Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

[SwedishCanadian]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

For you Davey, I'd be happy to. However for the purposes of this thread alone I'll be providing no further comment as it has more than run it's natural course.

Consider me...



Give me a shout when civility is restored!

So, you come on to a thread where there's a lively debate about UC by hand and black cars. You mention things such as respect and civility even though no one is upset - we are just debating and stating opinions, that is, after all, what a forum is for and it is very civil indeed.
You also claim to have done a whole black car with UC by hand, and claim to have pictures proving it. However, you refuse to post them, this thread is just not worthy of you, is your reasoning, or something.

Get over yourself.

lol thanks mate.

I think everyone here is being civil, just getting a little frustrated at times..

A good, spirited discussion!!

I agree. There's no fun in being on a forum if everyone is of the same opinion

[Top Gear]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

Heck, while potentially pointless, this is one of most substantive conversations I've seen on MOL in a long while

Still, if you guys who are attacking the SwedishCanadian don't have close-up hard lighting proof that you have hand-compounded an entire black car by yourself showing your handiwork matches even 70% machine quality (because that is what you keep claiming), then aren't you just shouting at the rain?? That's all SC is saying, that there's little point in his trying to hand-compound his entire vehicle, which I've backed up or supported with my own direct experience. He is not wrong, so instead of attacking him, and instead of dragging in side issues and non-issues just to keep arguing, post the proof that you can hand-compound an entire black car by yourself and not have holograms and cheetahs. If it's as easy as you guys keep saying it is, then that won't be much of a challenge.

[davey g-force]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

Nobody said it was easy.... Ever!

[The Guz]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

^^Exactly. Nobody said it was easy.

[SwedishCanadian]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

Nobody said it was easy.... Ever!

^^Exactly. Nobody said it was easy.

Well, most of the debate has been about just how hard it is. We claim that it's so hard that very few people that try it will make it.

[davey g-force]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

Well, most of the debate has been about just how hard it is. We claim that it's so hard that very few people that try it will make it.

You're probably right. But I still maintain that it's possible.

So we agree then..... So basically we've been debating over nothing.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

OK guys, let's all pull back just a bit here, shall we?

A lively discussion is fine and all, but there's no need for finger pointing and disrespecting each other over what really appears to some tiny misunderstandings. These two posts do a pretty good job of summing up this 6 page debate:

Well, most of the debate has been about just how hard it is. We claim that it's so hard that very few people that try it will make it.

You're probably right. But I still maintain that it's possible.

So we agree then..... So basically we've been debating over nothing.

So, what have we really learned from this discussion?

1) not all paints are created equal
2) doing full correction on a modern clear coat paint system is possible, but it sure isn't going to be easy and for the extreme majority of people it isn't going to be any fun at all
3) Swedish Canadian admitted from the very start that his experience was a difficult one and that he's a rookie. But man oh man, that anyone is willing to put in the time he did to work on any car of any color all by hand - my hat is off to you, sir.
4) we've got differing opinions as to whether or not paint correction by hand with UC (or pretty much anything else) is even possible to accomplish without creating some fresh marring in the process. And that appears to be where most of the conundrum lies.


Here's the deal - back in the days before clearcoat it was pretty common for guys to hand rub paint to darn near perfection, but that was single stage lacquer which tends to be much more user friendly when working by hand. It's generally a lot softer, it doesn't suffer from being super touch sensitive to super fine towel marks, and the guys who used to do this work back in the day were very experienced in doing so. And that's sort of the crux of the escalating "debate" that happened here. Experience plays an enormous role in paint correction, whether that correction is being done by hand, with a DA or with a rotary.

SwedishCanadian flat out admits to being a rookie. Fine. Cool. Geez, just look at the results he got first time out, by hand. That's awesome. Top Gear, while having gone through a variety of our products to see what works best on his black Genesis coupe, does not (as far as I know) a ton of experience on other cars. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall you mentioning a really wide variety of cars that you've done over the years. That's not a dig, mind you, but just an observation on your level of experience and exposure to extreme paint situations. Some of the other guys, those who lean more to the side of the debate that says "yes, you can indeed correct an entire black car by hand" tend to have a lot more experience working on a wide variety of cars. I know some of these guys have actually rubbed out sanding marks by hand on dark colors, and left a darn near flawless finish in the process. I have as well. And if you can do that on an isolated spot, there is no reason at all why you can't do it to the entire car. But, as has been said repeatedly, it is not going to be easy. I would think that running a marathon may be less taxing to one's body than hand rubbing an entire car with a modern clear coat.

