Hi Guys
There has been quite a bit of bad press in the detailing section, so I hope no one sees me putting this detail up as bad taste. As I have stated before I only put my details up for the passion I have for my job as well as be as informal as possible about what I have done. This way members on here may be able to benefit from information that might help them. As well as keep their cars in top shape in the future. Also I post work here because a lot of my friends are on this site and like I have said before, I see mbclub as my ‘home’ site.
This detail was this week’s job for me and what a job it was. When the client contacted me I came and viewed the car prior to booking. He told me that the paint was looking very dull and that when he washed it you could see a lot of swirl marks etc. The sun wasn’t out that day so around the car I went with the sun gun and pdg. Paint levels were healthy as of any standard paint on Audi’s and under the sun gun the car was covered from head to foot in swirls. Now this job I know from experience, could have been completed in 3 days but I booked it over 5 days as I had to be on another job in the late afternoons of this week.
Well Monday came and it was time to start this R8 and bring it back to its former glory (or as near too) as this was not a restoration correction. This was the car on arrival.
To start with, was the wheel and arches. The arches and tyres were sprayed with Megs all purpose cleaner and agitated with appropriate brushes. The wheels were sprayed with bilberry wheel cleaner, left to dwell for 30 seconds and agitated with wheel woollies. The wheels, tyres and arches were then thoroughly rinsed with the jest washer. After this the wheels still had quite a bit of heavy baked on brake dust and contaminants. So out with the iron x to sort that problem out once and for all. This product is fantastic and can’t praise it enough on removing metal fillings and heavy contaminants.
After the wheels, the car was given thorough snow foam through the lance and left to dwell for 5 minutes to loosen the heavy grime. This is a much safer method then just rinsing and then straight onto washing. By removing the heavy contaminants you will put less marring into the paintwork. Also try to snow foam not in direct sunlight. If you do and don’t end up claying you will find the degreasers will bake onto the lacquer and can be very ugly indeed! The car was then washed using the 2bm and dodo juice supernatural shampoo. I luurrve Dodo Juice shampoos and though born to be mild is the best on the market (imho) supernatural is great to use if your washing in direct sun. I find this is because supernatural doesn’t produce lots of foam and unnecessary detergents that aren’t needed and just add to suds that going to bake onto the paintwork. The top half of the car was washed using a wookie mitt and the lower half was washed with a waschpudel. This way you’re never cross contaminating your mitts and when it comes to cleaning your next car the top half mitt will have last week’s grit in it!!You have been warned!!
Once given a thorough was I began to see the horror story that lay before me. The car had typical signs of a life in an automatic car wash. The front half of the car was covered in tightly clustered swirls made up of rds, trails and heavy swirls and as you made your way to the back, lots of swirls made up of a lot of deep scratches and rds’s. I knew then this was going to be fun as like all VAG paint is quite hard indeed. This is where this detail becomes relevant as the finish on this Audi will be very similar to what you find on your Mercedes Benz.
So into the garage and was time to dry! The car was first dried with an ultra plush drying towel and then all gaps, shuts badges, grilles, arches, tyres and wheels were dried with a warm air blower. If you can afford one I highly recommend it, as it will remove all water from all gaps leaving nothing in its wake.
Once dried the car was clayed with dodo juice gentle grey and Meg’s quick detailer. They do make aggressive clay called ‘purposeful purple’ but this would only be needed on a car or vehicle that had some heavy contaminants such as algae.
The car was the given a thorough ipa wipe down to remove clay sling and any oils and silicones that may be in the paint so that I can see what this cars true finish was. Here are a couple of pictures after this step.
Now it was time to start paint correcting! Due to the nature of paint hardness and level of defects, mixed up with what the client wanted to achieve. This car was most definitely going to need some serious compound, polishing and refining. Now I have always been an avid 3M polishing system user and have used it to great ability. But the turn of this year companies have taken a big leap in high end quality compounds and polishes. This has mainly been pioneered with Meg’s new microfiber system for the D.A. and for me; it’s got to be scholls concept range. The reasons being is that now both companies have built compounds and polishes that really have no silicone, create minimal dust and work under most temperatures. This means less IPA wipe downs in your sets, Porsche paints suddenly become less sticky due to minimal heat build up and my personal favourite.....I can still breathe at the end of the day instead of my lungs being covered in compound! The Scholl range really is amazing with phenomenal correcting rates in minimal time while still being on the safe side.
The car was compounded using a medium grade lake country wool pad (the white one) and Scholl S3 edition gold edition. The car was then polished (followed up) with Scholl s17+ on a yellow 3m polishing pad to remove any marks from the s3. But to be fair the S3 can be used as a once step compound! Yes that’s right a compound that doesn’t need refining. The main reason I followed up with s17+, was because the wool pad can leave some marks of its own such as holograms. Anyway here are some pictures of the correction stage.....
A HD Video showing you a 50/50 of the bonnet after a ipa wipedown.
GemcleanDetail's Channel - YouTube
Bonnet after correction.
Drivers front wing corrected.
Front bumper corrected.
Roof before correction.
Drivers door pillar before correction.
Pillar after correction.
Drivers door after correction:
Making sure all angles of the car are paint corrected.
Drivers rear wing before correction. Remember this car is black. Thats how meny scratches there are on the rear wing. Unfortunately its hard to capture the true image on my compact.
