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Today I did some detailing...
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Pictures seem good to me
Also great work on the car. Can I ask what it is. I'm not BMW fan in general (ie; I've nothing against them, but I don't love them, like a lot of people do) but that particular one always stood out to me as a lovely motor. Always loved the kinda squared-off look it has.0 -
Another day, another disaster.
So, getting frustrated with the weather, I've decided that I have to detail panel by panel indoors. I find myself getting increasingly annoyed at the sheer amount of scratches that are littered all over the Rav's bodywork, with the bonnet and driver side door around the handle area being two areas in particular that wreck my head.
So I said to myself, today, I have all the CG's Hexlogic pads I need (green is the roughest that is advised to use on a 'soft' paint car, which apparently the toyota is). I ruined the more aggressive orange and yellow ones on my brothers car, but sure that's neither here nor there.
Anyway. Bonnet was filthy.
So washed that off with a 2BM wash (the blur is my hand with a mitt on)
Dried it:
Then I clayed it (made no difference, really. Only took tiny fragments of dirt off it):
and washed the clay marks off:
Then I took an area, masked it off and polished it. Here's a before:
And after:
This is where it all fell apart for me.
Although the before and after above has a reasonable level of difference, it didn't actually look much better in person. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it barely improved the overall appearance. There were still a couple of noticeable (but not feel-able) scratch marks. So I polished it again and spent longer at it. Same result.
So I got annoyed and decided to wet sand it. I figured, I could easily get rid of the sand marks on my brothers car (the Megane), so if i replace the few noticeable scratches with hundreds of much smaller ones, the DAS will be more successful at getting them out.
So I sanded it, and when I dried it off, I nearly filled my boxers :eek: .
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Thankfully, my heart needn't stop too long, as I polished it back to black:
But it couldn't even polish out all of the sanding marks!?
Polished (left) and un-polished (right)
Without the tape (though you can still see an outline of where the tape was)
So I am pretty much back to where I started with it!? Great way to pass a couple of hours :rolleyes:
Need to pick up the most aggressive Hexlogic pad again. The rest are a waste of time.
Maybe time to try different pads altogether? Anyone any suggestions or recommendations? 0 -
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JAMES VTI S wrote: ».............. :eek:
Ah, t'is nothing a bit of tender loving care won't sort out.
... I hope... :P0 -
Here's a guy wet sanding and polishing the finish on a guitar. Gives the idea.
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Here's a guy wet sanding and polishing the finish on a guitar. Gives the idea.
Oh I've a fair idea of how it all works. It's just the practicality of actually doing it for the first time.
My hope is that in the next few months, the Rav will look like a brand new car. I want the paint work to be as flawless as possible.
The issue is that it's just (evidently) not really had any caring owners from a cosmetic standpoint (mechanically there's not a bother on it).
Here are two photos I took of the Rav within the first month of owning it (About a fortnight after buying it).
You can see the street lighting brings up the swirl marks on the paint work. It is literally covered head to toe in them:
(click photos for link to full size picture)
So I know I've an enormous task in front of me (hence the decision to do it panel by panel, in an effort to keep myself sane) but with little actual practical detailing experience (and no touch-up experience, for the stone chips and such) I'm pretty much guaranteed to make plenty of mistakes along the way.
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Step away I repeat step away from the sand paper. Your going to make a mess of the whole car. Just bring it to a pro and keep on top of the paint if it needs swirls removed again.
But what would I learn from handing it over to someone else?
MetzgerMeister wrote: »+1
Either than or just use your D/A. It's soft Jap paint so the D/A along with a bit of patience will go a long way.
There's a reason it takes time and that's so that you don't damage the paint with the machine but some of us aren't happy with the lack of damage they have done so they go at the soft Jap paint with sandpaper and make an absolute arse of it :P
Jesus, you'd swear I was after just going up to some fellas car on the street and firing away..?
It's my own car, folks. I'm happy to try new things. Worst case scenario is I get the panel resprayed and that'll cost feck all anyway, so..?
