Polishing and vinyl

[Danny45]

Okay guys, I just went thru each page of the photos section, and I'm really impressed with the work you guys have done.

I have a question about my truck pictured below.




As you can see, the "Colorado" letters are raised and made of chrome plastic. They are also very close to the body side moldings. Also, being a Z71, there's the vinyl decal on each side of the bed.

How would you go about detailing this truck? I want to get as much of the truck as possible, without leaving obvious gaps in the areas that it would be difficult to get a buffer into. And I'm pretty sure I would want to leave the vinyl decals alone. What say you pro's?

Sorry about the quality of the picture. Cloudy day, old camera, and even older cameraman.

[Mike Phillips]

For graphics like yours, for the most part you want to just work around them. The big picture is... the big picture. That is, how does the entire truck look, not a small area around the vinyl graphics. If you do a great job of making all the large panels look stellar, and then do what you can around the graphics, when you stand back and look at the truck you will be Wowed!.

You can do either two ways, work around the hard to polish areas first and then machine polish as close to them as you can, or machine polish around them first and come back later and hand polish what you could not reach with the machine.

For these hard to reach areas, use ScratchX, followed by a pure polish followed by your choice of wax.

Mike

[Danny45]

You da man, Mike!! Thanks. I may just strip off all that crud, leaving only the BSM to protect it from soccer moms in the grocery store parking lot.

[travisdecpn]

I think it would look sweet if you debadged it. If you decide not to remove the decals though, taping the chrome decal would be an option, you could easily polish the area around it without fear of getting wax inbetween the letter.

[Tim Lingor]

Hey Danny,

I too have a 4x4 decal on my truck. As Mike mentioned it is best to work around it. I tend to detail by hand an area about 2" thick around the decal, then machine buff the rest.

If you decide to remove the decal, be prepared for paint that may not quite match underneath as the rest may be faded slightly etc. You may have to buff the area to match the rest of the paint.

Cheers!

Tim

[Danny45]

Thanks guys for the responses. I don't think there'll be any ghosting if I take off the decals as the truck isn't that old yet. It wasn't on the lot very long, and spent most of it's time in the showroom as it's one the dealer added some accessories to in order to show it off. I could be wrong though. I'll probably start with the dealership billboard on the tailgate. It's not very big, and ghosting there wouldn't be that noticeable. If it's okay there, I should be okay with the rest of them.

I'm torn on this issue. That's one good thing about having the decals, everyone knows what it is. Colorado, Z71, 4x4. If I take them off, I'm gonna be answering a lot of questions. Is that a Chevy?? (the only remaining evidence would be the bowtie on the grill) Is that the Z71 (off-road package) or the Z85 (base)? Is it 2wd or 4x4? (yes, both the Z71 and the Z85 packages come with both 2wd and 4x4)