Time Needed To Do A Proper Job w/G100

[Jon_Purdy]

Hello everyone!

I just bought a G100 and am anxious to put it to work on my beloved '05 Mustang GT. My question to you is this, since this will the be the first time I have used the machine, how much time should I allow in order to do a proper job? I'm thinking a day and half for: wash, clay, wash, 80, and finally nxt.

Thanks in advance for your input.

Cheers,
Jon

[F-150]

Day and a half sounds good if you can actually work all day. AZ it gets too hot. You might even be able to get it all done if you start at 5am and end at dark, depending if you're removing defects and how bad they are.

[Mike Phillips]

Hi Jon,

All I can tell you is how long it would take me, so this is just a personal take on it, not a "Meguiar's recommended time allotment". If you know what I mean.

When I detail cars professionally, my goal is to get to the customer's house by 8:00am, unload my supplies, tools, etc., and be working by 8:30am.

Assuming the customer has washed the car so it's dry and ready to begin working on, taping off is first, followed by claying. You can clay first and then tape-off, but sometimes it may be harder to get your painters tape to stick to trim that's been freshly wiped with a quick detailer. Also, if you tape off first, and then clay, any areas you've taped off where you're claying, will get wiped when you wipe of your quick detailer residue and when you're doing this you'll have the opportunity to run you polishing cloth over the top of the tape insuring it's pressed down firmly.

(Maybe I'm the only person that does this?)

The thing you want to avoid is your tape lifting off during the process.

How long it takes to tape off a car depends on how much trim the car has, or high points, or edges, etc., that need to be protected. This can be anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half, how long also depends on how fast you are at taping-off, people should note I've never claimed to be fast at it.




After taping off any trim, high points or edges, and after the paint has been clayed, the next step will be the longest step and that's the cleaning step.

You must remove the defects during the cleaning step or they will be there at final wipe-off.

I always recommend to people to do what I've always referred to as a, Test Spot.

That is to test your choice of products and process from start to finish in one small area and make sure the results meet your expectations. If you cannot make one small area look good with your choice of products and process you're not going to be able to make the entire car look good.

Anyway, assuming the M80 Speed Glaze, with a W-8006 foam polishing pad on the G100 on the 5.0 speed setting is removing the defects and polishing out to a high gloss, then for a car the size you're working on it will take you around 4-6 hours to thoroughly polish out the swirls of each square inch of paint.

Again, how long this takes you will be determined by how bad the paint is overall, (is it completely abused, or only slightly neglected), how deep the swirls and scratchers are and how hard or soft the paint is, tempered by your car care goals.

Do you want every scratch out of the paint? Or are you happy with the results a quick pass with your cleaner/polish is giving you.

For myself, most of my work is targeted at removing as many of the below surface defects that is possible, so it tends to take more time.

Once the defects have been removed through the cleaning and polishing process, next up is applying your wax. For a Mustang, it should take you about 30-40 minutes to apply a coat of NXT Tech wax by machine. If you can apply a thorough coat of NXT Tech wax to a Mustang in 20 minutes, that's probably moving too fast, remember, polishing paint is an art form, not a mechanical process, take your time and make about 3 passes with the polisher over each square inch.

Give the wax around 15 to 20 minutes to dry and then remove, this will take about 20-30 minutes to do a good, careful job.

At this point you can de-tape and be done or apply a second coat of wax, myself I apply a second coat of wax. I tend to wait for about a half hour and busy myself doing something else like dressing tires, cleaning glass or drinking a cold pop and catching up on phone calls. Then repeat the wax-on, wax-off process and then de-tape and do you final wiping and detailing work, (detailing is defined as getting the wax out of the cracks and off any trim, etc.).

Done, more or less.

Total time for me usually runs anywhere from 8 to 14 hours on just the exterior paint for show car quality results.

You can't rush quality.


I know a lot of people can wash and wax a car a lot faster, but I'm not really talking about washing and waxing a car here, I'm talking about creating results like this,








A lot of the people that have attended our Saturday classes over the last 3 years often come back a second, third, forth and even fifth time and often times they'll ask me to come inspect their work and I've seen some pretty impressive results over the years, often times these people will have worked their finishes up to 100% swirls free show car results.

Just today, while I was at the c3 Mini Cooper class, a majority of the Mini Coopers, when the finish was viewed in full sun, had swirl free results and we had full-on sun today.




Most of these people have been to our classes and/or been under the guidance of Richard Lin who's been to enough of our Saturday detailing classes he could teach them. It was very apparent that all but about two of the Mini Coopers at today's class need any cleaning and polishing, it was quite impressive to say the least. It made it difficult for the Instructor, Chris Mills to find a car to do a before and after demonstration.

One of the secrets to success when working a finish up to show car results is to only tackle sections at a time. For example, only working on the hood on one Saturday, once the hood is flawless, move around the car as time and passion permit.

When detailing for dollars, you don't have the luxury, (in most cases), to tackle a job this slowly, but if you own the car and it's always out in your garage, then you can work on it section by section.

Hope this helps...

[Blr123]

WOW top explanation Mike

If you don't mind Mike I would just add that when I first started my arms were like rods of steel (and sore after after a while) when using the PC and the head wouldn't spin.........well now I have learned to keep my arms supple and I "go with the flow" following the contour of each panel, moving the head accordingly as required.

Also, if the head of the PC is not level it will not spin, it's a case of just being aware, and the job will be done a bit faster, I have a line marked with a marker pen on my backing plate so I know when the head is spinning

Bryan

[Jon_Purdy]

Thanks very much Mike for the "detailed" reply. That was just the kind of information I was looking for. The next weekend that I have both Saturday and Sunday free is the weekend of Aug. 19 and 20 so I guess I have to wait until then.

Thanks again!
Jon