Another position taken by SwedishCanadian was that, while he seems to enjoy the finished product, he has no real desire to undertake the process again until such time as he can get a DA polisher AND a place to use it. I don't think anyone here can blame him one little bit for that sentiment. And nobody was, really.

So here's the thing - you can indeed rub out an entire car by hand using UC (or any other variety of products) and not create new marring. But you probably are NOT going to do it with a simple foam wax applicator pad. You'll end up with that horrific mess that Spazzz posted, or something like it. But if you were to have some sort of interface between your hand and that pad, like the hand pads we show in our thread about cheetah spots you can avoid that pretty easily. Stick a 3" microfiber pad to one of those hand pads and you can get some pretty serious cut, too. Swap to the right foam pad and some UP or M205 and you should be able to finish out pretty darn nice. Technique becomes incredibly critical here, of course. Some people think working by hand is the safe bet, but they avoid it because they just know it's a ton of work. Others, like SwedishCanadian and TopGear, don't feel that full correction can be done safely by hand because they've seen too many cases of marring created by the process (reference once again that horror that Spazzz posted!). In a way, both are true, but both are also false.

It used to be standard procedure in our Saturday Classes that we did a side by side comparison of hand correction versus DA correction. There are some images of those side by sides in the cheetah spot thread linked to above. It absolutely can be done. But I'll freely admit this: I don't even do the hand correction demo in our Saturday Classes any more. Why? Well, first off, nobody that comes to those classes wants to learn how to do this by hand, they want to learn how to use an MT300. And, well, it's just crazy hard work! It's not that I'm necessarily lazy, but just like SwedishCanadian, I don't see a really good reason to do it by hand when tools that are both incredibly safe and effective, like the MT300, exist. It's a bit unfortunate that he doesn't have a place where he can use one right now, that's for certain, and I feel for you!

Experience is the key here. A lot of experience. And I think that's what sparked the escalation of this debate. Hey, we've all got to start somewhere, and there is a ton of information on the internet to pour over - some of it great, some of it total garbage. That SwedishCanadian could weed through it and get the results he did by hand, and that TopGear has been able to essentially teach himself a few different processes to figure out what works best on his car (and we've seen pix of his car and it looks fantastic!) then that tell us that the good info is rising to the top (or at least that intelligent folks can tell the difference!). But no matter how much you read, no matter how much you experiment on any one car, there simply is no substitute for experience. Lots and lots of experience.

[davey g-force]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

Thanks Mike.

End of thread....

[Top Gear]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

I've said it before, but I think we're more or less all in agreement. Whatever the disagreement is, it is no threat whatsoever to Meguiar's, because we're all promoting Meguiar's products on a Meguiar's-owned discussion forum. It's also no real threat to anyone's ego, because the material point we all agree on is the basic difference between the possible and the realistic. That line might move a bit for someone working in a ventilated garage on a 70-degree day with a few helpers, versus someone working alone in the shade on a muggy 90+ degree day, but the basics are not in dispute.

We're also not talking about different kinds of paints, but modern clears. Much of what I've said goes out the window when not working with a contemporary factory bake or body shop spray that's full of hardener. Also, most of what I learned about DA work, I learned right here on MOL, although I do have other experiences with other products and vehicles. There's also a bit of a difference in perspective due to the fact that all of us, but SC, have machines (some of you have many). I know from my own experience, that before you get a machine, you really can't see how that machine is going to change your life for the better. You think of reasons why you don't need it, can't afford it, etc, but in reality (in the same way we're all agreeing), you're just fooling yourself if you want a real correction without one (given contemporary paints/clears).

I also think "arguments" can erupt that have little to do with the underlying facts or reasoning. That's the ego part, but really, this discussion should be celebrated because it allows members to work through some basic thoughts on why we're doing things the way we're doing them, and why we love Meguiar's enough to buy the merch and come here to discuss it

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

We're also not talking about different kinds of paints, but modern clears. Much of what I've said goes out the window when not working with a contemporary factory bake or body shop spray that's full of hardener.

