Not a full detail today, but rather a few hours of one to one (or rather two to one, as Gav had to put up with both me and Bryan!! :lol::lol rotary tuitiontoday for GavB on the forum, on his really rather nice BMW M3 'vert. Lovely colour too, dont see many around in a metallic, amost British Racing green. For an 11 year old, the car wasn't badly swirled either... The whole bonnet was like this, with random deeper scratches around as well which would give opportunity to play around with a little heavy compounding techniques and also some wetsanding. After a little product trialling, we found that for the general swirling, Menzerna Intensive Polish on a Meguiars W8006 polishing pad delivered some very good correction. So after a quick demo from me, using the Zenith Point technique: Spread at 600rpm, 1 pass Begin to work at 1200rpm, 2 or 3 passes Work at 1500rpm until residue clear, around 8 - 10 passes Refine at 1200rpm, 2 - 3 passes Satisfied with the correction, it was over to Gav who took to the machine like a duck to water in honesty... Not his first time with it, but all the main things were observed: Pad flat Movement steady, no fighting with it Relaxed arms to flow with contours A couple of pics... Short video - note the movement speeds, relaxed steady movements, and the pad being flat... Seemed to work well for Gav, the finished results... Gav then refined the area with Menzerna Final Finish. Starting out you see the residue is very cloudy and grey: Once worked, the residue turns clear to show the polish has broken down and has been properly worked... Damn good finish, I would say... The middle region of the bonnet had some deeper scratches, so it was time for a diofferent approach to machine polishiong - the Cut & Dash method of hitting the panel hard and fast with an aggressive compound, and then refining with a dedicated finishing polish in a separate step. When dealing with more severe marring, this is my favoured way rather than using medium polishes with the Zenith method, as you can use compounds to get the correction and then stop when the correction is achieved and then refine with a dedicated polish to get the best possible finsih. So, demonstration for Gav with Power Gloss on a Meguiars W7006 cutting pad, as follows: Spread at 600rpm, 1 pass Begin to work at 1200rpm, 2 - 3 passes Work at 1500-1800rpm until defetcs removed Couple of pics of PG in action... We'll refine this later, as one thing we noticed was a deeper mark that was not removed by compounding... So, wet sanding time. Abralon 4000 grit pad on the Porter Cable, about 5 or 6 passes at speed 3 with no pressure at all (pressure can lead to deep pigtailing which is defficult to remove)... Resultant sanding haze: Polished out with Intensive Polish: Gotta hand it to Gav, he tried everything - so had a shot of wet sanding as well: Sanding haze: Polishing it out... After refining the whole half of the bonnet, we checked it under the Sun Gun, video: Onto the other half of the bonnet and it was a turn for 3M so Gav could see and try in action the two polish ranges he had... Bryan explains some pointers to Gav... Again, we went for the "Cut & Dash" method of Fast Cut Plus to correct, followed by Ultrafina SE to refine. What follows is a video of me using 3M Fast Cut Plus to correct... Note the speed of machine movement is a lot faster than a DA, and the work time is only as long as is required to correct the marring, no effort to finish was made: The finish wasn't bad though... (Tilting Sun Gun can highlight RDS and also faint hologramming, which is why its tilted in one of the pics above) But still, its was refined. Gav also had a go of Fast Cut Plus. As time went on, Gav seemed to be rather comfortable with the rotary - opne handed use in fact: :lol::lol: Although, this does demonstrate a very good point! With a rotary, the vast majority of the work is done with your back arm, your driving arm (which is typically your writing hand). The arm on the head of the machine is there simply fora guide and also for any additional pressure you want to use (or take away by lifting slightly). Gav also wanted to see Zaino in action, so I asked if I could do a 50/50 on his bonnet and let him see my two favourite sealents side by side: Zaino and Duragloss. To ensure fairness, the second half of the bonnet was re-refined with Menzerna Final Finish to ensure consistency... This gave Gav a chance to see Bryan working the rotary too, to see a slightly different but just as effective rotary technique (Bryan moves the machine slower than me, and typically uses slower speeds... but this is all personal preference at the end of the day to what methods you prefer, and aside from that Bryan and I share a very similar machine technique - probably because we learned the rotary together!!) Gav back in action refining the bonnet... One fully machined, we wiped the bonnet down with Menzerna Top Inspection ready to receive the sealents... Same deal as at the NE detailing meet yesterday, driver's side received Duragloss (601>105>111) and passenger side Zaino (Z1>ZAIO>Z2)... Duragloss Zaino Some more pics... No difference in looks was obvious, but then there never is with two products side by side on a single panel in reality... We couldn't separate them in water performance either... Bryan commentates his thoughts in this video, along with Gav... And just for fun at the end... some beading pics:
Awesome post Dave. Thanks for taking the time to put that together. I picked up a few rotary techniques just by reading
Excellent write up. I remember my first try with a rotary like it was yesterday. Hopefully soon I'll try my hand at wetsanding.
Some of the best posts on this board are from you Dave, thanks for taking the time! Nothing better than beading on metallic paint, almost looks like it's floating!
I find a nicer, more even sand pattern doing it by machine which polishes out nicer IMHO... Its still excellent results by hand, but machine just makes it a little easier for me.
I was going to say, whenever I hear wetsanding I always think by hand(Had to do it when I painted my car, and touched up panels) and didn't realize you could do it with a machine. I thought it would sand to fast! Are you using your rotary for the wetsand as well? Great Information Dave!
Just the DA for machine sanding, I dread to think how quickly a rotary would whip away paint... though I may try it as I'm trying to sand paint off of one my test doors to respray it...
Great post. It is very nice to see the experienced ones passing on their knowlege. Gav is very lucky to be able to have you and Bryan to show him proper ways to do things. Wanna come to SC? lol
Dave outstanding as always, congrats to u and bryan! quick Q, how did you get the sand paper to stick to the yellow pad? did u use the 3M ungrit?
Excellent post Dave. When are you going to put together a DVD collection for us. You could include washing ,polishing etc. Package it all up in a nice case like the self improvement gurus do. Then I could watch you on my big screen. The wife will love that.
