hows this for 10 y/o paint

wash, clay, optimum hyper compound, optimum compound, glaze, optimum poli-seal

finish is still not 100% cause im still a noob with the 7274XP, but 1000% better than before.

i think the water marks on the hood are etched in permanently, i couldnt get it off with hypercompound + wool pad

also, is there anything i can add to the rubber trim i got compound / wax on? i have some back to black, will that work?

ill post a before and after later.

PS. im never doing a whole car with 4" pads again.

 

Well it certainly looks great from that distance. Your key phrase was 1000% better. Thats success in my book.
The problem with striving for perfect with a DD, is not leaving enough CC for the following years worth of detailings.
I shoot for about 90% the majority of time. And if youve seen some of the stuff I have had to deal with, 90% would be 1000% better as well.
Nice job, especially with 4"s. One way to attack a surface with 4" pads is just a couple of panels a day.......

 

its not perfect, but compared to before... to a detailer like you, it would have probably made you sick to your stomach lol.

 

good work... black is hard to begin with in the first place... but don't get too greedy on having the car perfect... esp as patrick said, on a DD make sure you leave enough paint on there so that you have something to detail in another 10 yrs...

 

Some guys keep recommending 4" pads ... to me they are good for the small areas but use the larger pads for the rest. I have the UDM set up with 4" and the 7424 XP set up with 5.5".

 

Nice work on your detail. What did you think of the PC 7424XP? Now to maintain it properly so that the paint stays looking like that with minimal effort.

Larger pads wouldn't have saved much time and offered less correction, it's a wash in my book. You can only get so much out of a PC, smaller pads will maximize your correction ability. Next time around if you maintain properly, you can probably get away with a finishing polish and a larger pad.

Nice job on your car, keep it up.

George

 

its getting dirty already

i'm assuming some quick detailer will take care of it?

i want it nice and clean again this friday before the import alliance meet in TN, should i go over it with polish?

 

Your going to set yourself up to marr it if you get into the habit of a QD on a dirty car... wash it ... Should be no need to polish and remove all the glaze & poli seal.

 

You will always attract excessive dust after an initial application of wax or sealant. 1 wash later, dust attraction drops off significantly. QD or spray wax after your first wash or NRWS (Which I would do it just before the meet).

 

Car looks great. Any close up reflection shots?

 

I have some on the camera, just took a before and after. Not too much during because the 4" pads were pissing me off. LOL. I'll post those up later tonight.

 

I'm in to check this out...car looks amazing. Congrats on getting it right the first time! About back to black, let me know how that works out for you. I have a similar issue...I'm guessing that's the reason for the painters tape around trip normally.

I also tried to use some zaino z-2 on all the black pieces last night when I did another coat on the car...seems to bring the lustre and "black" back too...try something like that out possibly.

About the water etching...I have the same on my hood from a wash in the sun (dumb). Let me know how you get it out please.

 

Thanks.

I have back to black, I've used it before, but I never really liked it because it was really oily and hard to contain in one spot. Maybe I was just using too much. But I will definately give it a go again this week before I drive up to TN.

As for the etching, I may try some M105 on my friends Flex to see if it fixes it. I dont know if it will. I did multiple passes with a wool pad using optimum hyper compound and although it got a bit better, its not really going away.

 

Hmmm....you know something funny...when putting on the zaino z-2 last night...kind of rubbed it on the water spots and it was coming off...I just didn't have the energy to rub that hard over the entire hood!

I may give that a shot...
I would say be careful about going too aggressive to take them off...maybe someone wiser can enlighten us as to wtf they are?!? how can the swirls go but the etching stay?

I have back to black too...i used to use it but it doesn't last long and for sure...it ends up EVERYWHERE!!!! Maybe some silicone spray on a paper towel to "lube" up the weatherstipping and give it the black sheen?

 

well my paint isnt the best thing in the world so i'm willing to experiment. on a nicer car like yours, id be a little more cautious

 

Are the 4" pads really that bad? I mean I usually use 5.5" but will be doing 4" on my CL with 12 y/o black paint. I'm sure it's more tedious, and takes longer, but is it really THAT bad?

 

well it was my first time too, so i didnt really know what i was in for. i'll tell you what though, its much better than using your hands

when i was applying glaze, i used the supplied pad that came with the porter cable 7274XP and it covered so much more area and cut down a lot of time.

 

Yeah, bigger pads save time, but you loose a lot of cutting power as far as paint restoration and swirl removal

 

thanks for the compliment meng...
took me a while to get here though...
1988 ford taurus station wagon
1986 toyota corolla
1991 honda civic hatch
1997 honda accord sedan (first lowered car)
2002 nissan frontier crew cab (kept for a month)
2004 honda civic si EP
2005 acura rsx-s
2004 acura tl.

it's been the natural progression of things...you should have seen what i did to that poor accord...had the hood repainted by some crap body shop...2 years later had the whole thing reshot minus jams and engine bay with a cheap single stage paintjob...I'd be proud to drive your accord!

 

NO..........I did an entire full size pickup with them one beautiful hot summer afternoon............
Before

During
In this shot, the top 1/2 has already been polished with 4" pads. The flake really returned nicely.

After

 

heres the before and after

 

why am i not seeing pics? i'm using mozilla, could it be that?

 

Works on my firefox