Skoda Fabia VRS Tuition Detail

[imported_Dave KG]

The subject of saturday's tuition detail was a rather tidy looking Skoda Fabia VRS belonging to Paul, a DW member



The car on arrival showed typical road grime, and some flies from its drive up, and underneath the dirt you could start to make out a bit of flatness to the paintwork...

Bird bomb as well, which as we'll see a little later had unfortunately etched the finish...

9am, just had a cuppa and a chat, time to get started



And what better place to start than with the wheels and arches which were in need of a bit of a clean...

Wheels were cleaned using a selection of brushes and Bilberry Wheel Cleaner, while the arches were cleaned using Meguiars All Purpose Cleaner. Tyres also cleaned with APC...

Paul getting stuck into the wheel cleaning...

Autosmart Tardis doing its job on the tar...

Wheels and arches cleaned...

Onto the bodywork, the car was first foamed using Supa Snow Foam through the foam lance to eliminate loose grit on the paintwork... no point making more work for yourself with a poor wash technique, and good to demonstrate correct wash technique as part of the tuition detail... Foamy

Then washed using two bucket method and rinsed ready for claying...

The car was then clayed using Meguiars Mirror Glaze Blue (Mild) Clay and Last Touch as a lube... Note, the clay is not at my finger tips but rather it is in the palm of my hand so as not to inflict any local pressure through the clay bar that can lead to marring...

Dried off and rolled up the unit ready for polishing... Now we can see the true finish of the car and it was looking good with a clean...

Alas, the bird bomb etched...

The paint finish was also looking a little flat...

General swirling and some marring from previous claying some time ago was evident in the paint finish which was taking away from the gloss a little... Using the Sun Gun, we can see these swirls and marring...

Experimenting with polishes, we came to the conclusion that the paint was not all that hard (despite being VAG - best never to assume ). Correction was carried out using Menzerna Intensive Polish (PO85RD3.02) on a Meguiars W8006 Yellow polishing pad, and refining was done with Meguiars #205 Ultra Finishing Polish on a Meguiars W9006 tan finishing pad. Application technique was as follows for both:





Menzerna Intensive Polish



A correction only technique was used here as there was no need to refine the finish when a dedicated finishing polish was to be used anyway - so spread the polish, get it working and then work at speed to correct...

• Spread at 600rpm, light pressure
  
• Begin working at 1200rpm, light pressure for a couple of passes to get residue evenly spread
  
• Work at 1500 - 1800rpm until residue clear and defects removed
  

A second hit was used in a couple of places where there were deeper scratches... more on that a little later





Meguiars #205 Ultra Finishing Polish



A Double Zenith technique used here to refine and burnish the paint to a deep gloss finish and high clarity This varies both speeds and pressures together to work the unigrit abrasives to the best of their abilities...

• Spread at 600rpm, light pressure
  
• Begin working at 1200rpm until residue evenly spread, light to medium pressure
  
• Work at 1500rpm with increasing pressure, levelling at medium pressure tuntil residue clear
  
• Reduce speed to 1200rpm and begin reducing pressure
  
• Finish at 900rpm, light pressure to burnish the paint finish
  

The results of the above polishing on the paint finish under the Sun Gun... (still requires an IPA wipe here though, to ensure all residues removed and no filling has taken place...)

Gloss restored to the finish...

 

[imported_Dave KG]

Having assessed the finish, it was now time to machine polish the car... so as normal for tuition details, the car was divided in two, I went down the passenger side and Paul went down the driver's side, with me on hand to answer any questions or trial different techniques



Before shots passenger side...

Befores on driver's side (good luck, Paul !)

Someone had keyed the word "B**ch" into the side door...

(note how the Sun Gun is less effective at RDS)



More befores...

Passenger side had some nice RDS too, from a dog...

After shots of the front of the car, with swirls removed and gloss and clarity restored to the finish...

Up on the roof, the strip lights did an excellent job at highlighting the RDS...

Easily corrected as above with IP and #205 though, no need for anything aggressive...

Back to the passenger side, and now the results of the correction and refining process...

 

[imported_Dave KG]

Gloss restored... (under styling line still to be completed - left for the purposes of a DA machine demo here )

Dog scratches removed...

While Paul was continuing down the driver's side, I tackled the tail gate, which shared the same swirls...

The car was debadged, recently i think

Afters:

Down onto the bumper...

Deep marks from loading the boot were still promenant after polishing first time round...

Two further hits delivered a notable improvement but deeper marks catching the nail had to remain so as to preserve a good degree of the paint thickness...

Finish was good though (again, note how poor the Sun Gun is at highlighting RDS!):

The rest of the bumper came up very nicely...

 

[imported_Dave KG]

Paul did a sterling job correcting and refining the driver's side...

Couple of hits of IP saw the end of the writing on the passenger door too

After machine polishing, it was around 9pm, and to allow for some outdoor shots, we decided to photograph the car just at the end of the machine polishing stage... given the wax will make sod all difference to the finish irrespective of which one is used, these pics represent the paint finish achieved by the detail very well, though clearly things like tyres, glass, rubbers and tailpipes are not yet done... Amazing how long a full detail will take :

Back inside, and the car was cleansed with Lusso Oro and waxed with BoS. Glass was cleaned with Clearkote Vanilla Moose, tyres with Meguiars Endurance, rubbers and arches with Meguiars All Seasons Dressing, exhaust tip with Briliant Metal Restorer then Premium Metal Polish... The end results are inside the unit I'm afraid, as the end time was going midnight! End shots here shot using a tripod to keep the camera steady...

Another tuition detail, another fantastic day - I have to say I am really enjoying these days, and do relish working with folks who are keen about detailing and keen to give it a go themselves Many thanks to Paul for making the trip up :thumb:





(Note: All pictures taken using a Nikon D90 camera, resized maintaining aspect ratio using Paint Shop Pro, and number plates blank. No other editing has been performed).

 

[imported_DJ Mayo]

Great detail Dave.