Horizon Detailing: Trashed 2004 Acura TSX

Darkstar752

New member
VIDEO AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST



Ok, so this car was so trashed that I decided I'd enter it in the monthly competition. I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked, but you get the idea. The story behind this detail is the car was purchased at night and when the owner saw it in the sun, he was very disappointed with how many swirls and defects were in the paint. It has been detailed twice, once by the dealer and once by a hack, and the owner had lost faith in detailing.



The owner is my neighbor, and has seen the work I had been producing and decided to let me have a go. It's a daily driver, so we agreed to get it to be about 90-95%, which is exactly what it got to, only the deepest RIDS remained.



For those of you who know me, I love to mix polishes, and this was no different. I mixed the last step, about 40%/60%-106FA/85RD and jeweled the paint after the 106 had broken down which added a lot of depth to the paint.





Wash:

Meguiars Gold Class

2BM w/ Grit Guard

Sheepskin mitt

Uber red and blue WW drying towels



Clay:

Riccardo Yellow Clay

ONR Clay lube

Uber red towels



Paint:

Makita 9227C/3M Perfect-It backing plate

Uber Green/ M105 using the KBM

Uber Blue/106FA,PO85RD

Uber Original MF Towels

M105 inside handles



LSP:

Gloss-it Concourso Gloss

Uber Red notched applicator

Uber No Name Super Plush towel



Misc:

303 Aerospace

1Z Cockpit Premium

Various Brushes and MF towels

Meg's Wheel Brightener

Folex

Meguiars Hyper Dressing

Meguiars APC +

Meg's Endurance Tire Shine

Leather Master's Vital Reconditioning Cream

Lexol Leather Cleaner

UQW in door jambs

Surf City Grime Destroyer

Stoner's Tarminator

Meguiars All Metal Polish

0000 Steel Wool

Poorboy's Wheel Sealant

Black WOW





The swirls were much worse than I could ever capture, I wish I could have captured the full extent of them. Unfortunately, it was mostly cloudy all day both days and I was only able to get a couple sun shots. When I inspected it, the sun would hit one side of the hood and the swirls would go all the way to the other side. It was insane. Everything that's possible to be wrong with the paint, was wrong here.



Let's start with a couple general pics after the car was delivered.

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Oxidized bumper:

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Ok now onto the wheels, pretty bad but nothing that's I haven't seen before. It did take a while to remove the excessive amount of tar all over them, especially in the barrels. I forgot pics or the barrels, but you can see in the after pics that they are clean.

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I use a soft Proline Grout sponge for the face:

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Tires dirty as they can be:

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And then tar was removed:

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Crappy exhaust 50/50:

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Interior was in pretty bad condition, forgot to take many pics though. Looking for an OEM finish so Cockpit Premium was used and 303 on the plastic button and switches.

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50/50

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Various things:

50/50 of handle, top not done yet:

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Ok, now onto the fun! The paint. Be careful, remember this was even worse in person. You might :thud: So make sure someones nearby!





You've been warned...



Clay after about 1/3 of the hood, it was rough as sandpaper:

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Notice how dull and grey the paint is, I didn't even need light on it to see the scratches:

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:applause2:

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Concouso beading:

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VIDEO:

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If you made it this far, thanks for reading! :mounty:
 
Awesome turn around man! Wish I knew how to get a rotary to make paint look like that...rotarys drive me crazy. Seems to take as long or longer than my Griot's to get paint to look right with it though.
 
adrock2003 said:
Awesome turn around man! Wish I knew how to get a rotary to make paint look like that...rotarys drive me crazy. Seems to take as long or longer than my Griot's to get paint to look right with it though.



Once you get it down, you'll never go back to your DA! Just keep practicing and you'll get it, also, smaller pads are much easier to control than the bigger ones. 5.5 is the largest I use.



Thanks for the compliments everyone!
 
Great work, however some of the pics made me dizzy, they are very blurry. Maybe you should invest in a tripod, they are fairly cheap and it would help show the quality of your work even better.
 
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