There has been quite a bit of bad press in the detailing section, so I hope no one sees me putting this detail up as bad taste. As I have stated before I only put my details up for the passion I have for my job as well as be as informal as possible about what I have done. This way members on here may be able to benefit from information that might help them. As well as keep their cars in top shape in the future. Also I post work here because a lot of my friends are on this site and like I have said before, I see mbclub as my ‘home’ site.
This detail was this week’s job for me and what a job it was. When the client contacted me I came and viewed the car prior to booking. He told me that the paint was looking very dull and that when he washed it you could see a lot of swirl marks etc. The sun wasn’t out that day so around the car I went with the sun gun and pdg. Paint levels were healthy as of any standard paint on Audi’s and under the sun gun the car was covered from head to foot in swirls. Now this job I know from experience, could have been completed in 3 days but I booked it over 5 days as I had to be on another job in the late afternoons of this week.
Well Monday came and it was time to start this R8 and bring it back to its former glory (or as near too) as this was not a restoration correction. This was the car on arrival.
To start with, was the wheel and arches. The arches and tyres were sprayed with Megs all purpose cleaner and agitated with appropriate brushes. The wheels were sprayed with bilberry wheel cleaner, left to dwell for 30 seconds and agitated with wheel woollies. The wheels, tyres and arches were then thoroughly rinsed with the jest washer. After this the wheels still had quite a bit of heavy baked on brake dust and contaminants. So out with the iron x to sort that problem out once and for all. This product is fantastic and can’t praise it enough on removing metal fillings and heavy contaminants.
After the wheels, the car was given thorough snow foam through the lance and left to dwell for 5 minutes to loosen the heavy grime. This is a much safer method then just rinsing and then straight onto washing. By removing the heavy contaminants you will put less marring into the paintwork. Also try to snow foam not in direct sunlight. If you do and don’t end up claying you will find the degreasers will bake onto the lacquer and can be very ugly indeed! The car was then washed using the 2bm and dodo juice supernatural shampoo. I luurrve Dodo Juice shampoos and though born to be mild is the best on the market (imho) supernatural is great to use if your washing in direct sun. I find this is because supernatural doesn’t produce lots of foam and unnecessary detergents that aren’t needed and just add to suds that going to bake onto the paintwork. The top half of the car was washed using a wookie mitt and the lower half was washed with a waschpudel. This way you’re never cross contaminating your mitts and when it comes to cleaning your next car the top half mitt will have last week’s grit in it!!You have been warned!!
Once given a thorough was I began to see the horror story that lay before me. The car had typical signs of a life in an automatic car wash. The front half of the car was covered in tightly clustered swirls made up of rds, trails and heavy swirls and as you made your way to the back, lots of swirls made up of a lot of deep scratches and rds’s. I knew then this was going to be fun as like all VAG paint is quite hard indeed. This is where this detail becomes relevant as the finish on this Audi will be very similar to what you find on your Mercedes Benz.
So into the garage and was time to dry! The car was first dried with an ultra plush drying towel and then all gaps, shuts badges, grilles, arches, tyres and wheels were dried with a warm air blower. If you can afford one I highly recommend it, as it will remove all water from all gaps leaving nothing in its wake.
Once dried the car was clayed with dodo juice gentle grey and Meg’s quick detailer. They do make aggressive clay called ‘purposeful purple’ but this would only be needed on a car or vehicle that had some heavy contaminants such as algae.
The car was the given a thorough ipa wipe down to remove clay sling and any oils and silicones that may be in the paint so that I can see what this cars true finish was. Here are a couple of pictures after this step.
Now it was time to start paint correcting! Due to the nature of paint hardness and level of defects, mixed up with what the client wanted to achieve. This car was most definitely going to need some serious compound, polishing and refining. Now I have always been an avid 3M polishing system user and have used it to great ability. But the turn of this year companies have taken a big leap in high end quality compounds and polishes. This has mainly been pioneered with Meg’s new microfiber system for the D.A. and for me; it’s got to be scholls concept range. The reasons being is that now both companies have built compounds and polishes that really have no silicone, create minimal dust and work under most temperatures. This means less IPA wipe downs in your sets, Porsche paints suddenly become less sticky due to minimal heat build up and my personal favourite.....I can still breathe at the end of the day instead of my lungs being covered in compound! The Scholl range really is amazing with phenomenal correcting rates in minimal time while still being on the safe side.
The car was compounded using a medium grade lake country wool pad (the white one) and Scholl S3 edition gold edition. The car was then polished (followed up) with Scholl s17+ on a yellow 3m polishing pad to remove any marks from the s3. But to be fair the S3 can be used as a once step compound! Yes that’s right a compound that doesn’t need refining. The main reason I followed up with s17+, was because the wool pad can leave some marks of its own such as holograms. Anyway here are some pictures of the correction stage.....
A HD Video showing you a 50/50 of the bonnet after a ipa wipedown.
GemcleanDetail's Channel - YouTube
Bonnet after correction.
Drivers front wing corrected.
Front bumper corrected.
Roof before correction.
Drivers door pillar before correction.
Pillar after correction.
Drivers door after correction:
Making sure all angles of the car are paint corrected.
Drivers rear wing before correction. Remember this car is black. Thats how meny scratches there are on the rear wing. Unfortunately its hard to capture the true image on my compact.
