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That was one hot TNOG last night - temps were in the 90s when we started and never did drop by much, but that sure didn't stop everyone from having a great time and learning a lot about paint care. We even had a bit of a Euro sports car theme going on, with a 2003 Porsche 911 Cabriolet, a 1997 Ferrari 456GTA and a BMW Z3 roadster on hand for some correction advice.
This little beauty was in pretty good shape but could do with a good buff out. The hood had been resprayed and needed the most help.
The owner brought his Festool buffer with him, plus some Buff & Shine pads, so we wanted to see how the materials he already had on hand would work out. The car owner had used this tool with the Buff & Shine microfiber pad and some Ultimate Compound but got only minimal improvement to the finish. A quick test showed that the lack of result was really more down to technique than the combo of tool/pad/product.
He wanted to see how our G110v2 compared, so we fired it up. We went with our own microfiber cutting pad but stayed with the Ultimate Compound just so see how it would perform with this tool/pad compared to the other pairing. Well, as it turned out, the G110v2 and our DMC5 microfiber cutting pad did quite well, thank you very much. They definitely cut faster and with better control. So much so that the car owner went home with a new G110v2 and our microfiber system. It should be noted that the factory paint on this Porsche presented a whole different situation than the resprayed hood. The factory paint is much easier to correct and we discovered that, for the most part, M205 on a W8207 yellow polishing pad will do the trick.
Next we rolled in the Ferrari - a very nice 1997 456 GTA. This baby would make a great high speed cross country cruiser, sort of like flying first class at zero altitude the whole way!!
But.......
! The paint looked like a giant bale of hay next to the prancing horse, and that's just not something we can allow.
Oh. My.
Having worked on a few Ferraris of this vintage we guessed that the paint may be fairly soft, so we started easy with M205 on a polishing pad. We've seen this work great on other Ferraris built around this time, but this horse was different. While M205 made a noticeable improvement, this paint really needed something more to bring it back.
We tried a couple of compounds on yellow foam and, while they did a far better job than M205 did, there were enough deeper marks in the paint that we needed to step up our game. So out came the DA Microfiber System and out went the swirls.
Given that the car owner wants to take this paint to as high a level as possible, we opted to correct with D300/DMC5 but then step back to M205 on a black foam finishing pad to refine the finish prior to waxing rather than just use D301. Below, on the left side, you can see the light hazing created by D300/DMC5 while eradicating the swirls; the right side is after a quick refining with M205 to remove the haze.
This shot gives an idea of the three phases this paint went through: the top half is how the paint was presented to us, the lower left is after D300/DMC5 (the haze is quite noticeable in this exposure) and the lower right is after polishing with M205. Remember, this was just an initial test so there are a few deeper marks still present in the lower right section. But knowing the steps needed to give an overall haze free, rich, black finish means the car owner can work the microfiber system as long as he needs to remove all defects, then refine with M205 prior to waxing.
Of course, we had to get the car owner comfortable with the G110v2 since he had never used a buffer before. We don't have a picture of his result on this particular spot, but it looked spectacular!
In a break from our Euro sports car theme, we rolled a rather neglected Toyota Tacoma into the garage. We really thought the paint was beyond hope (and the insane amount of stone chips in the front of the hood didn't help the cause!) but we were pretty pleased with the outcome. Yes, that's C2100 Aggressive Red Pro Clay we're using. Because the hood literally felt like 80 grit sandpaper and was as noisy as an old pair of corduroy pants!
This is the crud removed from about an 8" square area of the hood.
Don't adjust your monitor - this shot is in focus on the paint surface. That's one of our fancy overhead lights in the garage ceiling, not a swirl finder light. This paint needs serious help.
It's not perfect, but it's so far beyond what we started with that everyone was pretty surprised.
After claying we gave the spot a once over with the DA Microfiber Correction System. Obviously there was no need to tape anything off to show a dramatic before/after on this one!
Our last little project involved a home garage respray of several sections on a BMW Z3. Sanding marks were still present after the owner buffed it out so the goal was to remove what remained of those marks and see if we could add some clarity in the process. The owner's wife wanted to see if we could offer a process that she could do herself. This is where we started:
After a single pass with the DA Microfiber System we got this. And so did she. Piece of cake. Remember, this was a respray done by a complete amateur in his garage. We've seen body shops who don't do this good, and they paint every day!