Ah, but that's just the thing - modern clear coats probably vary more from one car to another than old single stage lacquers ever did. The difference between the softest and hardest clears on the market today is just mind blowing, and the approach options to this wide spectrum need to be equally wide. So we are indeed talking about vastly different kinds of paints. Fortunately most clear coats fall into an "85th percentile" range where the same basic process with a few technique tweaks here and there will get the job done. But when you do encounter those extremes, and they can be from factory OEM paints or aftermarket body shop paints, things get tricky and challenging in a hurry.

Take BMW Jet Black as a great example: you'll read all over the Interwebs about how crazy soft this stuff is, that it's darn near impossible to finish out haze free, yadda yadda yadda. Well, not all BMW Jet Black paint is the same. Why? Because BMW offers this color on cars built in various countries, and that alone means different paints based on local regulations. But BMW uses more than one paint supplier, so even in the same factory things can change from one week to another. BMW has been offering Jet Black for many years, but the paint suppliers don't remain stagnant with formulations, so a 3 Series from 2003 won't necessarily have the same paint as a 3 Series from 2015, even if they were built in the same factory and had the same brand of paint applied.

Personally, I've worked on a Jet Black BMW (2013 1 Series) that was indeed crazy soft, super easy to haze heavily, and was a real challenge to finish out haze free. But I've also worked on one that was a breeze to correct and get haze free (2009 M3) but everything stuck to it like glue. M205 required some help from a spritz of M34 to get it off, it was just crazy. And I've also worked on one that remains to this day the hardest paint I've ever encountered (2008 3 Series) - M101 on microfiber barely touched it. Wool on a rotary tore it up. The only thing it liked was M101 on burgundy foam with a rotary at 1800 rpm and some pressure. Then the paint was gorgeous in a single pass. Go figure. BMW Jet Black on three different cars and the paints were night and day different from each other and required vastly different approaches to achieve maximum results.

And that is, as far as many detailing forums would have you believe, ONE paint!!! Oh heck no!!

[Top Gear]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

Thanks for that. I agree. Also, as many of you of course know, there are also variations in technique at a more subtle level than "use this" vs "use that". I recently noticed this related to another thread where NYShine posted a video (here), and the pro detailer in the video, using similar products to what I have, was much more aggressive from the get go than I usually tend to be. I thought, wha??, if he's gonna to do that, what am I complaining about with my hard paint (with dozens of passes)?? I usually only get that physically aggressive (deforming the panel, etc) when I get frustrated, and of course, that's when I tend to get the best results So, I went out and did some wet-sanding and fearless compounding on some touch-up areas, and sure enough, it got done quicker. I keep learning this, so I try to remember, to work the problem with more trust in the paint, pads, liquids, and overall MOL techniques - when I've done that, it has accounted for a great deal of my own progress with the craftsmanship of detailing.

[CrazyVinny]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

Personally, I've worked on a Jet Black BMW (2013 1 Series) that was indeed crazy soft, super easy to haze heavily, and was a real challenge to finish out haze free. But I've also worked on one that was a breeze to correct and get haze free (2009 M3) but everything stuck to it like glue. M205 required some help from a spritz of M34 to get it off, it was just crazy. And I've also worked on one that remains to this day the hardest paint I've ever encountered (2008 3 Series) - M101 on microfiber barely touched it. Wool on a rotary tore it up. The only thing it liked was M101 on burgundy foam with a rotary at 1800 rpm and some pressure. Then the paint was gorgeous in a single pass. Go figure. BMW Jet Black on three different cars and the paints were night and day different from each other and required vastly different approaches to achieve maximum results.

I thought I had figured out that 'lots and lots of experience' thing until I read this.
Man, I feel as green as that guy on the Lucky Charms cereal box.

Thanks for the scoop, Mr. Stoops!

Crazy Vinny

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Detailed jet black mazda 6 2014

I thought I had figured out that 'lots and lots of experience' thing until I read this.
Man, I feel as green as that guy on the Lucky Charms cereal box.

Thanks for the scoop, Mr. Stoops!

Crazy Vinny

No worries, Vinny! It seems that as soon as we think we've got this whole thing "figured out" some oddball car comes along, or we get introduced to some new technique, and our world turns upside down once again! Those three Jet Black BMWs, as a combined experience, will be something I'll always bring up when the topic turns to paint hardness.