1999 Corvette - Remove Swirls and Scratches

[Mike Phillips]

1999 Corvette - Remove Swirls and Scratches



Today I'm going to try to undo another persons damage to the driver’s door on this black 1999 Corvette.


The scouring on the door was caused by hand applying some type of compound. Below is a close-up of the damage.



I'll probably have to machine clean the finish in order to remove the defects. Afterwards, I plan on machine polishing the entire finish first with a rotary buffer, second with a Porter Cable. Then I'll apply two coats of NXT Tech Wax.


After pictures to be posted tonight.

Mike

[Mike Phillips]

Here are some before shots of the finish in its current condition,

Deck lid



Hood (note the buffer swirls)



Besides the scouring in the finish, a local detailer tried to restore the seats with what looks like some kind of paint, or dye.



Mike

[Mike Phillips]

First things first.

After washing the entire car really well, I then clayed all the upper panels. Because the finish was recently detailed, I didn't expect too many bonded contaminants, and rubbing my hand over the clean panels didn't reveal any bonded contaminant issues. I wanted to make sure however because the owners parks the car outside while at work. (other than that it's garage kept). Also, because my goal is to bring the clarity and gloss to it’s maximum potential, I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

Meguiar’s recently replaced their clay bar in the Quik Clay System with a new and improved clay bar that works much better. A quick claying over the car resulted in very little contaminants pulled from the surface.



Close-up of clay after claying the entire car,



After claying the entire car, I quick detailed and dried any residue and then taped off and covered the interior to prevent splatter in cracks and crevices and in the cockpit.

[Mike Phillips]

I wanted to test exactly what it would take to remove approximately 90% of the scratches, swirls and defects in this finish. In my experience, newer Corvettes have very hard paint. I would say it’s like buffing on glass. For this reason, I really didn’t want to compound the car if I didn’t have to. So I decided to see what I could do following Meguiar’s age old advise,

”Always use the least aggressive product to get the job done”

I decided to tape off the rear deck lid and test two combinations while leaving one section in it’s current condition to compare to.

On the left side, I will try #83 DACP with a W-8006 foam polishing on a Makita rotary buffer at the 1800 rpms. I will follow that with #83 DACP with a W-8006 foam polishing pad on the G-100 dual action polisher on the 5.0 setting. I will follow that with an application of NXT Tech Wax by hand.

On the right side, I will try #83 DACP with a W-8006 foam polishing pad on the G-100 dual action polisher on the 5.0 setting. I will follow that with an application of NXT Tech Wax by hand.

[Mike Phillips]

After cleaning, polishing and applying the Tech Wax to both sides, and then waiting for the Tech Wax to dry for 15 minutes, I removed the Tech Wax by hand using a Meguiar’s Ultimate Wipe microfiber polishing cloth. I then removed the towel and the tape I used to section off the deckled and pulled the car into full sun to inspect.

Here is some shots of the results,

[Mike Phillips]

Here are few more with the sun positioned in each of the sections,

Here is the results on the side I only used the PC on. While not perfect, it is dramatically improved and I only polished if for about 5-10 minutes. With a little more time, I could have removed even more swirls.




Here are the results for the side I machine cleaned with the rotary buffer first, and then used the PC on followed by one coat of Tech Wax.



These results are much better, not 100%, but this process achieved the goal I was looking for. The rotary buffer with #83, followed by the PC with #83, followed by Tech Wax will be the combination I will use to buff out the rest of the car.

[Mike Phillips]

The first thing I decided to tackle after dialing in a plan of attack was to remove the scouring on the drivers door. I was told that first this car was detailed and in the process instilled with swirls. Afterwards, another well-intending person thought they would show the owner how easy the swirls would be to remove with the right compound. The owner, trusting that the person knew what they were talking about, allowed the person to demonstrate on the drivers door. Below are the results,



I visually inspected the scratches and took a reflection shot of #83 before removing the scratches.



Next I took a close-up shot of the surface using the camera’s flash,



I have temporally closed this thread until I can finish uploading the rest of the photos with comments. For now I'll be out washing a 1947 Plymouth Coupe for a before and after using ColorX and Tech Wax. Look for this write-up and photos on Friday.

Mike

[Mike Phillips]

First I tried M-83 Dual Action Cleaner Polish with a W-8006 foam polishing pad on a Makita rotary buffer at around 1800 rpms.



While this removed a majority of the shallow scratches and restored clarity to the clear coat, it wasn’t aggressive enough to completely remove the deepest scratches.

Next, I substituted M-84 Compound Power Cleaner, with a W-7006 foam cutting pad with the Makita rotary buffer at the same rpm as the previous test.



I spent some time slowly moving the buffer back and forth over the affected area overlapping each of my passes by about 50%. After approximately 10 to 15 minutes, I stopped buffing and wiped off the residue. This combination proved effective at removing 95% of the remaining scratches and smoothing out the remaining scratches to the point that they were almost impossible to detect.

[Mike Phillips]

After compounding with the M-84, and the W-7006, I then re-buffed the entire section with the rotary buffer and the #83/W-8006 to insure that any haze or swirls were removed. This brought the clarity up a just a little higher.

[Mike Phillips]

Later, after the machine cleaning step was over, I used the G-100 with W-8006 foam polishing pad and the #83 Dual Action Cleaner Polish to completely polish all of the areas I used the rotary buffer on.



Here's a picture of the car completely covered with the #83 after polishing with the G-100.



To remove the #83 residue, I'm going to use a combination of 100% cotton terry cloth towels and microfibers polishing cloths. I'll go around the car once and remove a majority of the #83 with terry cloth, and then follow up with a Meguiar's Ultimate Wipe to remove all remaining residues. I prefer to remove the bulk of the cleaner/polish with terry cloth because I feel the nap of a good terry cloth towel helps to slice into and break-up the continuous film-build laying on the surface better than a plush microfiber polishing cloth.