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Thanks to everyone who provided advice before I began this process.
2000 Corvette, black
Meguiar's
Lake Country
Miscellaneous
The trunk lid was subdivided to provide a test area.
Difficult to tell from the photo, but in the far left section I started with SwirlX. SwirlX removed
some swirls but not scratches. Ultimate Compound was used next on top of
the SwirlX and it removed some additional scratches.
The center section is M105.
Lower right is Ultimate Compound followed with Ultimate Polish.
Upper right is M105 followed with Ultimate Polish.
Corrective work complete
Deep scratch I was fearful of getting too aggressive this close to the edge of the hood. Reviewed with owner and left it.
M40 used on tires
Ultimate Polish, then Ultimate Quik Wax on the rims
Car moved outdoors for final photographs
Where's the sun when you need it??
Bye, bye, owner leaves
Having been forewarned by folks here on MOL, this black, 2000 lived up to the reputation of hard clear coat on Corvettes. The test spots were set up on the trunk lid and the starting point product was SwirlX. Yeah right...not. Then Ultimate Compound, yeah right...not. M105…eehaw this has potential. Ultimate Compound may have been able to handle a majority of the defects, but the number of passes and force required was going to make my hands ache. M105 seemed fine, but I needed to reduce my typical work area into smaller sections and keep the force up.
I've picked up some sale priced SwirlX a couple of months ago, so I wanted to use up my surplus of SwirlX. I like the ease of use of SwirlX and the way it wipes off so easily. Don't know why it resists coming out of the bottle!! Final workflow consisted of M105 firm pressure, then SwirlX firm pressure, then Ultimate Polish firm pressure, then Ultimate Polish again easing up and finally Ultimate Wax twice.
I spent a fair amount of time and water washing this "Sunshine Driver". The wheels and also the front bumper (bug covered) were pre-washed with a heavy dose of All-Purpose Cleaner Plus. The tires were brush scrubbed with Deep Crystal Car Soap, then the entire car is high pressure rinsed with focus on the wheels and rocker panels.
The car is thoroughly drenched with Super Soap from a Gilmour Foam Gun with a final dilution of 1/128. The car is high pressure rinsed and then fully drenched again with Super Soap and hand bucket washed with Gold Class with particular attention shown to the front bumper to remove traces of bug carcass and lower rocker panels to remove any road dirt.
The rims have a deep barrel and I changed to a cheaper mitt and got my hands as deep into the barrels as possible. The rims seemed to be polished and coated aluminum.
The car is finally high pressure rinsed, drizzle rinsed and dried using a combination of an Absorber, Waffle Weave and a leaf blower.
The owner had previously clay-barred the car and as I clay-barred I found few bonded contaminates, except on the lower rocker panels.
The trunk was tapped off to create the test areas and M105 was the clear winner removing the damage from a car wash brush previously used in a freak cleaning accident.
So Day One consisted of washing, drying, clay-barring, test spot and final tape-off of trim, logos, and panel cracks.
Day Two started with M105 on a yellow Meguiar's yellow pad on a Porter-Cable running at speed 5. I had indicated to the owner I hoped to remove some percentage of the defects not all of them, perhaps 80%. I developed, what I believed, to be a good workflow, but alcohol wipe-downs proved me wrong. I often found I was removing many of the swirls, but the random scratches were reduced but not removed. So I grabbed a 4", orange Lake Country pad and went after the more prominent scratches. If you are familiar with the orange LC 4" pad, it's got the hardness of a hockey puck before the compound gets worked into it. I found while removing scratches, if I wasn't careful I could easily introduce additional marring in the form of pig-tails if the pad wasn't clean and moist. M105 dust was everywhere. I protected the wipers and cowl with cheap cotton rags, but the dust infiltrated the engine compartment, covered the exterior glass, got into the trunk and even worked it's way into the cabin. I vacuumed bunches of it and wiped with APC+ and got rid of most of it. Covering the wheels with the deluxe Harbor Freight canvas wheel covers saved a lot of clean up time normally spend on be-speckled tires. The canvas wheel covers have like a horse shoe shaped number 9 wire on the open side to help hold them in place.
