1956 Pontiac Star Chief Convertible - Remove Swirls

[Mike Phillips]

1956 Pontiac Star Chief Convertible - Remove Swirls

This is a one-owner, 1956 Pontiac Star Chief Convertible. The new owner is Earl the Plumber, who is a local hotrodder here in Stuart, Florida and some of his cars are featured on both our TV show, "What's in the Garage?" and some of the how-to features we shot here at our Show Car Garage Studio.​

Beautiful styling including the script for the model name...

Check out the spacious and roomy interior...

An absolutely gorgeous dash...

Speedometer goes to 120 miles per hour...

Stainless Steel Fender Skirts... pretty cool...

Stylish V-8 emblem to signify this model was equipped with the V8

Classic chrome spoke wheels...

Very beautiful and stylish design to the front clip...

Here's some sun-shots of the true condition of the paint I took before Earl left...

Ouch! Kind of hurts your eyes, especially knowing the car these swirls are in...

I talked to Earl today and he supposed to be getting a shipment today that includes new front wheel bearings, if he gets the shipment today he'll try to have them installed tonight and then have this beautiful classic American convertible here at Autogeek tomorrow.​

We have a very special guest detailer coming here tomorrow by the name of Jon Leidgen aka PAR Detailing and if the Star Chief is here, he's going to give me a hand knocking out some of these horrendous swirls...​

 

[Mike Phillips]

We removed the hood ornament and found some pretty bad water spots, likely where water pooled under the ornament.

Did a test spot using a PC on the 6.0 Speed Setting with a 5.5" Cyan Hydro-Tech Pad with Pinnacle Advanced Finishing Polish. Majority of swirls and shallow scratches came out leaving only the RIDS, so we moved onto claying the paint...

First the "Baggie Test" to check for above surface bonded contaminants. Even though this is a restored, rare classic, it was covered with Above Surface Bonded Contaminants.

Jon clays using Pinnacle Ultra Poly Clay and Pinnacle Clay Lubricant

 

[Mike Phillips]

Continued...

Classic cars have painted grills right at the base of the windshield and usually, if you look close you'll see polish residue splattered into it during a previous detailing session.

Our goal is to avoid adding to it and if possible remove as much as we can...

The Beach Towel Tip

Next we want to test to confirm the paint is single stage or basecoat/clearcoat, it looks like a single stage paint but it only takes a few seconds to test and confirm...


How to Test for Single Stage or Clear Coat Paint
To test for a single stage paint, try to find a light colored or white polish if you're working on any kind of pigmented paint. If you're testing white paint then try to use a polish with a color to it and a dark colored cloth, (so you can confirm that you're removing white paint and not just seeing the color of the paint).

Use an ample amount for plenty of lubrication as you're going to want to push firmly if no oxidation is present as was the case with the finish on the classic car.

Confirmed, we're working on a single stage paint... also note the heavier accumulation were my fingers pressed down with the most pressure... this is because you can exert more pressure to the small area of your finger tips than you can with your entire hand, you can use this to work for you or cause problems depending upon what you're trying to do...

The holes here where the hood ornament bolts on will allow splatter from the rotary buffer to fly through and into the engine compartment so we're going to place another beach towel under this area to capture any splatter.

Ready to start buffing...

 

[Mike Phillips]

Continued...

We used Flex PE-14 Rotary Buffers with 5.5" Cyan Hydro-Tech Foam Cutting Pads around 1200 RPM with Pinnacle Advanced Swirl Remover to cut out the swirls, water spots and scratches.


Jon tries using the Flex PE-14 without the handle gripping the head for control and I think he liked it... he sure did a great job...

Anytime you're abrading paint you have two things building up on the face of your pad, that's

• Spent product
• Removed paint

If you're working on a clear coat you're still removing paint you just can't see it as easily because it's clear, it's still important to clean your pads often when doing correction work.

Next we machine polished the paint using 5.5" Tangerine Hydro-Tech Polishing Pads with Pinnacle Advanced Finishing Polish at around 600 RPM

After using the rotary buffer to remove any swirls left by the cutting pad and/or swirl remover, we cleaned our pads and then placed them on DA Polishers and finished out with the DA's to ensure a swirl free finish...

Now we're ready to machine wax and for this we're using Pinnacle Souveran Liquid Carnauba Wax with DA Polishers and 5.5" Crimson Hydro-Tech Finishing pads.

 

[Mike Phillips]

Continued...

When it was time to remove the wax I asked Jon if had ever used microfiber gloves to hold his microfiber towels and he said "no" so I had him give them a try...

What do you think... does it work better than just the bare hand?

Water Spots are gone so we replaced the hood ornament...

Simple process, easy to do, show car results...

Sun is going down but I'll get some sun shots next time the car is here during the daylight... until then, here's some beauty shots...

Mmmm... glossy and wet looking with a deep, wet shine...

One classy classic...

 

[Mike Phillips]

And we didn't forget the Stainless Steel Fender Skirts...

Stainless Steel Fender Skirts - Before

Side-by-Side

After

Much better...

 

[John@Autopia-Carcare.com]

Wow Mike, what a beautiful car and that finish looks amazing! Thanks for stopping by and sharing this with us. Much appreciated and certainly a job well done! Those Pinnacle Polishes really contributed to an awesome turnaround, those swirls looked dreadful!

Keep dropping by when you can, Mike. Your insight is definitely invaluable.:bigups

 

[Ronkh]

Now that's a car !!!!

 

[Pats300zx]

Amazing work Mike. What a beautiful car !!!