Detailing Horse trailer

[norma]

hi all,
My horse trailer needs a facelift. This trailer is made out of aluminum with single stage metallic paint. (learned about single stage paint here) From the picts you may be able to tell it as a lot of oxidation. In order to get my trailer looking the best i can where do i start and which products do i use?
thanks

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Detailing Horse trailer

That's quite a project...

A great way to restore single stage paint is with our M80 Speed Glaze because it's not only a cleaner that will remove the dead paint but it contains a lot of polishing oils that that dried out paint will absorb like a sponge and this will bring out the color and help to slow future oxidation.

You can apply this by hand or machine.

After removing the oxidation you'll want to apply a good coat or two of wax.

You'll also want to clay the paint first to remove any above surface bonded contaminants.

Do you have a DA Polisher or would you be interested in learning to use a DA Polisher? It will take a lot of the work out of the job.

[norma]

Re: Detailing Horse trailer

Hi Mike, thanks for the reply.
I do not have a DA Polisher . . yet.
I did pick up some Compound Power Cleaner #84. If you look at the pict of the two doors, on the bottom door on the right hand side you can see some discoloration where i tried it out. It did ok, but i do not have the attention span nor the elbow grease to do it all by hand, lol. So i will be getting a polisher. :-D
You mention to clay the paint, is that before or after using the speed glaze?
and which clay would be best, mild or aggressive?
and then which wax ? Meguiar's has way too many products! lol

[TXShine]

Re: Detailing Horse trailer

Where are the pics? Am I missing something?

Besides the pics....

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Detailing Horse trailer

Hi Mike, thanks for the reply.
I do not have a DA Polisher . . yet.
I did pick up some Compound Power Cleaner #84. If you look at the pict of the two doors, on the bottom door on the right hand side you can see some discoloration where i tried it out. It did ok, but i do not have the attention span nor the elbow grease to do it all by hand, lol. So i will be getting a polisher. :-D

The bottom right hand corner of this door?



The reason why M80 works so good when trying to remove oxidation and restore the vibrant color of oxidized paint is because the diminishing abrasives will remove the old faded dead paint while the extra rich content of polishing oils in this product will tend to gorge the dried out paint and bring back the color.

M80 is unique compared to our other cleaning products in this aspect.

Just to note as we don't want you to get you hopes up to high and that's because the paint used on this trailer might not be the most polishable no matter what you use, it could be all you'll get is some smoothness and shine but not a brand new looking paint job like the way this paint reacted to M80 Speed Glaze.

1974 Mercedes-Benz 450 SL

Before - Yes the paint is actually turning from red to white in some places


After

You mention to clay the paint, is that before or after using the speed glaze?
and which clay would be best, mild or aggressive?

Sorry for the brief initial post, we were heading out for some lunch...

Here's the order

Wash
Clay
Clean
Polish
Wax

So you would wash the trailer as good a you can and then clay the heck out of it as it looks like it's going to need it.

Does the paint feel smooth? Or does it fell like concrete or #40 grit sandpaper?

In some cases you would actually clean the paint first and then clay because claying oxidized paint will load your clay up with dead paint.

You'll have to experiment when you get the M80 to a small section and see which order works best for you.

As for which clay? We usually don't recommend our aggressive clay except to Professionals because when working on a clear coat finish it can sometimes haze the paint, in your situation since its a single stage paint and not a show car then the aggressive would probably be the most effective.

and then which wax ? Meguiar's has way too many products! lol

If the claying and cleaning really do a good job of restoring the shine to this trailer paint then any of our waxes could be used but if it were mine I would probably go with NXT Tech Wax.

If you haven't already, please read through this as it will help to bring you up to sped with the different product categories and the order of the steps.

Meguiar's 5-Step Paint Care Cycle
(Posted in the The Information Station)

[norma]

Re: Detailing Horse trailer

In some areas where the paint is unaffected it is very smooth. In other areas where there is oxidation is it feels like 80 grit sandpaper.
I know i wont be able to bring it back to brand new. I at least want to remove the oxidation and get the paint in the best condition possible.
On the inside of the trailer where the sun has not effected the paint it looks beautiful ! nice and shinny and smooth.
here is another pict of the area


thanks again :-)

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Detailing Horse trailer

M84 is designed to be applied using a rotary buffer, not by hand not using a DA Polisher, it might work really well if you were using it with a rotary buffer to cut out all of the dead paint.

M80 can be used by hand, DA Polisher and Rotary buffer, for your application to be honest it really would benefit from the use with a rotary buffer and a wool pad to really go after all the oxidation and this would also smooth the paint over and thus bring up the gloss and shine.If you get a DA Polisher, since this is a single stage paint you could use a foam cutting pad with the M80 and this should be fairly effective, you'll want to only tackle small sections at a time, about a foot squared.

You can actually get more cleaning action out of your hand for this type of Restoration because you can exert more pressure in a smaller area using your 4 fingers to push down on a piece of terry cloth toweling versus how a DA Polisher will exert force over the entire face of the foam buffing pad.


Example of your hands ability to exert pressure
After applying a paint cleaner by hand to remove swirls and scratches to a car with a red single stage paint job and then turning the applicator over you can see that red pigmented paint accumulated the most where your 4 fingertips pressed down on the applicator pad. You get these same types of results when you're working on a clear coat finish by hand, (with a paint cleaner), except you can't see the accumulation of removed paint because it's clear.






We have a new polisher on the market and it really offers quite a bit more power than the Porter Cable unit we used to sell and you'll see for sale on a lot of websites. It keeps the pad rotating better under pressure and it's when the pad is rotating that it's going to remove the most dead paint.


Be sure to read through this...

Tips & Techniques for using the G110, G100, G220 and the PC Dual Action Polisher
(These are all similar tools)

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Detailing Horse trailer

Don't know if it's in your budget but one option would be to hire a Professional Detailer to do the hard work, (remove the oxidation using a rotary buffer), and then you could take over the maintain of it afterwards.

Just an idea...

[southpactire]

Re: Detailing Horse trailer

Mike,

This thread has got me thinking that my horse trailer might be my next big project. I was going to either do the horse trailer truck (98 GMC 3/4 ton) or the 66 Buick GranSport "Survivor". My trailer has been indoors most of it's life but has only had semi annual washes...no polishing or waxing. Since it has lots of flat verticle panels it might be a good one to practice using my new rotary with M66. Should I use the 8006 pad with m66?

[norma]

Re: Detailing Horse trailer

Mike, my first thought was to hire a pro, but i cant find one in my area. :-(

[roushstage2]

Re: Detailing Horse trailer

There are many people in CA, especially here on the boards. A more specific area will help.

[jlaska]

Re: Detailing Horse trailer

this is an interesting topic regarding horse trailers, i also have some knowledge about it