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Pictures from Thursday Night Open Garage - September 8th, 2011
Well, it may not have been the busiest TNOG we've ever had, but the extreme heat and the massive power outage in south OC and San Diego may have had something to do with that! Still, it's hard not to have a good time when a bunch of car guys are hanging out in a well stocked garage and working on a few interesting challenges.
Kelly brought his 2011 Prius in for some decontamination on the hood, and he was a bit concerned about the overall process since the paint on this car is just crazy delicate. But the level of bonded contaminants was so high that we still opted for the C2000 Professional Clay to remove it all.
Having spent some time working on this paint in the past we wanted to try a little experiment: D300 DA Microfiber Correction Compound on a W8207 Soft Buff 2.0 foam polishing pad.
In the shot below the upper area shows the finish after claying but before D300/W8207. The lower portion is after polishing with the above mentioned product combo. We ran the buffer at speed 5 with only moderate pressure and slow arm speed over the paint. It is so easy to put a very heavy haze to this paint, so as a first step we were pretty happy here. We followed with D301 on a W9207 Soft Buff 2.0 finishing pad and then some Ultimate Wax paste by hand.
This was an unusual treat for us - a gorgeous pearl white Ducati sport bike.
Unfortunately it had suffered from an impact with a wall...... in the owner's dining room. See, this is why you should never eat while riding or driving - bad things can happen!
Now, that deep gouge running up from the top of the "D" was pretty nasty so we knew it wasn't to come out completely. You could easily catch your fingernail in this and it just felt crazy deep. Still, the rest of it was bad enough, and assuming there was a bit of paint transfer here we took a two pronged approach to it: some C2000 blue clay to remove anything that might have been stuck to the surface, then D300 on a 3" microfiber disc fitted to the pneumatic mini DA buffer.
The end result was an enormous improvement in the overall appearance, except for the very deep gouge above the "D". This was the initial point of impact against the wall, and it really took its toll here. Still, it's an interesting talking point for the owner - most Ducati owners don't have a dining room accident story to tell.
We only have a few more TNOGs scheduled for the year, so if you've ever thought of coming out for one these, you'd better hurry!
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