I do need to pick up more aggressive pads for the DA though. I spent ages on it with the one I had, and it's improvement wasn't great. I want to get rid of all the scratches I can't feel. 0 -
KKV, what polish did you use? I imagine black paint is a lot harder to get looking right, but I found Autoglym polish was sufficient after a clay to hide head to toe swirls on our car, metallic silver (and even thin scratches on the bonnet can only be seen close up). EGP on top too but I'm sure I remember the polish doing most of it.
I've been holding off and reading more, getting more familiar with bodywork care and even stuff like the headlight restoration for now, but I do want to attempt some scratch repair myself in time, so interested to see how you get on!
Meguiar's Ultimate Cut Compound, I think it's called (something along those lines).
Got decent results using it on the Megane with the more aggressive pads for the DA (though even then it took a bit of time).
Scratch repair is something I'm interested in (in terms of both getting away the swirls and cleaning actual 'i hit it against something' scratches.
Would love to be able to do a bit of panel beating, even, if need be (not as a job or such, I don't mean, but just a skill to have for myself and my own cars in future).
I'm interested to see how I get on, too! :P:o0 -
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Get the orange pad for the DA and some aggressive compound and you might be able to recover those scratches. Don't assume a respray is the easy (cheap?) way out if you screw it up either. A good bonnet respray is going to be a few hundred euro, a full car (done right) closer to €2000.
Ah I know a panel beater well who'd give me a good price. I'd say I'd pay no more than €200, if that. The cost of a DA and I'd have a fresh surface. The bonnet of the Rav annoys me, but I don't want to just hand it over to someone.
Even if I make a total balls of it, I'd still rather give it a whirl myself, first. You never know, if you never try, and all that.Deleted User wrote: »Jesus, you'd swear I was after just going up to some fellas car on the street and firing away..? It's my own car, folks. I'm happy to try new things. Worst case scenario is I get the panel resprayed and that'll cost feck all anyway, so..?
Just flicked through the thread again, and re-reading my own post there, I realised it might sound a bit harsh or that I'm getting a bit aggressive with you there, MM.
Just wanted to clarify that's not the case at all. I'm aware at the end of the day it's all a bit of fun and didn't want you to take me up wrongly there (not sure if you read it yet or not, so...).0 -
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Tomorrow? Sure that could be weeks away!? :eek: :P
Today I re-polished the area I 'ruined' on my bonnet the last time. I spent a solid 40 minutes on that single section. Maybe the green pad isn't completely useless, but mine is just worn down or such? (though it looks fresh enough?).
Anyway, I went over the area and spent ages on it. I got rid of all the sandpaper marks easily enough, but I couldn't get a particular scratch I was aiming for, to come out, so i got annoyed and went to sandpaper again ( ) and went at it with the DAS again. I'd say I went through a quarter of the bottle of polish on it.
But anyway, the end of the story is that the bonnet part i worked on still has visible scratches, but they're only noticeable under direct light and you do have to look for them (all the sandpaper marks are long gone).
I'm not doing anymore without the yellow and orange pads though. That green pad must have been sourced in a joke shop somewhere. After taking off the 3M tape that I was using to seperate the area i was working on, there were noticeable marks from where the tape was when i was polishing. After a solid 2 minutes (no exaggeration) of just polishing the tape marks, they were STILL there. :rolleyes:
But I can see improvement. I just need to really take my time. I didn't have the camera so no pictures unfortunately.
I also tried this amount of Mr Pink:
http://photos2.pix.ie/D4/D0/D4D0459DC528414EB522BF5626D65AB4-0000333410-0003511361-00640L-35FE9045BE4D4D8AB305462F8FC6578C.jpg
with hot water (filled to the top of the label) to get this result (warning: nauseating video):
(if that's not working, or sideways, just give it an hour. It's too awkward to hold the phone sideways/properly when foaming so i always have to rotate it on Youtube).0 -
Cleaned the interior today, just used APC on everything, plastic, seats, mats, can't believe how well it cleans everything, seats and mats are like new. To think of all the money I've wasted on fancy cleaners over the years.
Not bad for a 10 year old car
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![[Deleted User]](/applications/dashboard/design/images/defaulticon.png)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYMYEVShYO0
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