512detail
New member
guess what? I snuck another one in!
client bought the car this past Jan
low miles
owner had discussed intent in the past but never really talked about it since then
he spoke with me about scheduling this past Saturday at one of our club`s events
anyways after the cosmic yellow jacket hellcat I think he had a case of shine envy..more on that later...
so typical wash and decon
part of car was xpelled
i didn`t decon the xpel parts with iron remover...1 because i figure its xpel it shouldn`t have iron on it and 2 i wasnt sure if that would mess anything up and I wasnt planning on coating it..
more on that later
tires-pb apc 1:4 and tuff shine brush
wheels- pb spray and rinse 1:1 and then sss and some woolies and then micros..they were Nasty!
blown dry
supersport twice one day apart
pb sss 2bm wash (at sunset after letting car cool in garahe for about 5 hours)
dried with my metro blaster and ww mix as drying aid
pulled into garage, clayed and then inspected the car
so the front end, hood, mirrors, and all four doors were xpelled and either xpel can get pretty marred or some shady installer lied and said they polished it and did not...because all the areas that had xpel were not autopia quality and it really disturbed me because I knew what I was gonna do with the rest of the car and I was afraid this was going to rain on my high shine parade
and on top of that almost all of the xpel was water spotted pretty bad in the standard water spot gathering areas after a wash and drive off without subsequent wipe down
i tried essence+ and no dice and it was late so I decided to call it a day
i let that sink in overnight and the next day i spent a few hours messaging people and blowing up xpel installers to ask questions
i even hit up polish angel to run a few ideas across and then came up with a plan of action
enter the plan...
well, issue #1 the water spotting on xpel
this was the first xpel ive dealt with and I was a little hesitant to heed the advice I was told but I figured they were trustworthy so I went ahead
essence via red wax pad by hand
then when that didnt really work i upped it to a yellow 4inch rupes pad, also via hand
didnt work it a lot because I didn`t want to build up any heat but just gently applying it and i found you needed to immediately wipe it off less you want to go chasing residue so i developed a two handed approach
worked pretty well
id say i got 85% of the water spot staining out and only some bad etching circles remained
now i don`t know much aboit xpel but a lot of installers i talked to told me it cant get water spotted
i dunno... i only know what my eyes saw
and they saw stuff like this
after...
the xpel
marring under the light and hey look another water spot stain
(i did have a friendly discussion with the owner at delivery)
the non xpelled areas were not pretty but made the xpel look like it was much better
before i forget... glass polished with PWS then topped with pa diver
pa engine
wg trim protectant
pb sss
pro polish on tail lights then cosmicv2 etc
prolly forgetting something...but the other important part....
paint:
the last cut compound via urofiber spd 5
polish angel final finish via rupes yellow spd 4
both on duetto (it was begging to get in on this action)
nano w blue rupes pad
nano with yellow rupes pad
same compound/polish
I approve of this naked shine
but every finish has a beginning, middle and end, right
now time to add some shine!
polish angel primer via rupes white spd 3
polish angel cosmic v2 via 6.5 inch carpro glosspad on lhr21 and 4inch gloss pad via mini, 2 inch via nano
spd 3
2nd layer 2 hrs later via same pads just by hand as it was late and i didnt want to annoy my neighbors (late for me is 2am past btw-hence I pen this at past 3am)
cosmic spritz applied to accelerate curing to 12 hours
next day I added high gloss
so back to the xpeld areas. polish angel said you can put cosmic v2 and maintain with high gloss on the xpel, said they do it and id imagine to cars worth double or more of the cost of my home so I figured why the hell not
the xpel which was lightly cleansed and shined (yes it added noticeable shine) with essence (regular) was topped with cosmic v2 by hand in the same two step manner with the sprays like the paint was...because its about a uniform shine
yea maybe it wont last long, I`ll have to check in on it... but you can`t tell me it didn`t add some insane gloss.. unless youre colorblind I guess
client bought the car this past Jan
low miles
owner had discussed intent in the past but never really talked about it since then
he spoke with me about scheduling this past Saturday at one of our club`s events
anyways after the cosmic yellow jacket hellcat I think he had a case of shine envy..more on that later...
