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Pictures from Meguiar's Intro to Paint Care & D/A Polishing March 3rd, 2018
Meguiar's Intro to Paint Care & D/A Polishing consists of both an instructor led classroom presentation as well as "hands on" time in the garage. Below is some of the topics attendants can expect to learn about:
After some coffee & donuts we started the classroom portion of the day. Packed house!
After pizza for lunch, we headed into the garage for "hands on" training. Today we worked on one of our class attendant's 2011 Mercedes Benz S550 in non metallic black. The vehicle was quite dirty from the rain & the owner's drive up from San Diego so we showed proper technique for using our Ultimate Waterless Wash & Wax.
Next the class attendants all pitched in and we performed a waterless wash on the entire exterior of the vehicle.
After creating a clean surface with our Ultimate Waterless Wash & Wax, we evaluated the paint for above surface contaminants by physically feeling the paint with our hands. The vehicle did feel a little rough, so we used our Smooth Surface Clay Kit to safely remove the contaminants & create a smooth paint finish. The use of Detailing Clay like our Smooth Surface Clay Kit is straight forward & easy to use, but still today many users have yet to try it or are aware of how important of a step it is to take. If bonded above surface contaminants are left on the vehicles paint, your wax will not apply as easy or last & long.
You can see in the below picture a light hue of brown. Those are the contaminants from the paint we removed up into the clay bar. This vehicle did not have many contaminants. More often time the clay will be very brown from the abundance of contaminants removed.
The car owner & others helped to clay the entire hood.
After claying, we like to pull the car out into the direct sunlight to show the true condition of the paintwork. If you looks closely in the below picture you can start to see the swirl marks where the sun is reflecting off the hood. These are typcially inflicted from improper washing techniques.
And now up close under our lights in the garage. We did not notice these random deep scratches upon initial inspection! Yikes! These will be much more stubborn to remove.
Let's get to work on our test spot. We started by taping off some of the surrounding trim to keep from getting compound & polish residue in the cracks.
We started with Ultimate Compound applied with our DFC5 Soft Buff DA Foam Cutting Disc, 5800 OPMS, moderate pressure, moderate arm speed, 50% overlapping passes.
After inspecting our works, by the look on everyone's faces, it looks like we are starting to get somewhere. Scroll down for results.
This combination removed about all of the more shallow "cobweb/spider web" style swirl marks. In the below picture, you can see that there was some DA Haze left behind from the compound process. This is common, especially on non metallic black. Our secondary polish step will refine the paint & remove the DA Haze, bringing back the high gloss. If this was all we were up against this combination would have worked just great. If our goal was to make an 80% improvement, this combination followed by a polish step & wax step would have yield massive improvements. But, the light cobweb/spider web looking swirls were not all we were up against. Scroll down for more info into our process.
BEFORE Ultimate Compound, DFC5 Soft Buff DA Foam Cutting Disc applied via MT300 Dual Action Polisher.
AFTER Ultimate Compound, DFC5 Soft Buff DA Foam Cutting Disc applied via MT300 Dual Action Polisher.
There were A LOT of random deep scratches in the paint in addition to the "cobweb/spiderweb" swirl marks. I let the class know, we do have the option to get more aggressive. We discussed the options, the vehicle owner's goals. We decided to step up in aggressiveness, and I felt comfortable moving into using some of our professional line products with this class, especially since about 75% of today's class had previous Dual Action Polisher experience. We stepped up to Meguiar's Professional DMC5 DA Microfiber Cutting Disc & Meguiar's Professional Mirror Glaze M100 Pro Speed Compound. This combination is a significant step above in aggressiveness. The level of aggressiveness is not needed as often, but with this car having quite hard or "resilient' paint and so many random deep scratches, I knew it would help us get out some of the more deep scratches more quickly. When we say that modern clear coat paints are delicate during the washing step but resilient on the other end of things when we attempt to take out defects, this is a great example of what we are referring to.
Testing with M100 Pro Speed Compound applied via DMC5 DA Microfiber Cutting Disc on MT300 Dual Action Polisher. This combination increased our level of cut significantly, and left very little haze which we knew would clean up with a secondary polish step. We proceeded to move forward with this set up.
It is important to clean our DA Microfiber Discs on the fly frequently with either compressed air, a detailing brush, or by using a microfiber towel to soak up some of the product & spent residue.
Meguiar's newly re-introduced 3" DA Microfiber Discs were also used for the tighter areas on the hood.
