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First off, a big thank you to all who gave feedback on my question about Ferrari paint - you were right, it's soft.
Quick background on how these two projects came to be:
It turns out a guy in my Crossfire club works for Superformance and he wasn't happy with the prep work their cars have been getting and asked if I'd be willing to take it on. I did a test area on this Cobra on Friday and the owners were blown away - seems the guys they were using before were just doing a very quick wax job as evidenced by the swirls still in cars they had just recently done. While wandering through the shop I noticed the shape of a Ferrari 360 Modena under cover and asked why that was there. Turns out it's a customer's car and he stores it there - we pulled back the cover and I shined my swirl finder light on the hood and sure enough, swirl city. Not much I can do about this since it's a customer car, but I'm asked to come back on Monday and finish the Cobra as my first project.
Saturday I'm at Cars & Coffee and run into the guys from Superformance who then introduce me to the owner of the Ferrari, and we talk a bit. His car is sitting in the sun and I show him the swirls, to which he responds that he just paid someone $300 to detail his car. I told him $300 isn't a bad price to detail a Ferrari, but it's a terrible price for the result he got. He then asked that I correct his car while I'm at Superformance doing the Cobra. So..........
Cobra
Lighting isn't the best at this place so I made heavy use of my Brinkman swirl finder light. The paint on the Superformance cars is crazy soft and on black paint it actually makes it a bit tricky because it's so easy to mar it while trying to fix it.
This section doesn't look too bad:
This one looks worse but is more indicative of how the whole car looked:
Very difficult to get pictures in this environment, but this is the clearness of a rear quarter panel after polishing:
General view of the hood - this after polishing with M80 and topping with NXT Tech Wax:
The whole car, done:
Ferrari
Swirl city - the entire car looked like this after it was detailed just a week ago and then parked:
More swirls, these just above the passenger door handle:
Half & half shot of the rear deck lid - not the best shot but you can clearly see the swirls on the right side and clear paint on the left after I polished:
Finished car - nice and shiny:
Reflections in the finished hood:
Now that's more like it:
OK, a few notes on the Ferrari - my intent was to use a rotary with M105 but for some bizarre reason that just was not the right combo. For the first time ever in my experience with 105 it gummed up and was hard to wipe off. The paint was just weird. I don't know how else to describe it other than to say it felt really dry, plus in person it looked less swirled and more scoured - it was really horrible. The car is a 2003 model and the current owner bought it used from the original owner - it's overall care history is unknown. The word "neglect" comes to mind though. But I tried M105 with a W8006 foam pad, a W7006 foam cutting pad and even a yellow So1o wool pad. I wasn't liking it and I have always LOVED 105 in the past. So I broke out the M80 and a yellow W8006 foam pad on the DA. BINGO!!!. You've got to be kidding me!! Proof positive that you can't just make assumptions on how something is going to behave in this wacky world of paint polishing.
As the General Manager of Superformance and other employees passed by they all commented on how "redder" the car looked as I progressed. The swirls came out very easily with M80/W8006/DA but I did use the rotary for some of the deeper scratches, etc. I don't know if the paint was just soaking up the oils in M80 or what, but it just transformed the look of the car. I decided that the paint was just crying out for some extra TLC so after polishing with the above process I applied a coat of M81 Hand Polish to the whole car for some extra pop. M20 topped everything off and I was very pleased with the final outcome. All the guys at the shop were just amazed - they thought the car looked decent to begin with and had no idea it could look that much better.
I'll be going back in the future to do more Cobras, GT40s and Daytona Coupes and hopefully pick up a few more customer cars along the way.
Quick background on how these two projects came to be:
It turns out a guy in my Crossfire club works for Superformance and he wasn't happy with the prep work their cars have been getting and asked if I'd be willing to take it on. I did a test area on this Cobra on Friday and the owners were blown away - seems the guys they were using before were just doing a very quick wax job as evidenced by the swirls still in cars they had just recently done. While wandering through the shop I noticed the shape of a Ferrari 360 Modena under cover and asked why that was there. Turns out it's a customer's car and he stores it there - we pulled back the cover and I shined my swirl finder light on the hood and sure enough, swirl city. Not much I can do about this since it's a customer car, but I'm asked to come back on Monday and finish the Cobra as my first project.
Saturday I'm at Cars & Coffee and run into the guys from Superformance who then introduce me to the owner of the Ferrari, and we talk a bit. His car is sitting in the sun and I show him the swirls, to which he responds that he just paid someone $300 to detail his car. I told him $300 isn't a bad price to detail a Ferrari, but it's a terrible price for the result he got. He then asked that I correct his car while I'm at Superformance doing the Cobra. So..........
Cobra
Lighting isn't the best at this place so I made heavy use of my Brinkman swirl finder light. The paint on the Superformance cars is crazy soft and on black paint it actually makes it a bit tricky because it's so easy to mar it while trying to fix it.
This section doesn't look too bad:
This one looks worse but is more indicative of how the whole car looked:
Very difficult to get pictures in this environment, but this is the clearness of a rear quarter panel after polishing:
General view of the hood - this after polishing with M80 and topping with NXT Tech Wax:
The whole car, done:
Ferrari
Swirl city - the entire car looked like this after it was detailed just a week ago and then parked:
More swirls, these just above the passenger door handle:
Half & half shot of the rear deck lid - not the best shot but you can clearly see the swirls on the right side and clear paint on the left after I polished:
Finished car - nice and shiny:
Reflections in the finished hood:
Now that's more like it:
OK, a few notes on the Ferrari - my intent was to use a rotary with M105 but for some bizarre reason that just was not the right combo. For the first time ever in my experience with 105 it gummed up and was hard to wipe off. The paint was just weird. I don't know how else to describe it other than to say it felt really dry, plus in person it looked less swirled and more scoured - it was really horrible. The car is a 2003 model and the current owner bought it used from the original owner - it's overall care history is unknown. The word "neglect" comes to mind though. But I tried M105 with a W8006 foam pad, a W7006 foam cutting pad and even a yellow So1o wool pad. I wasn't liking it and I have always LOVED 105 in the past. So I broke out the M80 and a yellow W8006 foam pad on the DA. BINGO!!!. You've got to be kidding me!! Proof positive that you can't just make assumptions on how something is going to behave in this wacky world of paint polishing.
As the General Manager of Superformance and other employees passed by they all commented on how "redder" the car looked as I progressed. The swirls came out very easily with M80/W8006/DA but I did use the rotary for some of the deeper scratches, etc. I don't know if the paint was just soaking up the oils in M80 or what, but it just transformed the look of the car. I decided that the paint was just crying out for some extra TLC so after polishing with the above process I applied a coat of M81 Hand Polish to the whole car for some extra pop. M20 topped everything off and I was very pleased with the final outcome. All the guys at the shop were just amazed - they thought the car looked decent to begin with and had no idea it could look that much better.
I'll be going back in the future to do more Cobras, GT40s and Daytona Coupes and hopefully pick up a few more customer cars along the way.
- yeah, it's called being chicken!!) I certainly wasn't going to do any experimentation on the Ferrari.
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