so typical wash and decon
part of car was xpelled
i didn`t decon the xpel parts with iron remover...1 because i figure its xpel it shouldn`t have iron on it and 2 i wasnt sure if that would mess anything up and I wasnt planning on coating it..
more on that later
tires-pb apc 1:4 and tuff shine brush
wheels- pb spray and rinse 1:1 and then sss and some woolies and then micros..they were Nasty!
blown dry
supersport twice one day apart
pb sss 2bm wash (at sunset after letting car cool in garahe for about 5 hours)
dried with my metro blaster and ww mix as drying aid
pulled into garage, clayed and then inspected the car
so the front end, hood, mirrors, and all four doors were xpelled and either xpel can get pretty marred or some shady installer lied and said they polished it and did not...because all the areas that had xpel were not autopia quality and it really disturbed me because I knew what I was gonna do with the rest of the car and I was afraid this was going to rain on my high shine parade
and on top of that almost all of the xpel was water spotted pretty bad in the standard water spot gathering areas after a wash and drive off without subsequent wipe down
i tried essence+ and no dice and it was late so I decided to call it a day
i let that sink in overnight and the next day i spent a few hours messaging people and blowing up xpel installers to ask questions
i even hit up polish angel to run a few ideas across and then came up with a plan of action
enter the plan...
well, issue #1 the water spotting on xpel
this was the first xpel ive dealt with and I was a little hesitant to heed the advice I was told but I figured they were trustworthy so I went ahead
essence via red wax pad by hand
then when that didnt really work i upped it to a yellow 4inch rupes pad, also via hand
didnt work it a lot because I didn`t want to build up any heat but just gently applying it and i found you needed to immediately wipe it off less you want to go chasing residue so i developed a two handed approach
worked pretty well
id say i got 85% of the water spot staining out and only some bad etching circles remained
now i don`t know much aboit xpel but a lot of installers i talked to told me it cant get water spotted
i dunno... i only know what my eyes saw
and they saw stuff like this
after...
the xpel
marring under the light and hey look another water spot stain
(i did have a friendly discussion with the owner at delivery)
the non xpelled areas were not pretty but made the xpel look like it was much better
before i forget... glass polished with PWS then topped with pa diver
pa engine
wg trim protectant
pb sss
pro polish on tail lights then cosmicv2 etc
prolly forgetting something...but the other important part....
paint:
the last cut compound via urofiber spd 5
polish angel final finish via rupes yellow spd 4
both on duetto (it was begging to get in on this action)
nano w blue rupes pad
nano with yellow rupes pad
same compound/polish
I approve of this naked shine
but every finish has a beginning, middle and end, right
now time to add some shine!
polish angel primer via rupes white spd 3
polish angel cosmic v2 via 6.5 inch carpro glosspad on lhr21 and 4inch gloss pad via mini, 2 inch via nano
spd 3
2nd layer 2 hrs later via same pads just by hand as it was late and i didnt want to annoy my neighbors (late for me is 2am past btw-hence I pen this at past 3am)
cosmic spritz applied to accelerate curing to 12 hours
next day I added high gloss
so back to the xpeld areas. polish angel said you can put cosmic v2 and maintain with high gloss on the xpel, said they do it and id imagine to cars worth double or more of the cost of my home so I figured why the hell not
the xpel which was lightly cleansed and shined (yes it added noticeable shine) with essence (regular) was topped with cosmic v2 by hand in the same two step manner with the sprays like the paint was...because its about a uniform shine
yea maybe it wont last long, I`ll have to check in on it... but you can`t tell me it didn`t add some insane gloss.. unless youre colorblind I guess
I told him I`d change it up a little for him and he said , no I`m gonna want this again for it as well 