This little beauty was in pretty good shape but could do with a good buff out. The hood had been resprayed and needed the most help.
The owner brought his Festool buffer with him, plus some Buff & Shine pads, so we wanted to see how the materials he already had on hand would work out. The car owner had used this tool with the Buff & Shine microfiber pad and some Ultimate Compound but got only minimal improvement to the finish. A quick test showed that the lack of result was really more down to technique than the combo of tool/pad/product.
He wanted to see how our G110v2 compared, so we fired it up. We went with our own microfiber cutting pad but stayed with the Ultimate Compound just so see how it would perform with this tool/pad compared to the other pairing. Well, as it turned out, the G110v2 and our DMC5 microfiber cutting pad did quite well, thank you very much. They definitely cut faster and with better control. So much so that the car owner went home with a new G110v2 and our microfiber system. It should be noted that the factory paint on this Porsche presented a whole different situation than the resprayed hood. The factory paint is much easier to correct and we discovered that, for the most part, M205 on a W8207 yellow polishing pad will do the trick.
Next we rolled in the Ferrari - a very nice 1997 456 GTA. This baby would make a great high speed cross country cruiser, sort of like flying first class at zero altitude the whole way!!
But.......
! The paint looked like a giant bale of hay next to the prancing horse, and that's just not something we can allow.Oh. My.
Having worked on a few Ferraris of this vintage we guessed that the paint may be fairly soft, so we started easy with M205 on a polishing pad. We've seen this work great on other Ferraris built around this time, but this horse was different. While M205 made a noticeable improvement, this paint really needed something more to bring it back.
We tried a couple of compounds on yellow foam and, while they did a far better job than M205 did, there were enough deeper marks in the paint that we needed to step up our game. So out came the DA Microfiber System and out went the swirls.
Given that the car owner wants to take this paint to as high a level as possible, we opted to correct with D300/DMC5 but then step back to M205 on a black foam finishing pad to refine the finish prior to waxing rather than just use D301. Below, on the left side, you can see the light hazing created by D300/DMC5 while eradicating the swirls; the right side is after a quick refining with M205 to remove the haze.
This shot gives an idea of the three phases this paint went through: the top half is how the paint was presented to us, the lower left is after D300/DMC5 (the haze is quite noticeable in this exposure) and the lower right is after polishing with M205. Remember, this was just an initial test so there are a few deeper marks still present in the lower right section. But knowing the steps needed to give an overall haze free, rich, black finish means the car owner can work the microfiber system as long as he needs to remove all defects, then refine with M205 prior to waxing.
Of course, we had to get the car owner comfortable with the G110v2 since he had never used a buffer before. We don't have a picture of his result on this particular spot, but it looked spectacular!
In a break from our Euro sports car theme, we rolled a rather neglected Toyota Tacoma into the garage. We really thought the paint was beyond hope (and the insane amount of stone chips in the front of the hood didn't help the cause!) but we were pretty pleased with the outcome. Yes, that's C2100 Aggressive Red Pro Clay we're using. Because the hood literally felt like 80 grit sandpaper and was as noisy as an old pair of corduroy pants!
This is the crud removed from about an 8" square area of the hood.
Don't adjust your monitor - this shot is in focus on the paint surface. That's one of our fancy overhead lights in the garage ceiling, not a swirl finder light. This paint needs serious help.
It's not perfect, but it's so far beyond what we started with that everyone was pretty surprised.
After claying we gave the spot a once over with the DA Microfiber Correction System. Obviously there was no need to tape anything off to show a dramatic before/after on this one!
Our last little project involved a home garage respray of several sections on a BMW Z3. Sanding marks were still present after the owner buffed it out so the goal was to remove what remained of those marks and see if we could add some clarity in the process. The owner's wife wanted to see if we could offer a process that she could do herself. This is where we started:
After a single pass with the DA Microfiber System we got this. And so did she. Piece of cake. Remember, this was a respray done by a complete amateur in his garage. We've seen body shops who don't do this good, and they paint every day!
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