looks AWESOME !

 

looks great, what was the process/products

 

yeah what kind of chemicals did you use? what did u buy those?
I am planning to polish my 02 in the next few weeks too!

 

PRODUCTS:
P21S Car Shampoo
Blackfire Polyclay 2
Blackfire Lubricant
Pinnacle Paintwork Cleansing Lotion
One Grand Blitz Wax
Lots of shop towels
Applicator sponge(s)
Something clean and soft to buff with
A 6 pack of your beer of choice


Well I cheated and took it to a hand car wash to get it washed, but I normally use P21S Car Shampoo (it's gentle on paint and hands and it has the added bonus of smelling like green apples... if you like green apples that is:-). Once i got it home, I went to work with the Blackfire Polyclay 2 with lubricant. Clay bars come in a variety of cuts depending on the extent of the damage of your paint. I went with one with minimal cutting action as I wanted something that would be nice to my paint. The process is pretty simple. You spray on some lubricant and rub the clay against the area until it glides smoothly. Then you wipe it down(probably 30% of the work). At this point I consumed a beer and called it a night.

With all the contaminents removed from the car I got to work polishing. I chose "Pinnacle Paintwork Cleansing Lotion" again for its non-abrasiveness. I'd say this was about 50% of the work as it involved a fair amount of buffing and working on small areas. When you're done with this step your car should look like glass. Optional: Have another beer(or two) at this point as your arms will be pretty sore and you still need to wax.

The last step is waxing to protect your newly polished surface and to add some depth to the finish. Pure Carnuba wax will get you the best shine, but it won't last very long and it's a pain to apply. Silicon based waxes tend to last longer but aren't as clear. I used One Grand Blitz Wax which is a good compromise of depth and clarity with durability. It's also really easy to apply and is much easier to get off black plastic and rubber than some other types of wax. Basically I went around the whole car applying it with a shop paper towel. By the time I got back to the front of the car the front was dried and ready to buff. This is the easiest step and was about 20% of the work. Now just sit back and marvel over the shininess of your car while consuming another beverage of choice (I went with a glass of 2001 central valley pinot noir). If you do go with something alcoholic make sure you have no plans to take your clean ride out for a drive!

 

Nice...i want to try blackfire on my car.
I Detailed it before winter, but think i can do better. I hvae some Blitz but have yet to try it. Good work!

 

Looks great Marc. Wanna do mine next? (lol) Anyhow, have you done anything to your car yet; and have you broken it in?

 

nice work. wish I had the patience/time to do this...hmmm....maybe wednesday

EDIT: I assume I can't pickup most of these parts from my local Schucks...where can I get them???

 

Do a search on Froogle or you can get most of the products at http://www.properautocare.com/

 

yeah, i just found everything but the one grand blitz wax there, but I don' t wanna have to have it shipped...oh well

 

nice work!
Will it hide rock chips on the front fender better with the way you detailed or how do I fix the problem?

 

Sorry there's no easy fix for rock chips. If you only have a few the best way to "fix" it is using colormatched touchup paint. You can usually get this at dealerships but there are also shops online where you can order it. Here's a quick writeup about what you need to do.

First clean the area very well. If you have any loose/flaking paint, that needs to come off before you continue. I usually prep a few pencil erasers by gluing a small round of 800 grit sandpaper to the tip. Using the sandpaper covered eraser you can sand the edges of the chip to prep the surface. Then take some denatured alcohol on a q-tip (brake kleen works great), and clean the area thoroughly. The idea here is that you're removing all dirt/dust/wax/bugs/etc that might hinder the paint from adhereing.

Once the area is prepped, make sure you shake the bottle well (away from anything important, I had a bottle explode on me once and got paint all over my bedroom... the landlord wasn't happy). Use a touchup brush from large chips or for smaller ones I prefer using a toothpick. With either method, get a SMALL bead of paint at the end and let the bead fill in the chip. Not enough paint and you can add a bit more, too much, and you're bummed. Let this dry and rinse and repeat. In an ideal world you want to get the dried paint to perfectly match the level of the paint around it. In practice this rarely happens, so I usually add enough layers so the touched up area sits just above the rest of the paint. Then I go back over and wet sand using a 2000 grit sandpaper. Once you've done this, you need to go over the area with a mildly abbrasive polishing compound and then wax it.

If you have a lot of chips it's probably better just to have a body shop repaint your bumper/hood.

Hope this helps!

 

factory paint is fine but they don't do what a custom painter would do.....

after the clear is applyed, all paint jobs are left with "orange peel" effect (look at the reflection on your paint and you will see a bumpy texture), basically a custom painter does exactly what thedev8 did......except painters use wet sand paper to remove the orange peel and then polish to a mirror finish.....but a good auto detailer can achieve the same finish by doing what dev8 did.

I laugh every time I read in a mag about the amount of coats of clear the painter used to achieve the "still wet" paint job look.....has nothing to do with.....a quality paint job has mostly to do with paint prep and post paint sanding and polishing.

 

sweet, thanks for the tips, I'll have to give it a try! :-)