spent up to 18 hours to get flawless but it's cost them up to $800 dollars and I've used the latest paint softening and hardening agents from Glare to make it harder for the paint to be scratched

Plus hand washing does more damage than going to a top quality (there are differences) coin op car wash and washing your car with their 1000 psi warm soap and then low pressure RO water and then using your waffle weave towels to blot dry it

Making it worse first, nah I don't believe in that
Even on a car with super heavy damage, using edge black wool and a full on 600 to 800 grit compound ain't gonna put anything than tiny swirls in it. It will still look better than before your started

The days of polishes leaving swirls with each step are long gone.

My advice - polish it with abrasives once or twice a year for three years and then use the Glare or Permagard permanent filling systems to fill in all your swirls, lock in the fillers, seal the paintwork and then wash carefully

After using Glare, it will be harder to scratch it
Most people on forums don't like Glare but of course they don't use the whole system starting with GLARE Zero and Knockout. If you just wack on pro polish, it ain't gonna do much.