imported_Dave KG
New member
Today's detail for Bryan and I was a Le Mans Blue (lovely colour) BMW 320d, on an 06 plate. It was clear that this car had been well cared for, but the swirls on the paint were bugging the owner, so today's challenge was to remove them and refine the finish of the car so that the owner could maintain it and not have to see scratches and swirls every time the sun came out!
The detail kicked off last night for Bryan as he washed and clayed the car, sorted out the wheels with APC and Chemical Guys Premium Blue, and the arches with Meguiars APC and ASD... Bryan always tries to get through these stages the evening before a detail to allow up both to get off to a flying start with the machine polishing from the start of play on the main detail day
My day today kicked off very early... Last night, Diane and I were out at a ball, got home around 2am... which would have been fine, had we not had to get up a 4am so I could drive her to Edinburgh airport (an hour away)!! When I started the car at 4am, it hadn't even fully cooled down from when it was parked before we went to bed!
... So an early blast down to the airport and back through the dawn mist for me, back home by 630am and a chance to grab another hours sleep before the detail - my car didn't exactly arrive in the most respectable of states, a little bug squash from the early morning drive:
Strangely though, I was wide awake and raring to go for this detail despite a complete lack of sleep... I'll sort my car out tomorrow
But for now, on with the show.
The BMW was rolled into the garage and while Bryan taped up the car, I assessed the paintwork using the 3M Sun Gun, pictures taken with my new Fuji FinePix S5700 camera...
Some general light to medium swirls across the board and hidden in amongst them were a fair share of RDS. After playing around with a few combos on a test spot, I decided to settle on 3M Extra Fine Compound (80349) applied using a Meguiars W8006 yellow polishing pad as follows:
No attempt was made to finish down here as I was intending to go for a finishing polish any way to burnish the finish, but despite this the compound still finished LSP ready. The reason I chose this was that I needed a little mote cut than Menzerna Final Finish had to offer, but not the cut required by Intensive Polish... For me, this 3M polish seems to fall right between the two of these products offering a handy middle ground on this detail to get the desired correction with the minimum removal of paint - the ideal of machine polishing
Finishing polish was 3M Ultrafina SE (50383) - a change from my favourite finishing polish (Menzerna PO85RD) but I knew Ultrafina was highly capable, so decided to make this a 3M polish detail. (Though, I did also check to compare against 85RD to see if if would deliver a better finish and thus see Ultrafina back in its box... but it didn't, so Ultrafina it was ).
The Ultrafina SE was applied using a 3M Ultrafina SE Finishing Pad (50388) as follows:
In comparison to the dryer feeling Extra Fine Compound, the Ultrafina was very oily and made for a very long work time and this made the polish a real joy to use for finishing purposes where I like a long work time to burnish the finish to a clarity and gloss I am happy with.
Results of this process on the bonnet:
Happy with correction and finish achieved here, so this was the process adopted for the rest of the car by rotary, while Bryan cut in small areas by PC using Menzerna Intensive Polish, and very tight areas by hand using Intensive Polish.
The 3M performance:
Before on the driver's side wing:
After:
Before on driver's door:
After:
(Note light aimed at crease here, as the dimmer spread of light above and below handy for highlighting faint holograms - we can see here the above finish is hologram free and LSP ready )
Roof before:
After:
Passenger front door before:
After:
Bryan spent some time on a small area below the badge on the boot where either a key, or sharp nails or rings had scratches the paint:
One hit with Menzerna Intensive Polish on a 4" SFX-2 polishing pad saw all but the deeper gouges (through to base coat) removed:
The detail kicked off last night for Bryan as he washed and clayed the car, sorted out the wheels with APC and Chemical Guys Premium Blue, and the arches with Meguiars APC and ASD... Bryan always tries to get through these stages the evening before a detail to allow up both to get off to a flying start with the machine polishing from the start of play on the main detail day
My day today kicked off very early... Last night, Diane and I were out at a ball, got home around 2am... which would have been fine, had we not had to get up a 4am so I could drive her to Edinburgh airport (an hour away)!! When I started the car at 4am, it hadn't even fully cooled down from when it was parked before we went to bed!
... So an early blast down to the airport and back through the dawn mist for me, back home by 630am and a chance to grab another hours sleep before the detail - my car didn't exactly arrive in the most respectable of states, a little bug squash from the early morning drive:
Strangely though, I was wide awake and raring to go for this detail despite a complete lack of sleep... I'll sort my car out tomorrow
But for now, on with the show.The BMW was rolled into the garage and while Bryan taped up the car, I assessed the paintwork using the 3M Sun Gun, pictures taken with my new Fuji FinePix S5700 camera...
Some general light to medium swirls across the board and hidden in amongst them were a fair share of RDS. After playing around with a few combos on a test spot, I decided to settle on 3M Extra Fine Compound (80349) applied using a Meguiars W8006 yellow polishing pad as follows:
- Spread at 600rpm, 1 pass
- Begin working at 1200rpm, 2 passes
- Work at 1500rpm, around 10 passes until polish just started to dust slightly
No attempt was made to finish down here as I was intending to go for a finishing polish any way to burnish the finish, but despite this the compound still finished LSP ready. The reason I chose this was that I needed a little mote cut than Menzerna Final Finish had to offer, but not the cut required by Intensive Polish... For me, this 3M polish seems to fall right between the two of these products offering a handy middle ground on this detail to get the desired correction with the minimum removal of paint - the ideal of machine polishing
Finishing polish was 3M Ultrafina SE (50383) - a change from my favourite finishing polish (Menzerna PO85RD) but I knew Ultrafina was highly capable, so decided to make this a 3M polish detail. (Though, I did also check to compare against 85RD to see if if would deliver a better finish and thus see Ultrafina back in its box... but it didn't, so Ultrafina it was
).The Ultrafina SE was applied using a 3M Ultrafina SE Finishing Pad (50388) as follows:
- Spread at 600rpm, 1 pass
- Begin working at 1200rpm, 2 passes
- Work at 1500rpm, around 10 - 15 passes
- Refine at 1200rpm, 2 - 3 passes
- Burnish at 900rpm, 2 - 3 passes
In comparison to the dryer feeling Extra Fine Compound, the Ultrafina was very oily and made for a very long work time and this made the polish a real joy to use for finishing purposes where I like a long work time to burnish the finish to a clarity and gloss I am happy with.
Results of this process on the bonnet:
Happy with correction and finish achieved here, so this was the process adopted for the rest of the car by rotary, while Bryan cut in small areas by PC using Menzerna Intensive Polish, and very tight areas by hand using Intensive Polish.
The 3M performance:
Before on the driver's side wing:
After:
Before on driver's door:
After:
(Note light aimed at crease here, as the dimmer spread of light above and below handy for highlighting faint holograms - we can see here the above finish is hologram free and LSP ready
)Roof before:
After:
Passenger front door before:
After:
Bryan spent some time on a small area below the badge on the boot where either a key, or sharp nails or rings had scratches the paint:
One hit with Menzerna Intensive Polish on a 4" SFX-2 polishing pad saw all but the deeper gouges (through to base coat) removed:
