Today I did some detailing...

Noccy_Mondy

You're missing your valve cap

padyjoe

First timer. Not perfect but spent over 4 hours on it, no hose, had to use buckets to get water. This is what I've got:

Curran

Great results! Not bad for a newbie!

padyjoe

Thank you! The yellow colour is not for the faint hearted and OCD'S!

I've blown nearly half of my tar remover (probably made a mistake, the car was not completely dry when applying it, spots hardly wanted to run) and Iron-X (covered everything with it). Finished it with the quick detailer, I try the wax next time.

Arbo94

Some lovely beading from fusso 3 months on.


Holding up very well hoping it will last the winter. Has anyone tested the 12 months this is supposed to last?

vectra

Arbo94 wrote: »

Some lovely beading from fusso 3 months on.


Holding up very well hoping it will last the winter. Has anyone tested the 12 months this is supposed to last?

You wont get 12 months out of it
I reckon 6 tops.
So 3 gone and 3 to go. That would leave you slap bang in the middle of horrible weather.
If it were me I would plan on another coat shortly before the weather goes downhill.
Great beading there :cool:

Arbo94

vectra wrote: »

You wont get 12 months out of it
I reckon 6 tops.
So 3 gone and 3 to go. That would leave you slap bang in the middle of horrible weather.
If it were me I would plan on another coat shortly before the weather goes downhill.
Great beading there :cool:

I have a lovely warm shed to do it in so it doesn't really bother me! If I were to alloy another coat soon would it involve stripping or can I just throw it on top after the usual wash?

vectra

No stripping
Just top it up
How many coats initially did you give it?
2 is recommended 24 hours apart.

Arbo94

vectra wrote: »

No stripping
Just top it up
How many coats initially did you give it?
2 is recommended 24 hours apart.

I gave it 2 about a week and a half apart, just wasn't sure if there are many contaminants built up since then. I don't really have the time with college at the moment to strip it properly, hence why it was done in the summer so if I can't just throw an extra coat on top of what's there I'll do it :-)

Foxhole Norman

Got a bit carried away with my new Rotary :pac:









Also gave my buddies wife's 320d a Two Bucket Wash and interior valet:

edburg

Must be fierce handy mini pad that.

Was looking at the newish mini rupes, if only a lotto win came my way.

ronnie3585

You really have a way with a machine polisher FN!

How did you do the lights? Wet sand followed by a polish or can you hit it with a cutting pad?

As an aside, the red stripe on the dash of the BMW is awful, is that factory?

Foxhole Norman

edburg wrote: »

Must be fierce handy mini pad that.

Was looking at the newish mini rupes, if only a lotto win came my way.

It's very very handy! We have both the Rupes 21 Mk2 and mini, while great, my DAS-6 Pro Plus and definitely the ShineMate do equally as good a job!

ronnie3585 wrote: »

You really have a way with a machine polisher FN!

How did you do the lights? Wet sand followed by a polish or can you hit it with a cutting pad?

As an aside, the red stripe on the dash of the BMW is awful, is that factory?

Haha cheers, just a lot of practice/experimentation

That photo of the amber lights is only midway through compounding, I finished them today:







I wet sanded them with 800/1500/2500, ideally you'd go 3000 but I didnt have it to hand. Then I compounded them with Menzerna 300 on a hard mini pad then polished with Menzerna 2200 on a medium 3" pad and finally polished again with Meguiars PlastX.

That strip is standard, think you can either get it in red or blue!

Foxhole Norman

Busy day cleaning all the German machinery and Gavman's ST

Musefan

First ever time to do a bit of special stuff when washing a car! My partner and I handwashed with autoglym stuff, used a clay bar & detailing spray, polished and waxed. Not sure the photo picks up the difference in shine but the paint feels like glass!

Before


After

Arbo94

Had my aunts A3 this weekend for paint correction. The paint was in sh**e as you can see from the photos, came out nice though.



Paint condition before:







And the afters:

Curran

Very nice improvement there! Good work!

Good to see 50:50 shots too , proving its not down to camera work!

How many passes and what combo of pad and polish did you use to achieve that 50:50?

Arbo94

Curran wrote: »

Very nice improvement there! Good work!

Good to see 50:50 shots too , proving its not down to camera work!

How many passes and what combo of pad and polish did you use to achieve that 50:50?

Thanks :-)

Used M105 with a microfibre cutting pad from meguiars and M205 on a white hexlogic from chemical guys, only 1 pass of each there's still a few rds in there but was very happy with the results considering just one pass left it like this!