Next product used after the M105 was SwirlX on a yellow pad, once again at speed 5 which was followed up with Ultimate Polish on a yellow pad again at speed 5.
The M105, SwirlX and Ultimate Polish were all put on with moderate to heavy pressure to extreme pressure. Day Two ended the paint correction phase.
Day Three started with an alcohol wipe down and Ultimate Polish on a black pad running at speed four. This step may not have been necessary, but it gave me a chance to make sure I had gotten all of the scratches. It served this purpose well and I went backward a couple of steps on a couple of locations to remove some defects. Rapidly running out of time, I finished up the run of UP at 4 and then applied the first coat of Ultimate Wax.
I treated the wiper cowl with Ultimate Compound, washed all the exterior windows with Glass Cleaner Concentrate, cleaned and Ultimate Quik Waxed the door jambs. I vacuumed M105 dust out of the engine compartment, the trunk and some of the interior. There was dust from the M105 everywhere.
The owner stopped by at the end of Day Three and approved the car and we agreed to put on a moderate shine on the tires. I used M40 brushed on with a foam brush and allowed it to dry overnight to hopefully prevent any spin-off.
The morning of Day Four was used to apply the second coat of Ultimate Wax, thus allowing a good eight hour cure time from coat one. Gave the car the once over cleaning of cracks and logos with Q-Tips before turning it over to the owner in the early afternoon.
Thanks for stopping by.
2000 Corvette, black
Meguiar's
- All Purpose Cleaner Plus
- Deep Crystal Car Wash
- Super Soap
- Gold Class Wash
- Blue Professional Clay
- Last Touch diluted as clay lube
- M105+Yellow Pad
- SwirlX+Yellow Pad
- Ultimate Polish+Yellow Pad
- Ultimate Polish+Black Pad
- Ultimate Wax+Black Pad
- Ultimate Protectant
- Ultimate Quik Wax
- Supreme Shine Towels
- Ultimate Shine Towels
- M40 Vinyl and Rubber Protectant
- Glass Concentrate 1:10
- Wash Mitt
- Versa Brush
- Waffle Weave
- Supreme Shines
- Ultimate Wipes
Lake Country
- 4" Orange Pad (M105 & SwirlX)
- 4" Black Pad (Ultimate Wax)
Miscellaneous
- Numerous Microfibers
- Canvas Wheel Covers - Harbor Freight
- Gilmour Foam Gun
- Mother's metal polish - exhaust tips
- Various Brushes
The trunk lid was subdivided to provide a test area.
Difficult to tell from the photo, but in the far left section I started with SwirlX. SwirlX removed
some swirls but not scratches. Ultimate Compound was used next on top of
the SwirlX and it removed some additional scratches.
The center section is M105.
Lower right is Ultimate Compound followed with Ultimate Polish.
Upper right is M105 followed with Ultimate Polish.
Corrective work complete
Deep scratch I was fearful of getting too aggressive this close to the edge of the hood. Reviewed with owner and left it.
M40 used on tires
Ultimate Polish, then Ultimate Quik Wax on the rims
Car moved outdoors for final photographs
Where's the sun when you need it??
Bye, bye, owner leaves
Having been forewarned by folks here on MOL, this black, 2000 lived up to the reputation of hard clear coat on Corvettes. The test spots were set up on the trunk lid and the starting point product was SwirlX. Yeah right...not. Then Ultimate Compound, yeah right...not. M105…eehaw this has potential. Ultimate Compound may have been able to handle a majority of the defects, but the number of passes and force required was going to make my hands ache. M105 seemed fine, but I needed to reduce my typical work area into smaller sections and keep the force up.
I've picked up some sale priced SwirlX a couple of months ago, so I wanted to use up my surplus of SwirlX. I like the ease of use of SwirlX and the way it wipes off so easily. Don't know why it resists coming out of the bottle!! Final workflow consisted of M105 firm pressure, then SwirlX firm pressure, then Ultimate Polish firm pressure, then Ultimate Polish again easing up and finally Ultimate Wax twice.
