imported_Dave KG
New member
The first detail of the year for Bryan, Stu and myself, and a great car to kick off with: Lexus IS200 in what is for me the ultimate colour to detail, solid black.
Bryan and Stu prepared this car last night by washing and claying so it was ready to start machine polishing this morning... and a good job too, as the weather outside for much of today in Dundee was high winds (90mph gusts) and rain on and off... washing outside would have been tricky! :lol:
With the car ready for machine polishing, the Sun Gun was brought out to check the paint. The paint on the car seemed to be soft, and I think this was a big contributing factor to the extent of the damage on the car. Major swirls and marring across the finish as shown by the pics below:
Paint readings were a consistent 110 - 130um across the board, save for the bonnet which was 220 - 250um. Indicative of a respray, further confirmed by the fact that the bonnet was the only panel on the car that had a clearcoat, and the paint here seemed a little harder as well. The rest of the car proving to be pretty soft paint.
Going through the abrasive levels to ascertain the correct level for this car, we arrived at Menzerna PO85RD3.02 Intensive Polish on a Meguiars W8006 polishing pad for correction. Some panels, the bonnet mainly, were given to hits to get the best correction possible.
The Menzerna PO85RD3.02 Intensive Polish was applied on this car as follows:
** Normally only a couple of passes for this stage, however in the cold weather today, the polish did not initially spread easily but rather was a bit patchy. Extra passes here at this slower speed allowed the polish residue to spread better before starting to thoroughly work.
This process achieved 90 - 95% correction of marring across the board, as shown by the following pics of the paint after correction:
50/50
As you can see, some RDS remained. It was chosen not to pursue these further as the paint removal from the Intensive Polish was significant at around 10um. Not a bad amount to remove, but I did not wish to go removing any further significant amounts to possibly still get no return. The car was therefore left with a healthy paint thickness remaining (just as important as correction IMHO), so machine polishing will still happily be possible at a later date should it be required (swirls reinflicted...).
The next stage was to burnish the finish to a deeper gloss using a finishing polish and pad combo. The soft paint I decided would benefit from this extra stage to bring out just a little more in the finish, deepen the gloss and enhance the clarity. For me, machine polishing is not just about defect removal, but also about the sheer clarity you can get in the finish - something to make the car stand out above the rest in the car park.
Normally, for simply finishing, the lightest polish and pad combo would be chosen: 85RD and a W9006 tan finishing pad. But not in this case, I had other ideas! Menzerna PO106FF Final Finish, the finishing polish with a little more cut, on a W8006 polishing pad. Why? The extra little cut of this polish I aimed to take a little more of the edge off of some of the RDS which were still quite prominent without further significant paint removal... The 106FF I also tested against the 85RD on the paint, and I could see no real difference in the quality of the finish, but the correction idea did work with the 106FF - so this was the chosen combo. You gotta try little tricks here and there, espeically on solid black!
The Menzerna PO106FF Final Finish was applied to this car as follows:
Slower working speeds here, as the main purpose of this stage was finishing, with only a little correction.
The end results under the lights:
Consistent 95% correction and the majority of RDS softened if not fully removed - a considerable improvement to the finish.
As said above, there is a lot more to machine polishing than just swirl removal - so for fun, a before and after with a little twist: no fancy bright lights. Just general garage lighting to show the improvement of correction and finishing to the general appearance of the paint. Before:
After correction, the colour and gloss deepened and the reflection much clearer looking:
To round off the machine polishing, a couple of pics of the finish just after the correction stages: no LSP here, just the raw machine finish.
The LSP chosen for this car was Victoria Concours wax, following pre cleansing with Victoria Lite Cleanse. This wax was chosen for the glossy nuance that it leaves, which for me IMHO best compliments the depth of the solid black colour. Also considered was Swissvax Best of Show for the wet look nuance, again something which would suit this colour IMHO.
The Concours wax applied by applicator pad. For me, it certainly did not disappoint (it never does ). Owing to it getting dark early, the car was rolled out for natural light photos with only the bonnet, front wings and bumper completed just to show the finish in the natural light:
The car was then rolled back in for completion. Wheels protected with Smart Wax Rim Wax, Autoglym Tyre Shine on the tyres (nice matt black look, not too blingy, and seems to last well), glass cleaned inside and out with Autoglym Glass Polish by hand.
Et voila!
