President Detailed a 2008 Corvette Z06

Well, I had a great thread planned out for this detail since I learned so much in the process of this detail but I loaded all of my process/before pictures onto my pc to make room for more pictures and my PC crashed and I lost EVERYTHING. Lucky I still had the second half of the pictures on my cameras memory card. So there will only be afters in the post.

This was my first corvette(the clearcoat horror stories are true BTW ) and of course it was black and literally brand new with less than 200 miles on it. Thanks to Kevin Brown, Joshvette, and Aaron from AC Detail I got this sucker done, it took forever and a day I think mostly due to my own mistakes. Mistakes your asking? Dont worry, I didnt mess anything up! The car looked relatively good for what it was, but there were some deeper swirls that needed to come out to get this car looking 100%.

My mistake was going too aggressive with too high of speed, eliminating the swirls I was after, but now I had instilled my own wool marring that I chased for days on end! Just out of the blue Kevin Brown happened to message me, and see how I was enjoying M105 and if I had been using his process, and I reluctantly told him that I hadn't(dont ask me why not, I guess I thought hard clear-high speed/aggressive polish). So after talking with Kevin Brown for hours and hours over the week, we got the Corvette back into shape!

Just to clear things up, I did try less aggressive products which did not remove the defects I was looking for. I ended up going to M105/Burgandy Wool at 1500-1800 rpm with no priming like Kevin recommends. This removed the deep swirls I was after, however it left some wool marring that was VERY difficult to remove. After talking with Kevin for hours, I ended up going over the car with M105 on Meguiars new Burgandy Foam 2.0 pad, this pad is incredible! Ill be buying many more to come! Anyways, this step did its job using the Kevin Brown method(pad prime, bead on panel, 1-1200rpms) and had the car glowing, but in direct sunlight it still had very obvious buffer trails as expected and some fine micro-marring from the pad. I then went around the car again with SIP/White and we were CLOSER, but still holograms. I then went around the car with 3m Ultrafina on a UK 3m finishing pad. The end result, PERFECTION!

After several days on end thinking I will never finish this car, I was amazed when I pulled it back out in the sun. There were ZERO swirls in the car and the depth and reflectivity were outstanding. The owner was also very pleased, and we scheduled his 08 STI(teasers later).

The car was topped with two coats of Opti-Seal and then two coats of P21S 100% Past Wax. The wheels were also polished with Adams Metal Polish and then sealed with two coats of Opti-Seal as well. Enough talking! Heres the finished product!

PS. I saved the best pics for last!

 

I saved the best for last, the ones we all want to see. FULL SUN!





















The owner was happy enough to also schedule his 2008 STI, a hack detailer got ahold of this one for sure! :wall :buffing:




But I gotta get this one of the way first..:waxing:

 

That turned out awesome, I'm glad to see you over here! I see a bunch of your details on G35driver as well. To bad about your computer, I guess the next detail will be the one. Possibly on a G?

 

GREAT work! Love the pictures also. And good luck on your next detail, looks like a fun one

 

Actually, funny you say that. I have a red twin turbo g35 scheduled this week!

 

Great job here, welcome to DB by the way!

 

:yikes::yikes::yikes::yikes::yikes:
One word...PICS!
haha thats going to be sick, that STI detail should be good to though

 

Beautiful detail for a beautiful car. I love Corvettes and you did a smashing job. It looks fantastic. Way to go...:thumb::thumb::thumb:

 

Great job! I have yet to try the KB method as well!

 

The KB method is so unreal the only way to believe it is to try it yourself!

 

Could you describe Kevin Brown's method?

 

Awesome Job!

 

I found a description here.. don't know if it's right
Peachstate Detail LLC :: View topic - The Kevin Brown M105 paint polishing method

The Kevin Brown M105 paint polishing method


1. Prime an orange pad with a good amount of M105. I draw lines accross the pad and fold it in half.

2. Press the pad onto a MF or clean cotton towel on a table and turn on your PC/Flex to 1 for about 20 seconds.

3. Apply a pea sized dot of M105 to the pad.

4. PC on 6 or flex on 5- Apply alot of pressure and go slow working a 18"x18" area. Do not wipe off.

5. Prime an grey LC pad the same way as above. PC on 4, go over the area with the grey pad using less pressure. Wipe and inspect. Sometimes I need some IPA to get the panel to wipe clean.

Now on a silver or white paint, you might be done here. I find that on darker colors I go over the entire car again with ZPC.

When you do the 2nd section, run the pad into the MF again. You will find that you will get less cut each time. So I use the pad on 2 sections and get out a fresh pad. Of course you have to prime that pad too.

I have used this method on 3 cars now. Bret and I used it on the Dk blue metallic Lexus LS430L we did yesterday. Yes it still took us 12 hours, but I believe to get the same kind of correction with a rotary and doing at least 3 steps, it would of taken us longer.

 

Here is my experience with the rotary/wool version of the KB method..you can use pretty much use any pad you like for different levels of cut with this method. The only difference between the wool and foam, is that one foam you do not use water.

2 passes with M105/Wool, no luck... - Autopia.org

This is actually from Kevin Brown himself. Keep in mind this is with wool, on foam you DO NOT spray the panel.

 

interesting after doing this and having mad swirls what do you finish it down with?

 

Awesome work, buddy! I'm glad you got that hard paint sorted out! I'm curious how the Vette paint would compare to that of a Euro BMW, VW, Merc or Ferrari... They're all tough as diamonds! I know how you feel about the "never going to finish" dilemma. I was the same way when I did my first BMW and VW Passat here. I got a HUGE surprise when I started buffing, because I hadn't seen anything like it before. Cars have changed a lot since I got back into the business...

 

Well, it depends on the clear, but if you use the KB method correctly on hard clear, you can get get near LSP results, two steps and your done, on the softer clears you can use the same method, then use a PC to finish with and you can be done in two steps also. Keep an eye out in the next couple days, Ill be posting a red Mercedes and I promise you will be blown away!

 

will M105 with KB method leave hazzy surface? it's my first time using M105..