Well I got the UDM and accessories from eshine yesterday and immediately cancel my day activities and got straight to detailing. This is my frist time using a polishing machine and clay so its a new experience. I must say, detailing takes looong. Also I dont know if its my position or what but my back HURTS! And this started just 15min into polishing. Made the day seem much longer. I did most of it on my driveway since the day was overcast. My garage has bad lighting even with my portable light. Anyway here is my process;
Wash
Clay
Wash
Polish Compound (w/ 4in orange pad)
Polish light cut (w/4in white pad)
RMG (w/6in blue SFX pad)
NXT (by hand)
s100 (by hand)
(I know I could have taken out the nxt and probably RMG but I wanted the absolute best for my car)
From wash to NXT, I started at about 130pm and ended at 930pm stopping only to eat (about <30min). It was the first time I tried the sheeting method when drying and let me tell you, it really works! Very impressive. The 2 bucket system seemed pointless IMHO. But I guess it works. The clay part was my first time as well, interestingly enough my paint seemed very clean. Not much dust/contamination. I had to wash the car again due to the oily residue from the lubricant. The sheeting wasnt as much as my first wash, probably because the clay stripped off the polish. Polishing was interesting especially since it was my first time touching a polishing machine. The UDM with 6in pads REALLY VIBRATES your hands like wow. I just compounded/polished using 4in for the sake of my hands. Its also easy for me to go to fast, 1-2in per second is hard to do. Also I had to sit down while polishing my doors because of extreme back pain. The light polishing didnt do much IMHO, just felt like extra work. Swirls were still apparent but I already used the deepest cutting combo I had. After polishing I applied RMG with a 6infinishing pad and the NXT tech wax by hand. The s100 wax was applied the next day.
On to the pics.
Here is a pic of all my detailing supplies. Some of them were just lurking in my garage, some retro products here lol.
Door. Before the detail
The car, 98 z24, before the detail. Gets yearly treatment of colourX and NXT tech wax. Latest was 2months ago.
The car after the detail. Can you spot the differences?
Now I dont exactly know why it looks pixelated. Is this marring? Did I use too much polish? or not break it down enough? Or is it normal to not have very sharp images when looking at paint reflections. If anyone asks i'll tell them im soo good that I make reflections look like oil paintings. The "special effects" are bumps.
This is a before and after pic of the application of wax. The top part has been applied by s100 wax. The bottom part has all the steps upto the NXT wax. Can you tell the differences? because I cant:S.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Detailing is long, but looking back its kinda cool especially when you see results. To me, I dont know if its my car or what but even after detailing, there are still many scratches. Heck even if I run my finger across the paint more scratches appear.
The application of the s100 did very little IMHO. Applying areas with s100 and without, I didnt see much of a difference, if any. Maybe I have to wait longer for the wax to cure? I dunno. I might say the same for RMG and NXT but when I was applying these products it was getting dark and garage gives bad lighting. Overall it was a cool experience, I wish the results were better though. 8+Hours of work and I would say it increased glossy/reflectiveness and deepness by about only 30%. My former steps were just to colourX and NXT wax. Adding claying, polishing, nxt and s100 did little to improve my paint. Hopefully I get more drastic results when I detail my parents cars.
Right now I dont mind the time and effort because im deep in the hobby. But if I start to lose interest, I know its gonna be hard for me to justify 8hrs worth of work to add that extra bit of shine. And did my mentioned my back hurts? Because my back gets more sore from detailing than doing deadlifts lol. Well thanks for reading if you did, lmk what you think.
Wash
Clay
Wash
Polish Compound (w/ 4in orange pad)
Polish light cut (w/4in white pad)
RMG (w/6in blue SFX pad)
NXT (by hand)
s100 (by hand)
(I know I could have taken out the nxt and probably RMG but I wanted the absolute best for my car)
From wash to NXT, I started at about 130pm and ended at 930pm stopping only to eat (about <30min). It was the first time I tried the sheeting method when drying and let me tell you, it really works! Very impressive. The 2 bucket system seemed pointless IMHO. But I guess it works. The clay part was my first time as well, interestingly enough my paint seemed very clean. Not much dust/contamination. I had to wash the car again due to the oily residue from the lubricant. The sheeting wasnt as much as my first wash, probably because the clay stripped off the polish. Polishing was interesting especially since it was my first time touching a polishing machine. The UDM with 6in pads REALLY VIBRATES your hands like wow. I just compounded/polished using 4in for the sake of my hands. Its also easy for me to go to fast, 1-2in per second is hard to do. Also I had to sit down while polishing my doors because of extreme back pain. The light polishing didnt do much IMHO, just felt like extra work. Swirls were still apparent but I already used the deepest cutting combo I had. After polishing I applied RMG with a 6infinishing pad and the NXT tech wax by hand. The s100 wax was applied the next day.
On to the pics.
Here is a pic of all my detailing supplies. Some of them were just lurking in my garage, some retro products here lol.
Door. Before the detail
The car, 98 z24, before the detail. Gets yearly treatment of colourX and NXT tech wax. Latest was 2months ago.
The car after the detail. Can you spot the differences?
Now I dont exactly know why it looks pixelated. Is this marring? Did I use too much polish? or not break it down enough? Or is it normal to not have very sharp images when looking at paint reflections. If anyone asks i'll tell them im soo good that I make reflections look like oil paintings. The "special effects" are bumps.
This is a before and after pic of the application of wax. The top part has been applied by s100 wax. The bottom part has all the steps upto the NXT wax. Can you tell the differences? because I cant:S.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Detailing is long, but looking back its kinda cool especially when you see results. To me, I dont know if its my car or what but even after detailing, there are still many scratches. Heck even if I run my finger across the paint more scratches appear.
The application of the s100 did very little IMHO. Applying areas with s100 and without, I didnt see much of a difference, if any. Maybe I have to wait longer for the wax to cure? I dunno. I might say the same for RMG and NXT but when I was applying these products it was getting dark and garage gives bad lighting. Overall it was a cool experience, I wish the results were better though. 8+Hours of work and I would say it increased glossy/reflectiveness and deepness by about only 30%. My former steps were just to colourX and NXT wax. Adding claying, polishing, nxt and s100 did little to improve my paint. Hopefully I get more drastic results when I detail my parents cars.
Right now I dont mind the time and effort because im deep in the hobby. But if I start to lose interest, I know its gonna be hard for me to justify 8hrs worth of work to add that extra bit of shine. And did my mentioned my back hurts? Because my back gets more sore from detailing than doing deadlifts lol. Well thanks for reading if you did, lmk what you think.
