Black tC; wet enough to differentiate?

[phamkl]

I have a final coming up so I'm going to start a thread.



Old camera, no befores, sorry!



Process:



Wash: Pinnacle Body Work Shampoo; two bucket, sheepskin mitt

Clay: Meguiar's Smooth Surface Clay Kit

Paint Correction: Menzerna Intensive Polish; UDM speed 6, DASII White pad

Polish: Menzerna Final Polish II; UDM speed 4, DASII Green pad

Glaze: Chemical Guys' EZ Creme Glaze

Sealant: Blackfire Wet Diamond All Finish Paint Protection + Polycharger; 3 coats

Wax: Chemical Guys' Pete's 53; 4-5 coats, spit shine method



[original pictures replaced by car domain pictures... not as detailed but better than nothing]

I took some more whole car shots but they came out really blurry so I didn't post them.



Yeah so about the thread title... any of you living in SoCal know that the tC has essentially replaced the Civic as the young person's every car. This is basically the case in most highly superficial urban/suburban areas (I live in OC) so detailing my car like this is my own means of individualism. If I had the money, I'd probably get a few nonessential car parts as well but I don't so I picked the much slower but equally potent poison, detailing. Oh well. I have a feeling that when I start making bank, I'll catch the mod bug to go with the detailing bug!

 

[Scottwax]

...other than the fenderwells not being dressed (someone is going to say, it minus whale be me!)...



The paint looks really good! Wet, glossy and nice metallic pop.

 

[phamkl]

Yup. I forgot to dress the tires too. I usually do it once every couple of washes and I meant to do it this time but by the time I noticed that my wheel area was entirely undressed (and mostly unwashed) I was already buffing off the EZ Creme.



I noticed one thing about the EZ Creme, that it helped bring out the bright reflections. The first time I used BF AFPP the car looked nice and dark but the reflections were dark too. Once I had BF over the EZ Creme, I had bright clear reflections coming off of a deep, dark black.



The Pete's 53 over the top of that muddled the reflections just a little but, imo, added a wet warmth to the paint as well. I don't know if I'm using the terms correctly (since it's all so subjective anyway) but after the wax, reds seemed to reflect a little more.

 

[David703]

the metallic flakes look crazy cool!! Liquid flakes!!

 

[violentveedub]

My sis has the same car and same color, so I'm familiar...



It looks great, but I just acan't get behind all this "5 layers of this, and 4 layers of that business". It doesn't really look any better than a perfectly prepped car with one layer of a quality LSP...



I'm not hating, I'm just picking a bone of contention...

 

[phamkl]

If you look at a car you probably wouldn't be able to tell if there are several layers or just one layer of a given product but between the first and third coat of BF I noticed that the reflections off my car's hood got crisper. It could be placebo, it could be real. I think it's real and noticeable, or else I wouldn't bother. If nothing else, I'm sure multiple coats or just a larger buildup of wax will last longer.



But why're we discussing layering? The horse is pretty damn dead by now.

 

[paul34]

Nice



BTW, did you have an accident at some point? It seems that some of those panels are unusually orange peeled. I have a tC and am familiar with the amount of orange peel in our paint... and it definitely isn't as bad as you seem to have been cursed with on some of your panels! =(

 

[derek collier]

looks good....except for the infamous toyota orange peel. trust me, i work at the toyota dealer, EVERY SINGLE NEW TOYOTA has orange peel...i dont know what their deal is.

 

[JustFord0099]

looks good....except for the infamous toyota orange peel. trust me, i work at the toyota dealer, EVERY SINGLE NEW TOYOTA has orange peel...i dont know what their deal is.

i noticed that as well. is there anything that can be done about that (within reason)

 

[phamkl]

Nice



BTW, did you have an accident at some point? It seems that some of those panels are unusually orange peeled. I have a tC and am familiar with the amount of orange peel in our paint... and it definitely isn't as bad as you seem to have been cursed with on some of your panels! =(

Yep. Where do you notice excess OP though?



A Tacoma sandwiched me between it and an Audi. This happened the first month I owned the car so I don't recall what my car looked like without the massive orange peel



I've been thinking though, hopefully they painted a nice thick coat of clear to give me room to sand it. I won't though, at least I won't until I get a paint thickness reading. I recently read on a forum that while correcting some Scion paint, a guy went all the way through the clear, apparently pretty quickly.



Paul, I noticed you on SL advising people to use Duragloss and Collinite, :goodjob The Duragloss name needs to get out there!

 

[klumzypinoy]

Wow looking good

 

[phamkl]

Apparently google pages is having some difficulties right now so the pictures in the original post aren't showing up. When they come back up, I'll delete this post to save some bandwidth.



anyway, here's an alternative source

 

[ptownTSI]

i wouldn't drive a scion if you paid me.

 

[COLDZ71]

i wouldn't drive a scion if you paid me.

Car looks great man. Very deep finish.

 

[imported_paradigm]

nice finish...reflections look great! :cooleek:



AND...i have to say regarding this post:

i wouldn't drive a scion if you paid me.

__________________

pearl white 5.9 Grand Cherokee Limited, 325is bmw, 98 CBR 600 F3

do any of us care what you do and don't like? keep comments like that to yourself.



(edited so as not to lower myself to this guy's level)

 

[mr.ikon]

Nice work. Flakes look amazing. Now, I've looked this up in the past and read it through and through. I still dont know how to spit shine.

 

[phamkl]

Have you read Nick T's article on the technique?



http://autopia.org/forum/hall-fame/38121-spit-shine-your-car-technique-revisited.html



I modified it a little myself since my applicators are too large for my wax jars and I can't get just a little bit on the pad (usually I'll end up with enough to do the whole car.)



So what I do is apply and remove the first layer like a regular coat of wax. For subsequent layers, I'll mist the car's surface before applying the next layer on the entire car, going panel by panel.



In short:

-apply layer 1 like normal

-use ice cold water, mist a panel and wax it again, going panel by panel around the whole car.



Accumulator would probably be able to give you a better synopsis on the technique.



ptown, that's tight. I wouldn't eat kimchee again if you paid me. I hate that stuff. But I'm sure you could care less what I wouldn't do for money.