Thank you Craig for helping clean out the microfiber discs!
After we completed the compound step, we used Meguiar's Professional Mirror Glaze M205 Ultra Finishing Polish on our DFP5 Soft Buff DA Foam Polishing Disc to refine the paint finish & bring up an extreme high gloss. This step was completed with minimal effort. The paint finished out in a breeze & we were ready for a coat of wax. - Let me further clarify what this step is for. When using a Meguiar's compound, even though our abrasive technology will very often leave virtually a swirl free minimal DA Haze free finish, there are many times where especially on darker colored vehicles, a decent amount of DA Haze is left behind from the compound step. The use of a cleaner/polish like in this case Meguiar's Professional Mirror Glaze M205 Ultra Finishing Polish, will work to remove the DA Haze, and bring back that ultra high gloss to the paint, preparing it for a coat of protection.
Ultimate Liquid Wax was chosen to provide protection. Here we are seen removing the remainder of the wax. A black Supreme Shine Microfiber Towel is included in the box with either Ultimate Liquid or Ultimate Paste Wax.
Time to pull the car out into the sun to see our work..........
UNFORTUNATELY there was no sun today. It was hidden by cloud cover. Let's take a look back at the BEFORE condition in the next two pictures.
BEFORE
BEFORE
And AFTER M100 Pro Speed Compound, M205 Ultimate Finishing Polish, and Ultimate Liquid Wax applied with Meguiar's MT300 Dual Action Polisher.
You could say that Jason (BILTRYT) was a little happy about the results!
Thanks to everyone for coming out!
Meguiar's Intro to Paint Care & D/A Polishing consists of both an instructor led classroom presentation as well as "hands on" time in the garage. Below is some of the topics attendants can expect to learn about:
- Short segment on Meguiar's History
- Differences in Meguiar's Product Lines
- Factors to keep in mind when asking one self "Which product do I use?"
- Information on Meguiar's Car Wash Solutions & Washing Accessories
- Proper Washing Technique
- Meguiar's Alternatives to traditional washing
- What Above Surface Contaminants are & How to Evaluate for them
- How Below Surface Defects are caused & How to Evaluate for them
- Which products are used for removing Above Surface Contaminants
- Which products are used for removing Below Surface Defects
- How to use Detailing Clay
- How to apply Compounds & Paint Cleaners by Hand or Machine
- Meguiar's Definition of a "Polish"
- Differences between Pure Polishes vs. Cleaner Polishes
- How to apply Polishes by Hand or Machine
- What Waxes provide for our vehicles paint & what they do not provide
- Differences in various Meguiar's Waxes offerings
- How to properly apply a coat of Wax
- Tips for proper paint maintenance
- Basic Interior Care Techniques & Product Selection
- Basic Wheel & Tire Care Techniques & Product Selection
- Basic differences between a Rotary Polisher Machine & a Random Orbital Dual Action Polisher
- Overview of Meguiar's MT300 Dual Action Polisher
- Overview of Meguiar's Soft Buff DA Foam Discs (Cutting,Polishing,Finishing)
- Basic Dual Action Polisher Technique
- How to Perform a Test Spot using a Dual Action Polisher
After some coffee & donuts we started the classroom portion of the day. Packed house!
After pizza for lunch, we headed into the garage for "hands on" training. Today we worked on one of our class attendant's 2011 Mercedes Benz S550 in non metallic black. The vehicle was quite dirty from the rain & the owner's drive up from San Diego so we showed proper technique for using our Ultimate Waterless Wash & Wax.
Next the class attendants all pitched in and we performed a waterless wash on the entire exterior of the vehicle.
After creating a clean surface with our Ultimate Waterless Wash & Wax, we evaluated the paint for above surface contaminants by physically feeling the paint with our hands. The vehicle did feel a little rough, so we used our Smooth Surface Clay Kit to safely remove the contaminants & create a smooth paint finish. The use of Detailing Clay like our Smooth Surface Clay Kit is straight forward & easy to use, but still today many users have yet to try it or are aware of how important of a step it is to take. If bonded above surface contaminants are left on the vehicles paint, your wax will not apply as easy or last & long.
You can see in the below picture a light hue of brown. Those are the contaminants from the paint we removed up into the clay bar. This vehicle did not have many contaminants. More often time the clay will be very brown from the abundance of contaminants removed.
The car owner & others helped to clay the entire hood.
