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Here's a stylish brand new 2005 C6
And yet another row of Corvettes at Meguiar's led off by a Suzuki Motorcycle!
And yet another row of Corvettes at Meguiar's led off by a Suzuki Motorcycle!
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The classroom portion came in at just about 4 hours long!, that's because everyone had great questions!
After the question and answer portion of the class we broke for a pizza lunch and to look for a Corvette with a horrible finish and we found it in Ray's bright yellow Corvette. Out of all the corvettes at the class today, the finish on Ray's Corvette was easily the worst, or at least a close second! (Sorry Ray!
) Of course Ray races his Corvette so it sees a lot of abuse not only as his daily driver but on the track too!
The sun wasn't cooperating very much on this particular day so we had a hard time capturing the swirls in all their glory with our cameras. With the sun hiding behind the clouds, at first look the finish looks pretty good,
But when the sun finally did poke its head out, we we're able to capture this single photo with our Cannon Digital Rebel.
The above photo is an un-touched, 700 pixel cropped out section. Believe it or not, the swirls are a lot worse than what the picture reveals.Comment
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Here's some before photos captured with the old Sony Mavica which is usually very good at capturing swirls, even better than the Rebel.
The sun in hiding...
Then the sun poked its head out a litttle...
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After selecting our demo car and having everyone look at the condition of the finish in outdoor light, we had Ray drive his Corvette into Meguiar's Garage to begin the extreme makeover!
The first order of business would be to remove any light dust using Quik Detailer together with Meguiar's new Supreme Shine Microfiber polishing cloths.
After pizza and cold drinks, everyone was ready to jump in and get busy!
After the entire car was wiped down everyone had a chance to inspect the condition of the finish on Ray's Corvette by feeling it with the palm of their clean hands. Everyone was pretty much in agreement that the finish felt more like sandpaper than how it should have felt which is like brand new smooth glass.
To remove the above surface bonded contaminants, we passed out chunks of Meguiar's detailing clay from our Quik Clay System and after a re-cap of the techniques for using detailing clay to clay paint, the club members were turned loose to clay Ray's Corvette!
Norma kneading her clay into a small wafer about the size of a small pancake
Next Norma pushes her wafer of detailing clay over the roof of Ray's Corvette after first spraying Meguiar's Quik Detailer both onto the clay and onto the paint.
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After claying the entire finish and also the window glass, next we used the Xenon Light, also known as a Swirl Finder to highlight the swirls. Everyone was encouraged to move to the front of the car where they could easily see the horrendous swirls and scratches in the finish of Ray's Corvette.
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Next up was a demonstration of the correct technique for applying and working in ScratchX , Meguiar's hand applied swirl remover.
Often times people ask the question,
"How do you tell if the paint on your car is hard or soft?"
The answer is... you don't know until after you do your first Test Spot in a small area and then after applying and working the product against the finish, you wipe it off and inspect the results.
If you an see a dramatic difference after one application you can assume you have somewhat soft paint as with the one application you were able to remove enough paint to make a visual difference.
(See, What it Means to Remove a Scratch)
If you see no difference, then repeat the process. After applying, working-in and then removing 2-3 applications of ScratchX to a small area, for example about 8 inches square, if you don't see a dramatic improvement this is telling you that your car's finish is fairly hard and massaging out defects will be very difficult by hand.
Point is, you don't know what you can do until you try.
In our case, I could tell after inspecting the results after the first application that the paint on this Corvette was as hard as glass and I was going to have to really put some passion behind my applicator pad if I was going to remove some swirls.
During the classroom portion one of the things we like to stress is that modern catalyzed paints tend to be harder than traditional solvent-evaporation paints and because they're are harder, working out defects using only your hands can be very difficult, thus one of the reasons for the increase in popularity in dual action polishers like Meguiar's G-100a
I also shared my own personal experience buffing out a number of Corvettes over the years and that all the newer Corvettes that I've buffed out have had extremely hard paint.
Applying ScratchX
Applying Second Application of ScratchX
Applying Third Application of ScratchX
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After applying and remove three applications of ScratchX we used the Xenon light to check our results.
Everyone was impressed with the reduction in swirls and scratches as well as the dramatic improvement in gloss, clarity, reflectivity and richness of color. There were still swirls in the paint, but now that the lightest swirls had been removed only the deepest swirls remained and because of the hardness of the paint and the fact that this is a daily driver that is raced on weekends, that was as far as we were going to go using only our hands.
We went a head and applied a thin coating of Deep Crystal Polish.
When applying pure polishes, you don't let these products dry, you just apply them, work them in and then remove them using a clean soft 100% cotton towel or a soft, plush microfiber polishing cloth.
After this step we applied an application of the NEW NXT Generation Tech Wax Paste and then allowed the wax to dry until it swiped clear.
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While the NXT Tech Wax was drying, we taped-off an area to demonstrate the ability and efficiency of the G100 dual action polisher.
After taping a section of, we then used the G100 with some #80 Speed Glaze with one of our Meguiar's W-8006 Foam Polishing Pad on a speed setting of 5.0
After carefully machine cleaning the finish and then wiping off any excess residue we gain inspected our results using the Xenon Swirl Finder and everyone could see that machine polishing produces better results faster and easier than hand polishing.
Next up we applied a thin coat of NXT Generation Tech Wax using a Meguiar's W-9006 foam finishing pad with the G100 dual action polisher only we slowed the polisher down to the 3.0 setting.
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After the wax had been removed, we asked for a couple of volunteers from the audience to do the honor of removing the wax and showing the guys how easy NXT Tech Wax is to remove especially when you apply a thin coating.
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After the wax had been removed it was time to back the Corvette out of the garage and inspect the results in bright light to see what we accomplished...
Ray seems to like the difference!
It was very difficult to capture the end-results as the sun just was not cooperating, suffice to say the finish came out 100% better than how it started!Comment
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I love reading your detail day reports!
I just hope that one day we'll be able to have one here as well.
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After everyone had a chance to see the dramatic change in before and after from the two different processes, (By hand and by machine), it was time to drive Ray's Corvette back into the garage and take what they've learned and put it into action!
If you look closely you can see a bead of M80 Speed Glaze in a circle around the outside of the face of the pad on the G100 Nick is holding.
When we say, "Hands-on Training", we mean it!
After a few tips, Nick is polishing like he's a seasoned Pro!
It's important to try to always hold the pad flat to the finish; this means getting a feel for following the curves of the panel you're working on and adjusting the angel and way your hold the body of the G100.
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Getting Busy!
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After applying the NXT Generation Tech Wax and then allowing it to dry until it swiped clear, it was time to remove it using Gold Class Clear Coat Safe Microfiber Bonnets over our W-7006 Foam Cutting Pad on our G100 Dual Action Polisher on the 5.0 Setting
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In order to get the bonnet to remove the wax, you need to use the polisher on the higher, 5.0 setting and push down fairly aggressively.
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After we cleaned, polished and waxed Ray's Corvette it looked like it just rolled off the assembly line!
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