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My 1996 Holden Calais. Aussie pride!
Hi everyone. The is only my second ever machine detail job and the first machine job on my own car. The car itself is a 1996 Holden Calais Supercharged V6 (L67) in Panther Mica. It's basically black with dark green metallic flakes. At night it looks jet black but in full sun it looks dark green. In full sun you really can notice the swirls. The process included:
* Wash with Hyper wash
* 3M clay over the whole car
* #80 on orange Lake Country (Wolfgang) pad.
* #9 on Orange Lake Country pad. I started #9 on the white polishing pad but it wasn't removing enough of the remaining swirls for my liking so I went back to the Orange pad with #9
* DC Polish
* DC Carauba wax
* Finally buffed off the wax with a really cheap 10" orbital I have lying around and a microfibre bonnet. Worked nicely and probably saved me half hour
The tyres were dressed with 'Export tyre shine', the chepest tyre shine available from Supercheap Auto at $1.99 per can (about US$1.50) and it always works great.
My machine of choice is the GMC ROS150M 500W orbital. I'm not too sure if GMC tools are available in the USA but are readily available in Australia. The #80 is a fantastic product and cleaned up a lot of the swirls and left a nice smooth feel and good reflection. I then moved onto the #9 swirl remover to try remove as many of the ramaining swirls as possible. By this stage the reflections weree looking great. I then added a layer of Deep Crystal Polish with the finishing pad and notice immediately that the reflections looked so much darker. Awesome. I was tossing up whether to use the DC Carnauba wax or Wet look Polymer sealant. It was 50/50 and went for the Carnauba.
I'd like to get peoples opinions on my process. If you think I should have done things a little differently then please be honest. If you think it was good then let me know that too
As you can see in the before pics the swirl were pretty bad. Particularly on the bonnet. These photos were taken after being washed.
I spent pretty much two days on the car. By Saturday afternoon it was pouring rain so luckily I have a massive garage to work in.
It was difficult to get After pictures as it was wet and overcast and getting dark very quickly with the end of daylight saving time.
Compare this one with the previous picture. Definately an improvement!
Not too bad for really cheap tyre shine.
Always helps to have a good working environment
* Wash with Hyper wash
* 3M clay over the whole car
* #80 on orange Lake Country (Wolfgang) pad.
* #9 on Orange Lake Country pad. I started #9 on the white polishing pad but it wasn't removing enough of the remaining swirls for my liking so I went back to the Orange pad with #9
* DC Polish
* DC Carauba wax
* Finally buffed off the wax with a really cheap 10" orbital I have lying around and a microfibre bonnet. Worked nicely and probably saved me half hour
The tyres were dressed with 'Export tyre shine', the chepest tyre shine available from Supercheap Auto at $1.99 per can (about US$1.50) and it always works great.
My machine of choice is the GMC ROS150M 500W orbital. I'm not too sure if GMC tools are available in the USA but are readily available in Australia. The #80 is a fantastic product and cleaned up a lot of the swirls and left a nice smooth feel and good reflection. I then moved onto the #9 swirl remover to try remove as many of the ramaining swirls as possible. By this stage the reflections weree looking great. I then added a layer of Deep Crystal Polish with the finishing pad and notice immediately that the reflections looked so much darker. Awesome. I was tossing up whether to use the DC Carnauba wax or Wet look Polymer sealant. It was 50/50 and went for the Carnauba.
I'd like to get peoples opinions on my process. If you think I should have done things a little differently then please be honest. If you think it was good then let me know that too
As you can see in the before pics the swirl were pretty bad. Particularly on the bonnet. These photos were taken after being washed.
I spent pretty much two days on the car. By Saturday afternoon it was pouring rain so luckily I have a massive garage to work in.
It was difficult to get After pictures as it was wet and overcast and getting dark very quickly with the end of daylight saving time.
Compare this one with the previous picture. Definately an improvement!
Not too bad for really cheap tyre shine.
Always helps to have a good working environment
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