After claying, we like to pull the car out into the direct sunlight to show the true condition of the paintwork. If you looks closely in the below picture you can start to see the swirl marks where the sun is reflecting off the hood. These are typcially inflicted from improper washing techniques.
And now up close under our lights in the garage. We did not notice these random deep scratches upon initial inspection! Yikes! These will be much more stubborn to remove.
Let's get to work on our test spot. We started by taping off some of the surrounding trim to keep from getting compound & polish residue in the cracks.
We started with Ultimate Compound applied with our DFC5 Soft Buff DA Foam Cutting Disc, 5800 OPMS, moderate pressure, moderate arm speed, 50% overlapping passes.
After inspecting our works, by the look on everyone's faces, it looks like we are starting to get somewhere. Scroll down for results.
This combination removed about all of the more shallow "cobweb/spider web" style swirl marks. In the below picture, you can see that there was some DA Haze left behind from the compound process. This is common, especially on non metallic black. Our secondary polish step will refine the paint & remove the DA Haze, bringing back the high gloss. If this was all we were up against this combination would have worked just great. If our goal was to make an 80% improvement, this combination followed by a polish step & wax step would have yield massive improvements. But, the light cobweb/spider web looking swirls were not all we were up against. Scroll down for more info into our process.
BEFORE Ultimate Compound, DFC5 Soft Buff DA Foam Cutting Disc applied via MT300 Dual Action Polisher.
AFTER Ultimate Compound, DFC5 Soft Buff DA Foam Cutting Disc applied via MT300 Dual Action Polisher.
There were A LOT of random deep scratches in the paint in addition to the "cobweb/spiderweb" swirl marks. I let the class know, we do have the option to get more aggressive. We discussed the options, the vehicle owner's goals. We decided to step up in aggressiveness, and I felt comfortable moving into using some of our professional line products with this class, especially since about 75% of today's class had previous Dual Action Polisher experience. We stepped up to Meguiar's Professional DMC5 DA Microfiber Cutting Disc & Meguiar's Professional Mirror Glaze M100 Pro Speed Compound. This combination is a significant step above in aggressiveness. The level of aggressiveness is not needed as often, but with this car having quite hard or "resilient' paint and so many random deep scratches, I knew it would help us get out some of the more deep scratches more quickly. When we say that modern clear coat paints are delicate during the washing step but resilient on the other end of things when we attempt to take out defects, this is a great example of what we are referring to.
Testing with M100 Pro Speed Compound applied via DMC5 DA Microfiber Cutting Disc on MT300 Dual Action Polisher. This combination increased our level of cut significantly, and left very little haze which we knew would clean up with a secondary polish step. We proceeded to move forward with this set up.
It is important to clean our DA Microfiber Discs on the fly frequently with either compressed air, a detailing brush, or by using a microfiber towel to soak up some of the product & spent residue.
Meguiar's newly re-introduced 3" DA Microfiber Discs were also used for the tighter areas on the hood.
Thank you Craig for helping clean out the microfiber discs!
After we completed the compound step, we used Meguiar's Professional Mirror Glaze M205 Ultra Finishing Polish on our DFP5 Soft Buff DA Foam Polishing Disc to refine the paint finish & bring up an extreme high gloss. This step was completed with minimal effort. The paint finished out in a breeze & we were ready for a coat of wax. - Let me further clarify what this step is for. When using a Meguiar's compound, even though our abrasive technology will very often leave virtually a swirl free minimal DA Haze free finish, there are many times where especially on darker colored vehicles, a decent amount of DA Haze is left behind from the compound step. The use of a cleaner/polish like in this case Meguiar's Professional Mirror Glaze M205 Ultra Finishing Polish, will work to remove the DA Haze, and bring back that ultra high gloss to the paint, preparing it for a coat of protection.
Ultimate Liquid Wax was chosen to provide protection. Here we are seen removing the remainder of the wax. A black Supreme Shine Microfiber Towel is included in the box with either Ultimate Liquid or Ultimate Paste Wax.
Time to pull the car out into the sun to see our work..........
UNFORTUNATELY there was no sun today. It was hidden by cloud cover. Let's take a look back at the BEFORE condition in the next two pictures.
BEFORE
BEFORE
And AFTER M100 Pro Speed Compound, M205 Ultimate Finishing Polish, and Ultimate Liquid Wax applied with Meguiar's MT300 Dual Action Polisher.
You could say that Jason (BILTRYT) was a little happy about the results!
Thanks to everyone for coming out!
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