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Project: Civic Revival. (lots of pics)
Ok.. so.. my wife and I both have Civics that we bought used many years ago. They werent in the greatest shape when we bought them.. so they were dubbed our "Daily Driven Beaters." You all know what a beater is.. a car that hardly gets washed.. and gets TONS of miles. This one, my wifes, has 170,000 miles and was purchased 6yrs ago with a cheap Maaco paint job. Over the years the paint has pretty much failed.. severely oxidized.. chipping.. the fact that my wife doesnt really care what it looks like doesnt help the motivation to keep it nice. So south went the paint.
Well.. today I had a pretty hard day at work.. and came home grumpy. My newly revisited hobby of detailing cars has seemed to become theraputic for me. So I popped open a bottle of wine.. and headed to the garage.. backed the wifes car in the garage.. whipped out the Megs surplus.. and went to town.
I did some applications by hand on the left side of the trunk. Which didnt please me and turned out to be more of a bear then anything. Therefore.. I concentrated on the right side, where I used my Cyclo... with the products shown.. and everything from a cutting foam pad.. to a finishing pad. All in all it gave me a sense of what the limits are by hand, and I think this was beyond fixing by hand. Ill list my procedure below.
Needless to say.. after I was done.. I felt 100xs better. Heres a few pics.
Before, whole trunk..
Yeah.. pretty nasty!
Before, masked test sections..
Right side, the side Ill be using the Cyclo on. Note: there is a small imperfection that was beyond even machine fixing.
Center, untouched for reference.
Left side, the side Ill be doing hand applications on.
Hand application side, after only one pass I pretty much realized it wasnt gonna happen. I gave her hell a few more times and the turnout was OK... 10xs better then before.. but I did end up cheating.
I used the Cyclo with ScratchX a few times and well.. that worked much better.
By hand, 1 pass with ScratchX:
After ScratchX applied by machine with polishing pad 2xs.. then cleaner wax by hand 2xs... then 1 coat NXT liquid by hand.
OK.. NOW THE REALLY GOOD STUFF!!!!
Here is the right side.. #83 x many with an aggressive cutting pad and less aggressive cutting pad. Then #80 x 2 with a polishing pad followed by a finishing pad application of NXT liquid. After the NXT set up I removed.. and followed up with a light LSP of #21 Synthetic Sealant by hand. I must say.. Im EXTREMELY impressed and so was my wife!
Note: I had to put the #21 bottle on towards the center of the trunk for the pics.... it kept wanting to SLIDE OFF!
This pic as a reference.. there was NO reflection on the untouched section.
Back to the good stuff.
Im gonna get some daytime photos tomorrow.
Well.. today I had a pretty hard day at work.. and came home grumpy. My newly revisited hobby of detailing cars has seemed to become theraputic for me. So I popped open a bottle of wine.. and headed to the garage.. backed the wifes car in the garage.. whipped out the Megs surplus.. and went to town.
I did some applications by hand on the left side of the trunk. Which didnt please me and turned out to be more of a bear then anything. Therefore.. I concentrated on the right side, where I used my Cyclo... with the products shown.. and everything from a cutting foam pad.. to a finishing pad. All in all it gave me a sense of what the limits are by hand, and I think this was beyond fixing by hand. Ill list my procedure below.
Needless to say.. after I was done.. I felt 100xs better. Heres a few pics.
Before, whole trunk..
Yeah.. pretty nasty!
Before, masked test sections..
Right side, the side Ill be using the Cyclo on. Note: there is a small imperfection that was beyond even machine fixing.
Center, untouched for reference.
Left side, the side Ill be doing hand applications on.
Hand application side, after only one pass I pretty much realized it wasnt gonna happen. I gave her hell a few more times and the turnout was OK... 10xs better then before.. but I did end up cheating.
I used the Cyclo with ScratchX a few times and well.. that worked much better.By hand, 1 pass with ScratchX:
After ScratchX applied by machine with polishing pad 2xs.. then cleaner wax by hand 2xs... then 1 coat NXT liquid by hand.
OK.. NOW THE REALLY GOOD STUFF!!!!
Here is the right side.. #83 x many with an aggressive cutting pad and less aggressive cutting pad. Then #80 x 2 with a polishing pad followed by a finishing pad application of NXT liquid. After the NXT set up I removed.. and followed up with a light LSP of #21 Synthetic Sealant by hand. I must say.. Im EXTREMELY impressed and so was my wife!
Note: I had to put the #21 bottle on towards the center of the trunk for the pics.... it kept wanting to SLIDE OFF!
This pic as a reference.. there was NO reflection on the untouched section.
Back to the good stuff.
Im gonna get some daytime photos tomorrow.
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