Foxhole Norman

Savage job Arbo!

DuckSlice

Nice job! Can you do mine? 😜

The artificial light seems to show up every imperfection compared to natural daylight I've noticed from trying to correct a few minor scrapes on my car. I was doing it at night and thought I hadn't made much headway but in daylight it looks a lot better.

I gave my car a clean yesterday it was absolutely filthy. Hope to be getting tar-x and iron-x soon and to clay it and give it a fresh coat of wax.

Curran

The E90 is looking well etxp!

Its not to do with natural or artificial light - its to do with direct light.
If it was day without clouds and the sun was high in the sky, your bonnet, roof and boot lid would show up every little defect; whereas the doors wouldnt really show anything. In the evening when the sun is lower in the sky, your doors will show up everything!!

DuckSlice

Thanks I don't have it long and the last owner took relatively good care of it. Few scratches here and there that need sorting, some on the bonnet/front wing look like someone took a Brillo pad to it, so might have to get it machine polished if hand polishing doesn't sort them!

Alanstrainor

My girlfriend bought this yesterday, 2007 Nissan Note. It was her granny's since 2008.
Engine: 1.6 4-speed auto
Mileage: 29,000km (13,000 covered before the end of 2007!)
NCT: Tested until May 2017
Tax: Up at the end of the month
History: Serviced annually with Nissan, up until 2014, sitting up since then.
Price: 2500.

So here it is when we picked it up:



And here it is after the following:

1. Wash without soap to try and remove all loose ****e.
2. Wash with soap, still filthy!
3. Rinse, rinse, rinse
4. Car somewhat clean at this point, began to polish with autoglym resin polish.
5. Buff off any residue from the polish paying particular attention to the hand prints which could be the dreaded sun cream.
6. Wax time. Chemical guys carnauba wax. Apply, allow time to dry and buff off.
7. Tire shine time, and putting on the wheel trims. I also freshened up the exterior plastic too.
8. DESTROY THE WINDSOR NUMBER PLATE SURROUNDS!!
9. Remove all interior windows stickers, AA, Windsor, RAC etc etc.
And bam:



It'll be oil service next, oil, oil filter, air filter, cabin filter. Looks handy enough, nice having a relatively high car to work on!

Foxhole Norman

Had the privilege of detailing CharlieCroker's Octavia and SuperGurriers 350Z over the weekend. Both cars received a two bucket wash, full decontamination and sealed with Fusso, the Octavia also received an interior valet.































Terrible lighting/terrible photo's per usual!

Foxhole Norman

SuperGurrier's Zed:

vectra

I notice SG gave you a great help

Supergurrier

vectra wrote: »

I notice SG gave you a great help

I was too busy freezing to death

Need to knock abit of work out of those junglads.

Thanks again FN atleast its Fusso'd for the time being until worst of winter is done and its deep polish and ceramic coating tyme

vectra

Supergurrier wrote: »

I was too busy freezing to death

Need to knock abit of work out of those junglads.

Thanks again FN atleast its Fusso'd for the time being until worst of winter is done and its deep polish and ceramic coating tyme

Ha,
I would have been sitting in the car with the engine running

It's looking good now though.

Foxhole Norman

Have been working on this V12 E38 for the last two days, even though it looks quite good there the paint was in terrible condition. I'm currently midway through the second stage of polishing which I'll finish tonight and finish the car tomorrow.







Here they are after two stages, all that's really left is the odd random deep scratch.

ronnie3585

Awesome car! And lovely work as always.

Foxhole Norman

ronnie3585 wrote: »

Awesome car! And lovely work as always.

Cheers Ron!

Here's the pictures of the final result, I really need to start using my actual camera





























Tried out a new sealant on it, Menzerna's Power Lock and was blown away with how easy it goes on and comes off and left an amazingly slick surface, will definitely be using it a lot more often now! Delighted with the result, great car to work on and in a good unit and thanks to the owner for giving me free roam of their Summer house for the few days!

punisher5112

Amazing work really wish some day I will get a house with a proper garage or shed to work on cars.

ronnie3585

It's been 5 or 6 weeks since I put the CQuartz coating on the car. I've been away a bit so I haven't had the time to wash the car since then. I gave it a good wash today with CarPro Reset and it's looking as good as the day I applied it. It really brings the gloss and shine back to the car. Threw another application of Reload on it, should be set for the winter now.

