My Year

I

imported_Dave KG

New member
Well, as christmas approaches fast I was sitting at the computer with a nice glass of mulled wine (or five!) and looking through the pics of my past details thorughout the year and looking back on it, for me its been an excellent year where my hobby has taken off and allowed me to work on some really nice cars. While I have been detailing my, and my family's cars for some time before this year, 2006 was really the year that I arrived properly onto the detailing scene thanks to detailing forums - Autopia for one, and Detailing World in the UK. Had it not been for these forums, I would not have had the opportunity to work on such nice cars so as a thank you to all I have compiled a summary of my year of detailing through the eyes of a hobbyist. Enjoy...





Vauxhall Astra Estate



My first major detail of the year was on my dad's rather battered Astra Estate, but this was going to be a proper challenge for me and was my chance to see if I could properly "cut it" with my Porter Cable... Here's the car before: mucky, swirly mess!











This car received the full Menzerna works of Intensive Polish, Final Polish II, Finishing Touch Glaze and FMJ on the paintwork and I was really pleased with the outsome which was achived over two days of hard graft:























I was proud of this car and the results achieved... its still looking fairly swirl free nine months on, and my dad doesn't ususally care that well for his cars. :)
 
Vauxhall Astra SRi



My car was next in the firing line, though this one really wasn't bad at all:











Again, with the Porter Cable though only FPII, FTG, FMJ used on the car this time as the swirling was only mild and I was happy with the results:











 
BMW 520i



This was the very first "Krankies" detail - where the Dundee Tag team of Bryan (blr123) and myself set to work on an Oxford Green BMW520i. Fairly severe swirling before:











This car required a full compounding to return to life with the PC - Power Gloss, IP, then Chemical Guys E~Z Glaze followed by XXX wax for protection brought the car up looking good:







 
Toyota Starlett



Back working solo for me on this one, this car was done for a good friend. A slightly faded red Starlett:











Klasse AIO actually struggled with the level of oxidisation by PC, so SSR2.5 was used first, followed by AIO then protected with #16. A shot during:







and a couple of finsihed shots:







 
Audi A4



One of the toughest jobs of the year paint correction wise, with the PC at least and I was working solo for this one... An A4 that had spent its life going through mechanical car washes:











It was on this car that I properly honed the slow-cutting method for using Power Gloss following the advice of L200 Steve and this, followed by IP was yielding me a lovely glossy and swirl free finish: 50/50:







CG E~Z Glaze followed by spit-shined P21S to finish on this car:















 
Saab 900



A mini-detailing day was held with this car, with an Autoglym rep demming products in the morning followed by a detail of the car in the afternoon whre myself, Bryan, Chris (Punto GT) and Craig (Craig M) all got involved to turn this car around in just a few hours ready for owner collection. Before:







and after some IP, glaze and LSP:













New Rotary



Well - the PC was certainly serving its worth nicely... But I fancied trading up to a rotary, so I got myself a new Makita 9227 and Megs pads. Before venutring out and just merrily taking it to someone else's car, much practice was done on scrap panels... Here's my first attempts with it... Before:







During:







After:







Many happy hours were spent honing my rotary techniques, ready to venture out and do some serious detailing. Happy days! :D
 
Mercedes C36 AMG



What a car this one was - a real real mess!!! Silver paint, maybe, but the swirls were more than evident! A challenge for the Dundee tag team for sure:











A baptism of fire for me on the rotary then, as this car received Power Gloss and Intensive Polish to correct the paint and give a nice glossy look to the silver:











 
Rolls Royce Silver Ghost (1922)



The biggest detail of the year for the Krankies this one - both in size and length as this car required over 70 man hours to work on... no paint here, just polishes aluminium panels. Here she is before:











Many hours of research into the best methods and products and we decided to use the Briliant polish range and 303 Fabric care range to bring this car back... Polishes were applied by PC. During, a 50/50:







and a couple of afters:







 
Seat Leon TDi



Back to painted cars for the Krankies now! :lol: And a rather nice Seat Leon, in dark blue with a few swilrs:











Out with the rotary to remove the defects using the new (to me at the time) ceramiclear Menzerna rnage which I fell in love with right from the start of using them - so easy, and excellent results and they have become a mainstay of our work. Followed with CG E~Z and XXX:











