imported_Dave KG
New member
Just a quick writeup on this one, a black Ford Focus with what looked like severe swirls that was detailed as a joint effort between Bryan, Stuart and myself 
The car was detailed in two parts: a day-shift from Bryan and Stuart to wash, decontaminate, clay, and begin the machine polishing and a night-shift from myself to complete machine polishing, cleanse and wax. Bryan finished off the detail the following day in preparation for pickup with dressing plastics, tyres and cleaning the glass.
I'm afraid the pictures in this writeup are going to be heavily biased towards the shift of work I carried out as Bryan had problems with my camera (I left it in manual mode...).
The state of the paintwork looked in pretty bad shape...
Beginning the polishing stage, I found that the vast majority of marring was corrected using Menzerna PO85RD Final Finish on a finishing pad - yes, seriously! A quick pick after just one quick test pass...
To achieve this correction with what is essentially the lightest cutting combination on the market, I stepped in my work area and bumped the work time up a little (allowed by the smaller workin area)... this allowed me to maximise the correction potential from the product yet consistently removed less paint than traditional larger areas with more abrasive polishes. Thus achieving correction while removing the minimum amount of paint.
After pics of this section:
Interestingly I was finding on this Focus's paint that the Menzerna polish was gumming just a little, and the residue was smearing in its removal... something I have seen before and something which occured on the Focus of the machine polishing day as well of similar vintage. Nothing that a wipedown with IPA didn't cure however
Bottom of the door:
Areas of more severe RDS required a little more aggressive combination of Menzerna PO85RD3.02 Intensive Polish to remove the marks, and this was refined with Final Finish... only on regions where it was required was Intensive Polish used, ensuring as little paint overall was removed from the car during the detail.
The wing was treated to IP...
Followed with Final Finish...
The rear door before:
After Final Finish (two hits on one area for removal of a couple of slightly deeper marks)...
The roof had very severe RDS on a more consistent level - far better when assessing these types of mark to put away your Brinkman, Halogens, Sun Gun etc and use a simple strip light - the dimmer light does a far superior job at highligting the deeper more rounded looking marks than a bright light source which washed them out...
After a hit with Intensive Polish and refining with Final Finish...
RDS removed, finish crystal sharp
The choice of cleanser used after IPA is a recent new addition to my detailing lineup but one which will be seeing a lot more use in future - Lusso Revitalising Cream. Capable of adding a little extra wettness than few if any other cleansers I have used can match its an ideal choice for adding a bit more to the look on a dark car. After Lusso...
The car was finished with Valentines Concours wax, a product that seems rather quiet on the forums but is one which I also find seems to add just a hint of wettness and a glazed look and durability has proved itself with me to be really rather good, of the order of Zym Glasur which makes it a strong contender and one I am happy to use on my detailing for customers (I'll use any wax on my own car, as durability is less of an issue to my personal car given how often I wax it, but durability is important to me when it is a customer's car).
The car was detailed in two parts: a day-shift from Bryan and Stuart to wash, decontaminate, clay, and begin the machine polishing and a night-shift from myself to complete machine polishing, cleanse and wax. Bryan finished off the detail the following day in preparation for pickup with dressing plastics, tyres and cleaning the glass.
I'm afraid the pictures in this writeup are going to be heavily biased towards the shift of work I carried out as Bryan had problems with my camera (I left it in manual mode...).
The state of the paintwork looked in pretty bad shape...
Beginning the polishing stage, I found that the vast majority of marring was corrected using Menzerna PO85RD Final Finish on a finishing pad - yes, seriously! A quick pick after just one quick test pass...
To achieve this correction with what is essentially the lightest cutting combination on the market, I stepped in my work area and bumped the work time up a little (allowed by the smaller workin area)... this allowed me to maximise the correction potential from the product yet consistently removed less paint than traditional larger areas with more abrasive polishes. Thus achieving correction while removing the minimum amount of paint.
After pics of this section:
Interestingly I was finding on this Focus's paint that the Menzerna polish was gumming just a little, and the residue was smearing in its removal... something I have seen before and something which occured on the Focus of the machine polishing day as well of similar vintage. Nothing that a wipedown with IPA didn't cure however
Bottom of the door:
Areas of more severe RDS required a little more aggressive combination of Menzerna PO85RD3.02 Intensive Polish to remove the marks, and this was refined with Final Finish... only on regions where it was required was Intensive Polish used, ensuring as little paint overall was removed from the car during the detail.
The wing was treated to IP...
Followed with Final Finish...
The rear door before:
After Final Finish (two hits on one area for removal of a couple of slightly deeper marks)...
The roof had very severe RDS on a more consistent level - far better when assessing these types of mark to put away your Brinkman, Halogens, Sun Gun etc and use a simple strip light - the dimmer light does a far superior job at highligting the deeper more rounded looking marks than a bright light source which washed them out...
After a hit with Intensive Polish and refining with Final Finish...
RDS removed, finish crystal sharp
The choice of cleanser used after IPA is a recent new addition to my detailing lineup but one which will be seeing a lot more use in future - Lusso Revitalising Cream. Capable of adding a little extra wettness than few if any other cleansers I have used can match its an ideal choice for adding a bit more to the look on a dark car. After Lusso...
The car was finished with Valentines Concours wax, a product that seems rather quiet on the forums but is one which I also find seems to add just a hint of wettness and a glazed look and durability has proved itself with me to be really rather good, of the order of Zym Glasur which makes it a strong contender and one I am happy to use on my detailing for customers (I'll use any wax on my own car, as durability is less of an issue to my personal car given how often I wax it, but durability is important to me when it is a customer's car).
A couple of afters that did turn out though...