I spent a fair amount of time and water washing this "Sunshine Driver". The wheels and also the front bumper (bug covered) were pre-washed with a heavy dose of All-Purpose Cleaner Plus. The tires were brush scrubbed with Deep Crystal Car Soap, then the entire car is high pressure rinsed with focus on the wheels and rocker panels.
The car is thoroughly drenched with Super Soap from a Gilmour Foam Gun with a final dilution of 1/128. The car is high pressure rinsed and then fully drenched again with Super Soap and hand bucket washed with Gold Class with particular attention shown to the front bumper to remove traces of bug carcass and lower rocker panels to remove any road dirt.
The rims have a deep barrel and I changed to a cheaper mitt and got my hands as deep into the barrels as possible. The rims seemed to be polished and coated aluminum.
The car is finally high pressure rinsed, drizzle rinsed and dried using a combination of an Absorber, Waffle Weave and a leaf blower.
The owner had previously clay-barred the car and as I clay-barred I found few bonded contaminates, except on the lower rocker panels.
The trunk was tapped off to create the test areas and M105 was the clear winner removing the damage from a car wash brush previously used in a freak cleaning accident.
So Day One consisted of washing, drying, clay-barring, test spot and final tape-off of trim, logos, and panel cracks.
Day Two started with M105 on a yellow Meguiar's yellow pad on a Porter-Cable running at speed 5. I had indicated to the owner I hoped to remove some percentage of the defects not all of them, perhaps 80%. I developed, what I believed, to be a good workflow, but alcohol wipe-downs proved me wrong. I often found I was removing many of the swirls, but the random scratches were reduced but not removed. So I grabbed a 4", orange Lake Country pad and went after the more prominent scratches. If you are familiar with the orange LC 4" pad, it's got the hardness of a hockey puck before the compound gets worked into it. I found while removing scratches, if I wasn't careful I could easily introduce additional marring in the form of pig-tails if the pad wasn't clean and moist. M105 dust was everywhere. I protected the wipers and cowl with cheap cotton rags, but the dust infiltrated the engine compartment, covered the exterior glass, got into the trunk and even worked it's way into the cabin. I vacuumed bunches of it and wiped with APC+ and got rid of most of it. Covering the wheels with the deluxe Harbor Freight canvas wheel covers saved a lot of clean up time normally spend on be-speckled tires. The canvas wheel covers have like a horse shoe shaped number 9 wire on the open side to help hold them in place.
Next product used after the M105 was SwirlX on a yellow pad, once again at speed 5 which was followed up with Ultimate Polish on a yellow pad again at speed 5.
The M105, SwirlX and Ultimate Polish were all put on with moderate to heavy pressure to extreme pressure. Day Two ended the paint correction phase.
Day Three started with an alcohol wipe down and Ultimate Polish on a black pad running at speed four. This step may not have been necessary, but it gave me a chance to make sure I had gotten all of the scratches. It served this purpose well and I went backward a couple of steps on a couple of locations to remove some defects. Rapidly running out of time, I finished up the run of UP at 4 and then applied the first coat of Ultimate Wax.
I treated the wiper cowl with Ultimate Compound, washed all the exterior windows with Glass Cleaner Concentrate, cleaned and Ultimate Quik Waxed the door jambs. I vacuumed M105 dust out of the engine compartment, the trunk and some of the interior. There was dust from the M105 everywhere.
The owner stopped by at the end of Day Three and approved the car and we agreed to put on a moderate shine on the tires. I used M40 brushed on with a foam brush and allowed it to dry overnight to hopefully prevent any spin-off.
The morning of Day Four was used to apply the second coat of Ultimate Wax, thus allowing a good eight hour cure time from coat one. Gave the car the once over cleaning of cracks and logos with Q-Tips before turning it over to the owner in the early afternoon.
Thanks for stopping by.
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