I need to revive a 1991 chevy s10 that does not have a clear coat over the paint. Do I go about polisihing it the same way I would with a vehicle that has a clear coat? I have the flex XC and Menzerna Power Gloss, Power Finish, and Menzerna Super Finish. Would I start out with the power finish and work my way towards the more aggressive if needed? I just do not want to damage the paint but be able to bring back the shine. Thanks in advance.
How to Polish Truck Without Clear Coat?
- Thread starter flash_e
- Start date
Mike_Phillips
Administrator
Yes you would approach it the same way you would a clear coat except be cautious as generally speaking, single stage paints can be much softer than clear coats with the exception of single stage white paints due to the pigment type.
What this means is be extra careful around any raised body lings, edges or corners as you could easy remove too much paint and expose the primer underneath.
Most single stage paints react well to polishes that contain some kind of oil in them as the oil soaks in and bring out the full color of the paint.
Meguiar's is famous for their pure polishes for work like this, if you haven't tried a product like M03 Machine Glaze or M07 Show Car Glaze or M81 Hand Polish they will all work the same to gorge the paint and bring out the full richness of color.
All three of the above can be applied with dual action polishers or by hand, M03 can also be applied with a rotary buffer. All three above are non-abrasive, as in no abrading ability.
M09 and M82 and M80 are all cleaner/polishes and also have polishing oils which would work also.
M205 also has some kind of beautifying polishing oils in it but I don't know if they're like the traditional products or something cutting edge, I do know that I recently helped a guy to restore the paint on a 1929 Hupmobile and he said the M205 as a finishing polish worked great!
What this means is be extra careful around any raised body lings, edges or corners as you could easy remove too much paint and expose the primer underneath.
Most single stage paints react well to polishes that contain some kind of oil in them as the oil soaks in and bring out the full color of the paint.
Meguiar's is famous for their pure polishes for work like this, if you haven't tried a product like M03 Machine Glaze or M07 Show Car Glaze or M81 Hand Polish they will all work the same to gorge the paint and bring out the full richness of color.
All three of the above can be applied with dual action polishers or by hand, M03 can also be applied with a rotary buffer. All three above are non-abrasive, as in no abrading ability.
M09 and M82 and M80 are all cleaner/polishes and also have polishing oils which would work also.
M205 also has some kind of beautifying polishing oils in it but I don't know if they're like the traditional products or something cutting edge, I do know that I recently helped a guy to restore the paint on a 1929 Hupmobile and he said the M205 as a finishing polish worked great!
Will the Menzerna polishes be too agressive and not give me the desired results? There is pretty heavy oxidation that needs to be removed. Will all of the above Meguiar's glazes or polishes accomplish this. I was also wondering if the oil based products will work with collinite liquid insulator? Thanks for the good information and sharing some of your knowledge to a newby!
Mike_Phillips
Administrator
flash_e said:
Here's a very good best practice to make you're own habit as do I and many of the detailers on Autopia,
"Use the least aggressive product to get the job done"
That means, in order to know which product will get the job done you'll have to do some testing, this is call doing a Test Spot. Ususally because you only test in a small section a series of product till you dial in a process that gives you the results you want.
After you prove you can make one small area look GREAT then all you have to do is duplicate this over the rest of the car.
you only have to trying doing it the opposite of this way and make a mistake to learn the value of testing first, that is buff out an entire car with a product or system only to find out after wipe off you LSP and inspect your work in the sun that it looks horrible.
So do some testing and start with the least aggressive product and pad too until you can dial-in a fool-proof system.
As for the Insulator wax, I've never walked out into a garage the next morning to find a pile of some kind of wax slip off the car because it didn't stick to the paint.
But again, this is where you can do some testing, most of my test spots go all the way to the last step so I can see what the final result will look like and even show the customer.
This was a test spot on a black Mosler owned by a famous Star Wars personality, before I buffed out the entire car I did a Test Spot and I've been doing this for years. You never get so good that you don't need to test the paint you're working on if you've never worked on it before.
Note how a test spot was done here before the entire car was worked on.
What you want to do is to see if you can make a small section look good and if you can then repeat the process that made the small section look good to the entire car. It's called, "Doing a Test Spot"
Test Spot on a Mosler to remove scratches and restore clarity to the clear coat.
After our choice of products were applied and wiped off to the test spot the Mosler was pulled out into the sun to inspect. The products and procedures selected worked in the test spot and then they were duplicated over the entire car.
Once you dial-in a successful procedure to one small area, all you have to do is repeat the procedure over the entire car. If you can make one small area look good, it's not a leap of faith to figure out you can make the entire car look good.
LSP applied (NXT in this case after machine cleaning and polishing)
LSP removed
The test spot on this car was about 12" square. You an do a larger test spot, you really don't need to get any larger than a 16" by 16" area to check your results.
YMMY