9/11 Details - v. Wetsanding my Teg and Poorboys' Maxima & Harley

G35stilez

Ari Gold
I wanna start off by sending my thoughts and prayers out to anyone who was affected by 9/11. I still think about it til this day and have loved one who were affected.
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Today I had a pretty full day. I started off with my car since my client needed his Maxima and Harley detailed in the afternoon.

My hood has been bothering me since it was repainted a year ago. It wasn't wetsanded very well...IE: There were sanding tracers everywhere, fisheyes here and there, and a good amount of paint pits. From the info I've learned here, Autopia, and Meguiar's, I was ready to wetsand the whole hood. Here's what it looked like when I started:

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Light scratching, marring...Pitting, fisheyes, and wetsanding marks.


I grabbed some of my 2000 grit papers and let them soak in a bucket of water and 1 oz of Mother's Gold Wash. I filled up my sprayer with .5 oz of S+W and the rest water. I started wetsanding front to back until the area was smooth using the papers and a small foam sanding block. I sprayed constantly when sanding to keep any residue out of the sandings tracks. I then went to 4000 grit, 6000, 8000, and finally 12,000 (courtesy of Deanski :) ). The surface looked like dull glass (that smooth).

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The top right corner was my original testing area.


After I did each half of the hood, I polished it out. I used my rotary and LC cutting pad @ 1900rpm using Menzerna Powergloss with overlapping passes. This stuff cut up pretty quick and left a pretty glossy, smooth surface. Most of all, the reflections were much more crystal clear :) .

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Next, I had to increase the gloss level and remove the light swirling from the cutting pad/powergloss. I used Menzerna PO-85RD polish (ceramiclear polish). I believe it is a 1.5 out of 5 for cutting and a 5 out of 5 for gloss. Anyways, I used it via rotary and polishing pad @ 1100 rpm. This stuff blew me away with it's gloss. Like nothing I'd ever seen before.

Finally for my LSP. I chose FMJ (courtesy of Sopranos16 :) ). I applied with a foam applicator by hand in thin coats. I let it sit about a minute and removed with an MF. It came off very easily and left a very slick surface. The thing that most impressed me with this product was the depth and gloss I achieved. As you can see in the pics below, the relfections are crystal clear. You can see the wrinkles in my shorts (awaiting for a groebuck comment :D ) and the spikes in my hair :lol . In the second pic, the clouds are very visible and my house reflects very clearly.

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More vehicles coming...
 
Sean,

That is some great work there! :bigups

Quite a bit of wetsanding. For one, I'm glad to see more and more people learning how to do it. I wonder if you could have reduced the amount of wetsanding and left the work up to the rotary? :dunno

Just curious to see if the time would have yielded similar results? Maybe 2000, 6000, 12000? Even then, you don't see that very often at all. Most would go 2000 then rotary. I guess the trade off might be another polishing step.

Regardless, the results are awesome. I was thinking fire engine red all day as well :D
 
Next up, 2002 Maxima.

This belongs to my most frequent customer. Great guy to deal with and he really enjoys my work. He invited me to go look for 350z roadsters in December when I'm home (he's trading that in for one).

Anyways, I had this and a Harley to do from 2pm-on so I had to get workin quick. I did the interior first with the following:

-Oxy Mix on carpets and mats pretreated with APC+ 10:1
-Woolite Mix for leather, vinyl, rubber, plastic
-AA to protect vinyl, rubber, plastic
-Lexol Conditioner for the leather
-Gliptone Glass Cleaner

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The driver's mat was terrible which was by far the worst part of the car.



The exterior was like it usually is...Reasonably dirty :) . It had a good amount of buildup on the lower panels of bug and road grime/tar. Also some scratches on the trunk and rear bumper that I took out with powergloss and the rotary. My final steps were:

-Mother's Gold Wash
-Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover on front bumper and all lower panels
-Wheel Wash on the wheels, in wells, and on exhaust pipes
-APC+ 10:1 on tires
-Menzerna Powergloss via rotary and LC cutting pad @ 1500rpm
-PwC via rotary and LC polishing pad @ 1500rpm
-EX-P by hand

*Rain-X on glass
*Bold 'N Bright on Tires and plastic trim
*Gliptone Glass Cleaner to clean glass


Before
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After
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Harley is next...
 
First off, sorry about the white balance above. My girlfriend used the camera indoors and I forgot to change it back to "Outdoor" mode until the Harley.

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Anyways, 1998 Harley Davidson Heritage Softail

This is the Maxima owner's toy. He bought it new back in '98 and has taken very good care of it (cleaned after each use, garaged, and covered). It was 'clean', but needed polishing. I got a little scared reading reponses of bikes taking 4-5 hours. Well this one took me 2 so I was happy :) . My final steps were:

-#0000 Steel Wool and Wheel Wash to make white walls white again :lol
-PwC on EVERYTHING!!! - all chrome, paint, metal pieces, headlights, gauge cluster, etc.
-Natty's on painted surfaces
-Bold 'N Bright on seating and other leather accents (I like this a lot on leather)

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The owner came back from the gym and was extremely happy and said "Wow, this thing is glowing". I agreed. This was the first bike I've done and I went over each area 2-3 times to make sure I hit every angle. When I stepped back, I really appreciated it. PwC worked amazingly on the chrome and Natty's brought nice depth and wetness to the paint. He told me he'd be passing my name along at the Harley show tomorrow. I'm happy, he's happy, life is good ;)
 
Nice work. You will have to post sunny day pics of the Integra.

Where did you purchase the higher grit wet sanding paper from?

How did you like working on the Hog?
How did you dry the dry the bike?
Is the seat a Mustang seat?

Eric
 
Looks good Sean! I especially like the harly; I've never done a motorcycle before and probably wouldn't know where to begin. Looking good!
 
TheSopranos16 said:
Looks good Sean! I especially like the harly; I've never done a motorcycle before and probably wouldn't know where to begin. Looking good!
Not much different than a car. Bikes are made to get wet. Just more nools and crannies for water drip from.

Eric
 
ed: Yeh, I have to repolish the rest of the car and FMJ it. I may have some time today...We will see :)

Deanski gave me samples of the papers. I forget what he used them for. I'm sure he will chime in soon.

I liked working on the Harley...Once you stand back, the results pay off. I just had to attack each part at a few different angles to make sure I got it. I ended up not washing it. It was very clean, just a tad dusty so I wiped it down and went to it. That probably saved some time. No idea on the seat, sorry.

www.topoftheline.com makes the wheel wash. It's a reasonably strong Alkaline wheel cleaner. It works great but I am ready to try the new Poorboy's wheel cleaner :)


Thanks for the compliments !
 
OMG your hood and car was not perfect O.O O.O could of fooled me. well i guess your car is now truely perfect lol. ill probley have to wet sand / rotery the tops of my car to get out ALL ht water etching that the pc cant touch.

I feal a little better about trying it my self sometime as you did it just from reading a bunch if i understood correctly.

good job.

OOO i love my aprilia falco bike the tank and the air intakes are painted other wise its a naked bike and the frame and motor stuff is all dark allium. + i ride that bike so much all i do to mine is spray soap spray again dry lol. i got 15k miles on her in 2 1/2 years.
 
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