Okay, well the temperature around here finally got up, it was about +8C out today, so i felt i should take advantage of my 1/2 day short work day, and spend the afternoon testing the water with my newly acquired detailing tools that i received earlier this month. Luckily, i was able to call the bodyshop i had taken my S to for a new rear bumper last summer, and they let me come down to the shop to see what they had. I was able to scrounge up a slightly damaged 8thgen civic hood in Berlina Black, TONS of swirls, but also tons of good areas to practise one. The best part about it? It was free, and if i need any more things, they said to drop by anytime for some more panels if needed. Anyways, for this detail i used the following products for the correction: Mothers Clay Bar Flex XC3401 Sonus SFX Yellow and White 6" pads Meguiars #83 Meguiars #80 Lets get on to some pics! Firstly, heres some shots of what i was dealing with, before washing and right after bringing the hood home from the shop Now, after doing a quick little washing, obviously disregarding any chance to marr/swirl the paint more, didn't really care since its just a test panel, but trust me i wont treat my actual cars like i did with this wash (which is why i wasn't describing my wash process lol) As you can see, lots of swirls, but good for me, lots of practise! So, after seeing what i was up against, brought out the new toys! Firstly, i decided to go at it with the white pad + M80, the results were okay, but there still seemed to be quite a bit of swirling going on, so i stepped up to a Yellow pad+M83 to see what it could do. Here's some 50/50...dont' mind the tape, ill get some painters tape for my cars no need to worry! Here's a 50/50 after 1 pass with yellow+83 Corrected Side Uncorrected Now on the other side, decided to try a different process after noticing the first side still had some RIDS that i could not combat for the life of me. The hood also seemed to have little specs that looked like stars or something, seemed like they could be small cracks in the clearcoat, no idea but they annoyed the heck outta me and i could not get them out! For the right side, i decided to try 2 passes of yellow+M83, followed by 1 pass of white+m80, didn't bother with the blue pad to do a final polish today, just went and applied some cheap LSP Eagle1 nanowax just to take some final pics. Heres how that came out, along with some pics thrown in of the last parts of the hood that i didn't feel like doing today, i tried this method for 1 section and left the rest for another day after hopefully grabbing some tips off here! After 1 pass of M83 After 2 Passes of M83 After M80 And after some cheap LSP And the remaining uncorrected area to refresh your memory! Okay, so i feel that i got quite a bit of the defects out, but I STILL WANT MORE! theres still some RIDS remaining, and also those "specks" im seeing, could it just be that this piece of scrap is just beyond any sort of correction or is there something i can do? Dont' ask me why i want to correct it further (my cars are NOWHERE near this bad), so i have no idea why i want to do more than this, as this would probably be enough to correct the cars im actually thinking of doing. Anyways, heres some things that i had some trouble with when doing this, open to comments and tips! 1. My process, - I used 4 dots of product on the pad, put the machine on the paint and spread it with the machine off. I then turned the machine on at a slow speed to spread the product some more. After this, i ramped up the flex to speed 5 and made 2 passes across the paint, after this, went up to speed 6 for a few passes, until it was close to flashing, then put it back down to speed 5 for a couple more passes. 2. Seeing the flashpoint - the first few times i went to it, it was hard for me to notice when the product would flash. By the 4th or 5th time, i started to get the hang of it some more, but does anyone know "generally" how long i should be working these products in? Okay, that was a long post, but im interested in seeing what you guys think about what i've gotten done here today, im excited to try some more! Next i'll probably try and do some wetsanding on the spare hood for fun, to see what i can do about getting the sanding marks out. Thanks for viewing everyone, heres a shot of the honda's waiting for their turn this spring!
Very impressive for a first go around! The flex is an awesome machine to have, your lucky it has the extra power over a porter cable so you can do some more serious correction work. You followed the steps very well and the final result is awesome. Keep playing around with pads and polishes so you get an idea of what combos work well together.
thanks, the pictures may lie a little because there are still a few defects left in the areas, i might try some more aggressive techniques to see if i can get them out just to play around, but does anyone have any advice regarding the problems im having? eg. my speed techniques, do i just spread at low speed then hit it to max speed for a minute or so (until flashpoint) and then maybe take it down to 3 or 4 for a pass or two, or do i start slow, go up to 4.5-5, then 6 then back down?
Keep a close eye on the bolt that holds the BP on.......Mine has come loose a couple times. I used blue locktite on it last time and its been good since.
thanks for the tip, i did tighten it as much as i could as soon as i took it out of the box, still felt like there was a little play in the BP though, but ill check it again tomorrow
Great results. You did a heck of a job and your write up is just as good...Way to go...Keep up the good work...:thumb:
Nice and those specks are either the flake in the paint or defects from when the car was sprayed these little bubbled go through the clear coat and leave those. There is no way to correct them.
the specs were definately not the flake, i was able to see the flake pop out though, its really nice in Berlina Black since it has a bluish flake, but yeah, maybe its just some sort of defect or minor cracking in the clearcoat. I guess im just a bit of a perfectionist in everything, so seeing those had me thinking i didn't do a good enough job, but now that i think of it, the hood looks way better for the condition it started in, i should be happy with the job i did on it.