Carpentry

I took advantage of the Saturday's weather. Second coat of SOFT99 Fusso.

leupold90

A few weeks ago I got a chance to clean this old Auris. It's got nearly 350k on the clock and I don't think it';s ever seen anything else apart from a garage car wash in it's life. Despite this it's in reasonable condition and drives well enough. The white paint I think is quite forgiving as it doesn't show up swirls etc. that well. I didn't have a whole lot of time so I remembered reading on here about a quick technique. So what I did was;
Pre wash with BH Autofoam from a spray bottle
Rinse & quick dry
Spray with Iron X
Rinse & wash
Dry & wipe down with Sonax BSD
Clean glass with DJ Clearly Menthol

IMO it came up pretty well.
Some pictures below - note the bleeding on the bonnet is from the Iron X reacting with rusty stone chips!

Voodoomelon

Good job on the E38.

Reminds me of when I did mine about 4 years ago:













And that ridiculously good wheel refurb by Lepsons UK:

Theboinkmaster

What are the details of the wheel refurb in Lepsons UK?

I've used wheel wizards in Finglas before and was €100 about I think for one wheel and was happy enough, but is the Lepsons UK one that much better and worth shipping costs?

DuckSlice

Washed my car again the weekend. Was very happy with the results, and I'm getting more and more picky every time I wash the car. Even went around and done all the door shuts or what ever they are called. They were absolutely filthy. Not a great pic but feck it.

I'm thinking the car must have been waxed when I bought it as the water does bead on it more than it should with mcguiars wash and wax. Have a lovely snowfoam lance to try out this weekend so looking forward to seeing what it's like!

Foxhole Norman

Always loved your 728 Voodoo, I have a bad hankering for one recently, such cool cars.

Voodoomelon

Theboinkmaster wrote: »

What are the details of the wheel refurb in Lepsons UK?

I've used wheel wizards in Finglas before and was €100 about I think for one wheel and was happy enough, but is the Lepsons UK one that much better and worth shipping costs?

To be honest I can't remember the costs, it was before they put their prices up and sterling was quite favorable at the time. There also wasn't a lot of choice regards diamond cutting here at the time. Plenty do it now though. It was at least €100 a wheel, likely more inc shipping. But they're commonly regarded (at least at the time) as the best in the UK.

Foxhole Norman wrote: »

Always loved your 728 Voodoo, I have a bad hankering for one recently, such cool cars.

Still beating about Blanchardstown apparently, been spotted a few times!

ianobrien

No pics this time but I tackled the dash and plastic interior parts of the parents motorhome. It was hoover with a soft brush to gathet dust, Bilt Hamber Surfix 1:5 dilution to clean the steps and anything dirty. Then 50Cal interior dressing and buffed after a minute or three.

It turned out reasonably well. It left a nice shine that wasn't too plasticy looking and no horrid sticky residue some leave. The vehicle owner expressed her satisfaction. That's a good sign for the finish it gave......

From having used the same treatment and approach in my own, I like the way it seems to repell the dust.

MuddyDog

Bit of a beginner when it comes to detailing but I've started taking proper care since I got a new motor and this is what I've been doing:

1. Quick power-wash (water only) to get the obvious dirt off
2. Two bucket method using AG Bodywork Shampoo Conditioner using Microfibre Wash Mitt
3. Power-wash (water only) to rinse it down
4. Drying with microfibre drying towels
5. Applying AG Super Resin Polish using polishing pad
6. Buffing off AG SRP using microfibre buffing cloth
7. Applying CarPro Reload then using microfibre cloths.

For the wheels, I use the AG Wheelcare set products.

Just reading about CQuartz...should I be using this too in replacement or in addition of any of the steps I currently use? I also have Megs Nxt Car Wash that I've yet to open. I also have Collinite 476 Doublecoat Wax. Should I use this wax now that it's properly winter or? Also, how often should I use the AG SRP? I try and do the first 4 steps once every 2 weeks. Should I use this polish every 2 weeks as well or less often? I use the reload once every 6 weeks or so.

edburg

MuddyDog wrote: »

Bit of a beginner when it comes to detailing but I've started taking proper care since I got a new motor and this is what I've been doing:

Quick power-wash (water only) to get the obvious dirt off
Two bucket method using AG Bodywork Shampoo Conditioner using Microfibre Wash Mitt
Power-wash (water only) to rinse it down
Drying with microfibre drying towels
Applying AG Super Resin Polish using polishing pad
Buffing off AG SRP using microfibre buffing cloth
Using CarPro Reload then when the car has fully dried (usually the next day as car is parked in garage overnight) using microfibre cloths.

