First detail on old paint

[Dennis S]

Hi, novice at waxing/detailing.
The car is a 76 MGB which had one bad respray about 12 years ago. I bought it last year and have used Meguiars step 1 paint cleaner and gold class wax on it previously.
This week I used a Mothers clay bar (my first effort with clay). lubricated with gold class car wash and water from a spray bottle. Washed, then Show glaze #7. followed by Gold class paste wax. I keep standing back and admiring the results.
What do I do next?
I thought I would add one more layer of gold class paste. What about following that with spray detailer? Will that "set" the wax, harden the finish and bring up more shine.
Thanks!

[Mike Phillips]

Hi Dennis,

Welcome to Meguiar's Online!

Without seeing the finish first hand or a good close-up picture it's hard to say if you've done everything you can do to maximize the finish you have.

Your end-results are always dependent upon your prep work an in your case you have clayed the finish and used our Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner to clean the finish. Deep Crystal is a very gentle paint cleaner and as long as your finish was in excellent shape to start with then this is a good paint cleaner to use. If your finish has swirls and scratches or any other paint blemish than a more aggressive paint cleaner would improve your end results. By hand this would be ScratchX.

In the below picture, we removed the swirls by hand using ScratchX and the resulting finish was impressive to most.



Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner could never achieve these kind of results as it's formulated to be a gentle cleaner.

So that's something to think about. If you're pretty happy with the level of finish you've attained already then by all means a second coat of wax always insure uniform protection and uniform appearance.

As far as spraying a quick detailer onto the wax in-between coats to set the wax, this is not necessary and also not beneficial. You are better off to apply your second coat of wax, allow it to dry until it swipes clear and then leave it alone while the protection ingredients set-up which is usually a window of time between 0 and 12 hours.

You could also try some different waxes as some people prefer the look of one wax over the other, some suggestions would be,

NXT Tech Wax
M26 Hi Tech Yellow Wax

[Mike Phillips]

I don't know if you've been lurking here for a while before joining and posting, if not here are some threads you might find interesting,

Meguiar's 5-Step Paint Care Cycle

Meguiars Online Acronyms - With Product Links

Each one, teach one... Ferrari Fiorano 355 F1 Spider

NXT Tech Wax Cure Time

What it Means to Remove a Scratch

Circles or Straight Lines?

A Question on Wax Bonding and the Potential of Interference by a Quick Detailer

How To Remove Swirls By Hand

How to put pictures into your posts

Topping NXT or other products

How to remove a defect by hand with ScratchX

How to locate Meguiar’s Professional & Detailer products in your hometown

How to tell when a Meguiar's wax is ready to remove - The Swipe Test

[Dennis S]

Here are pictures of the hood and the rear. I think the hood could be better.
I know the paint has lots of imperfections -- just trying to get the most out of it.
Thanks

[Murr1525]

Are you working by hand? The only thing you are really missing is a paint cleaning step. DC#1 is a very mild cleaner, and wont fix any imperfections, just clean the paint.

ScratchX is a more agressive cleaner, and will be able to remove some scratches/swirls.

Both will help prep the paint better for polishing and waxing.

[Dennis S]

Yes, working by hand. My omission in first post -- I used Deep Crystal step 1 paint cleaner over everthing after the clay and wash.
Perhaps I should continue with an additional wax coat and next detail use scratch X to see if any of the imperfections will clean up.
Thanks.
Dennis

[Mike Phillips]

Hi Dennis,

Actually, I think your car's finish is looking pretty good! If you're happy with where your at then just move on to another coat of wax and then a maintenance program. If you want to try to remove more defects and bring out more color, richness and gloss then go for the ScratchX step followed again by polishing and then waxing.

[Dennis S]

Thanks Mike. I think that is what I will do.
Regards,
Dennis