 
Lotus Excell



A car that, until the day I saw it, I had never heard of! :o A challenge this one with white paints reputation for being hard owing to the pigment used and also the car was all plastic, so we opted for PC only... Before:







Menzerna Power Gloss (on some panels) and Intensive Polish, followed by Meguiars #80 and then #16 delivered us the results we were hoping for: defect correction and a nice glossy finish:















 
Vauxhall Signum



Bryan's car... as you'd expect, owned by a detailer, this car was in excellent condition with only light marring in existence:







Final Finish (PO106FF) on the rotary was enough to fully correct, then this car got one of our first outings with Zymol Destiny as its LSP:











 
Porsche 911 GT3



A gorgeous black 911 GT£ greeted the Krankies for a full detai with Zymol requested... Marring was only light owing to careful wash techniques by the owner:











Menzerna PO106FF by rotary sorted the marring nicely and left an LSP ready finish for the Zymol - HDC followed by Destiny to get this (and a very happy owner):















 
Peugeot 206 GTi



This car was a shocker! Just been machine polished by a bodyshop: :eek:











What a mess!!!! To correct, it was Meguiars via rotary we went for: #83, #80 and #3 followed by #26. And the final results:











 
Porsche 911 GT2



As Bryan was working, this was my first solo detail in a long time! Similarly to the GT3, only very light marring present:







Menzerna PO106FF Final Finish removed all this with ease by rotary and finshed down beautifully. Zymol LSP again of HDC followed by Destiny:

















BMW 330Cd Cab



A lovely met black E46 330Cd this time, with moderate to severe swirling present:







Menzerna products by rotary again to restore this one:











 
BMW 318iS (E36)



A real tough one, and a bit of a heart breaker this car... Very severe marring in existence across the car and also bad OP from a recent spray job...















While a lot of the marring was removed, sublacquer swirls prevented a perfect finish which I was amining for - however, repeat hits of Power Gloss made no effect on the remaining marks despite removing significant amounts of paint so it was decided that the marring must be sublacquer and woud have to stay - alas nothing to do, but thank heavens for the PTG that allowed us to see we were removing significant chunks of paint while making no impact, somtimes as a detailer you just have to know when to stop... :( Made a nice improvement on the OP though with Power Gloss and the rotary up at 2100 - 2500rpm:











 
BMW 320D



Another black 3-series! :lol: This one had led an uncared for life with severe marring present on the solid black paint:











Menzerna was reached for yet again! :thumb: Power Gloss in places, IP3.01 for the rest but time contraints on this one pressed us though, and a quiet Menzerna product came to the rescue: PO73 Sealing wax, working as a great product to refine the finish and seal the finish at the same time:













Mercedes Sprinter Van



Huge!!! Ghosts of previous signwriting visible, so the job in hand was to remove these ghosts:







Super hard van paint meant that Menzerna Intensive Polish PO85RD3.01 was required with Power Gloss in places to get the finish back, sealed with PO73 Sealing Wax:







 
Looks like you had a really good year, I always enjoy your click and brag threads and how well you document through words and pictures the work you do. :)



I've had a really good year too. Already past 900 cars and up nearly $10,000 over last year.
 
Mitsubishi GTO



Last but certainly not least, this cracking Mitsubishi GTO. Used to be silver, resprayed by the owner a cracking Audi pearl black... Alas the machine polishing job carried out was not to the owner's standards, understandably:















The re-spray paint was quite hard, and the finish was to an excellent quality bar the final polishing... Menzerna Intensive Polish PO85RD3.01 followed by the best finishing polish I've used, Final Finish PO85RD restored the finish to what it deserved to be - swirl and marring free. Followed by Megs #7 for wettness and Chemical Guys 50/50 for looks and protection:























----------------------------



And there we have it - a very very enjoyable year for me, and here's hoping that in the coming year I will yet again get the opportunity to work on a nice range of cars!



A huge thank you to Bryan who I have done most of the above details with - its been a pleasure to detail with you over the past months and I look forward to doing more excellent details with you in 2007. Soup and sandwiches were fantastic too! :thumb:



To all here at Autopia, I wish you all a very merry christmas and all the very best for 2007!
 
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