For the wheels, I use the AG Wheelcare set products.

Just reading about CQuartz...should I be using this too in replacement or in addition of any of the steps I currently use? I also have Megs Nxt Car Wash that I've yet to open.

Is there something missing between buffing the polish and reload???
Car shouldn't need a drying after ARP.

As CQUARTZ goes I would replace the reload with it on the bigger wash sessions (twice a year say pre winter and spring), and then using reload as a top up say every month/other month.

I'd maybe consider car pro eraser wipe down after/instead ARP polish but thats me personally. Think the CQUARTZ adheres better to clean/product free paint surface.

Other than that happy days, I don't see an issue with your process.





EDIT: ah so your sly editing has added Collinite, well it kind of same as reload etc (different product yes but still protection). I'd have maybe added a couple coats of Collinite instead and kept reload as top up as said before, but you done reload and that's your protective layer, not 100% on its durability but pretty certain it do you well until new year before any need of a top up.

Ideally reload will work better with its own make of products and would say go with CQuartz next year.

MuddyDog

Thanks edburg. I edited my post now as it was confusing the way I said it!

Wouldn't using the carpro eraser after the AG SRP remove the SRP though??

edburg

MuddyDog wrote: »

Thanks edburg. I edited my post now as it was confusing the way I said it!

Wouldn't using the carpro eraser after the AG SRP remove the SRP though??

Yes well instead of (if your using CQUARTZ) really being new car I'd say there not much need for a filler polish which is my opinion of that product. It be good for wax protections as they both lasting roughlt 2-3 months. CQ would be a product that will see good 8 months +


As you are your are is good.

ronnie3585

Have you had problems with applying Reload on top of SRP?

I tried it's first cousin, Hydro2Lite, on top of SRP a couple of months ago with disasterous results. It left huge streaks and was exceptionally difficult to biff off.

Curran explained that it was the gloss enhancers in the SRP that prevented a proper bond with the sealant, I'm interested to see if the same is true for Reaload.

PS I've Cquartz on the car now and it's the dogs boll*cks!

MuddyDog

Definitely getting Quartz now. Money wasted with the Collinite I feel if I'm going to use Quartz now.

No issues with Reload after SRP but I've always waited till the next day before applying.

Curran

Just a few thing I noted....

- there is no need to apply SRP every week
- Reload would work better, in terms of durability, if SRP was not on the paintwork prior to application
- CQuartz is a completely different leauge, and requires a defined prep and application to work to its best, and needs its own maintenance products, but the benefits greatly exceed the likes of AG
- Collinite 476S is a very good product, but you'll certainly have no need for it if going for a ceramic coating

If choosing to go ceramic, be sure to read about the benefits and disadvantages - not everyone is a fan...some people prefer the 'relaxing' job of reapplying products every so often - the likes of 476S freshly applied would give a slightly better appearance than a ceramic coating...but the ceramic requires less effort to wash, keep clean, and no topping up, etc

MuddyDog

Curran wrote: »

Just a few thing I noted....

- there is no need to apply SRP every week
- Reload would work better, in terms of durability, if SRP was not on the paintwork prior to application
- CQuartz is a completely different leauge, and requires a defined prep and application to work to its best, and needs its own maintenance products, but the benefits greatly exceed the likes of AG
- Collinite 476S is a very good product, but you'll certainly have no need for it if going for a ceramic coating

If choosing to go ceramic, be sure to read about the benefits and disadvantages - not everyone is a fan...some people prefer the 'relaxing' job of reapplying products every so often - the likes of 476S freshly applied would give a slightly better appearance than a ceramic coating...but the ceramic requires less effort to wash, keep clean, and no topping up, etc

Thanks for that. Very useful. What prep do I need for Quartz and what maintenance products do I need after using it?

Since I have Collinite now, if I apply it on a clean dry car could I just wash the car and use reload for 2-3 months and then use CSquartz?

ronnie3585

I did Galway - Kildare - Galway this weekend. The roads were gritted everywhere given the weather and this was the result of 400kms of driving on them:





Absolutely minging!! The grit had the texture of sandpaper, if you just took a sponge to it you'd probably take most of your paint off too!

I hit it with a solution of warm water and shampoo and let it dwell for a few minutes. I then gave it a thorough going over with the pressure washer which removed 95% of the grit. Thanks to the CQuartz coating, it just flew off! A good 2BM wash thereafter and she was shining again.

Shazam!