Bryan and Stu prepared this car last night by washing and claying so it was ready to start machine polishing this morning... and a good job too, as the weather outside for much of today in Dundee was high winds (90mph gusts) and rain on and off... washing outside would have been tricky! :lol:
With the car ready for machine polishing, the Sun Gun was brought out to check the paint. The paint on the car seemed to be soft, and I think this was a big contributing factor to the extent of the damage on the car. Major swirls and marring across the finish as shown by the pics below:
Paint readings were a consistent 110 - 130um across the board, save for the bonnet which was 220 - 250um. Indicative of a respray, further confirmed by the fact that the bonnet was the only panel on the car that had a clearcoat, and the paint here seemed a little harder as well. The rest of the car proving to be pretty soft paint.
Going through the abrasive levels to ascertain the correct level for this car, we arrived at Menzerna PO85RD3.02 Intensive Polish on a Meguiars W8006 polishing pad for correction. Some panels, the bonnet mainly, were given to hits to get the best correction possible.
The Menzerna PO85RD3.02 Intensive Polish was applied on this car as follows:
- Spread at 600rpm: 1 pass
- Begin to work at 1200rpm: 4 or 5 passes**
- Working stage: 1500rpm, 4 - 5 passes
- Working stage: 1800rpm, 4 - 5 passes until residue goes clear
** Normally only a couple of passes for this stage, however in the cold weather today, the polish did not initially spread easily but rather was a bit patchy. Extra passes here at this slower speed allowed the polish residue to spread better before starting to thoroughly work.
This process achieved 90 - 95% correction of marring across the board, as shown by the following pics of the paint after correction:
50/50
As you can see, some RDS remained. It was chosen not to pursue these further as the paint removal from the Intensive Polish was significant at around 10um. Not a bad amount to remove, but I did not wish to go removing any further significant amounts to possibly still get no return. The car was therefore left with a healthy paint thickness remaining (just as important as correction IMHO), so machine polishing will still happily be possible at a later date should it be required (swirls reinflicted...).
The next stage was to burnish the finish to a deeper gloss using a finishing polish and pad combo. The soft paint I decided would benefit from this extra stage to bring out just a little more in the finish, deepen the gloss and enhance the clarity. For me, machine polishing is not just about defect removal, but also about the sheer clarity you can get in the finish - something to make the car stand out above the rest in the car park.
Normally, for simply finishing, the lightest polish and pad combo would be chosen: 85RD and a W9006 tan finishing pad. But not in this case, I had other ideas! Menzerna PO106FF Final Finish, the finishing polish with a little more cut, on a W8006 polishing pad. Why? The extra little cut of this polish I aimed to take a little more of the edge off of some of the RDS which were still quite prominent without further significant paint removal... The 106FF I also tested against the 85RD on the paint, and I could see no real difference in the quality of the finish, but the correction idea did work with the 106FF - so this was the chosen combo. You gotta try little tricks here and there, espeically on solid black!
The Menzerna PO106FF Final Finish was applied to this car as follows:
- Spread: 600rpm, 1 pass
- Begin to work: 1200rpm, 2 passes
- Working Stage: 1500rpm, 8 - 10 passes or until clear
- Refine: 900rpm, 2 - 3 passes
Slower working speeds here, as the main purpose of this stage was finishing, with only a little correction.
The end results under the lights:
Consistent 95% correction and the majority of RDS softened if not fully removed - a considerable improvement to the finish.
As said above, there is a lot more to machine polishing than just swirl removal - so for fun, a before and after with a little twist: no fancy bright lights. Just general garage lighting to show the improvement of correction and finishing to the general appearance of the paint. Before:
After correction, the colour and gloss deepened and the reflection much clearer looking:
To round off the machine polishing, a couple of pics of the finish just after the correction stages: no LSP here, just the raw machine finish.
The LSP chosen for this car was Victoria Concours wax, following pre cleansing with Victoria Lite Cleanse. This wax was chosen for the glossy nuance that it leaves, which for me IMHO best compliments the depth of the solid black colour. Also considered was Swissvax Best of Show for the wet look nuance, again something which would suit this colour IMHO.
The Concours wax applied by applicator pad. For me, it certainly did not disappoint (it never does
). Owing to it getting dark early, the car was rolled out for natural light photos with only the bonnet, front wings and bumper completed just to show the finish in the natural light:
The car was then rolled back in for completion. Wheels protected with Smart Wax Rim Wax, Autoglym Tyre Shine on the tyres (nice matt black look, not too blingy, and seems to last well), glass cleaned inside and out with Autoglym Glass Polish by hand.
Et voila!
