Where do I begin?
Well, first off, BIG thanks to Steve, Marj, and the dealership for setting up this awesome day! Also, for letting us use all of these products for free. It felt almost wrong walking up and grabbing new products, one after the other, to try out, but I liked it

.
The day was absolutely awesome overall. My girlfreind and I had an awesome time detailing and meeting a ton of new people. Her and I didn't plan for such a scorcher, but we battled through it (thanks for the use of the pop-up tent Steve

) My car got soo hot in the direct sun, that matched with the heat of the rotary, it was unable to be worked on.
Anyways, I quickly saw that everyone had areas they wanted to concentrate on. I didn't see ema's truck up close at first, but you could tell it needed some TLC. For most of the morning all you heard was a PC off in the shade. As it turned into afternoon, it pulled out with clean glossy tires, and metallic flakes that you could see from the other side of the parking lot! I was quite amazed.
focusedonsound worked his heart out on his already very clean stang. As he said, he loved Natural look. It gave such a deep looking sheen, it matched his paint so perfectly with the top down. He tried out many different products and worked non-stop all day (you are a crazy man). When he left though, you could see the complete effect of the liquid looking exterior and satin sheen interior...Awesome stuff...
Sopranos16 and his girl worked quite hard as well. He heckled me all morning since I never got away from working on my hood :lol . I had to get the damn hood right before anything else. When I was leaving, he was pulling away and I was taken back by the finish on his car. It looked drop dead gorgeous!
Don't kill me because I'm bad with names

, but everyone's car looked awesome...Road---- and his daughter absolutely went to town on their conversion van. It was a 96 that looked better than brand new ones on the lot. I really couldn't believe it. The finishes on wolfman's wagon and dalton's accord were verrry wet looking and I also saw dalton's metallic flake from quite a distance! I know I am missing people here, but it will come back to me...
Anyways, I got there and I knew I had my work cut out for me on my Integra. Here it is after S&W (BTW: great product) and all the trim being taped up...Looks pretty good right?
Ha! No it doesn't! Upon further inspection, the hood had bad water etching from a sprinkler I am forced to park near (but will find somewhere else to park now) and from my mechanic spilling something on the hood. Also, notice the buffer holograms. I used a new polish about a month ago in overcasted skies and it turns out it didn't meet its labeled specs as breaking down to a light polish. So I was left with this mess:
I had my car repainted about a year ago and when it was done, the clearcoat I was left with was softer than OEM. It kind of annoyed me because as anal as I am, light swirling still occurs. This finish is very prone to damage and hologramming from swirls so here's what I did. Started off using SSR2 and a LC polishing pad via rotary at 1700 rpm. I did overlapping passes and inspected it in the sun. The swirls/etching were gone, but left were buffer swirls. I moved down to SSR1 with a Polishing Pad at 1000 rpm and they came out. Now this took a pretty long time as I was playing with different pads, speeds, pressures, and products to find which worked best for my application. When it was done, all the defects that were coming out (still have things that need to be wetsanded), came out!
Left is untouched, right is all polished out (like I said those specs are in the paint and need to be wetsanded out

)
I ended up doing the SSR 2, then SSR 1 routine on the fenders, hood, and front bumper. I then did SSR 1 via rotary and LC polishing pad @ 1500rpm on the rest of the car. Following that, I chose EX for my sealant. This proved to add instant depth and wetness. It also really brought out the RED in my car.
I then used a tip from 69GTOJudge to use Bold 'N Brite on the tires AND my ultra flat black rims. This turned out AWESOME!
Here are a couple of event pics:
Me working with the rotary and my Solis yellow lenses protective glasses (love these things)
It's Detailing Mania!!!
Well thanks again to Steve, Marj, and the dealership as well as everyone there making it a great day out. Liz and I had a blast and hope to see all of you again in the future!