What are you working on today? - Saturday September 24th, 2005

[Mike Phillips]

What are you working on today? - Saturday September 24th, 2005


For me it's going to be the swirl removal on a black 1997 Convertible Camaro...







Clean The Garage

First things first is to always work in a clean environment. I don't have the fanciest garage in the world, but I do insure it's clean before working on a customer's car. We always say,

"Any garage can be a Show Car Garage when you're using the professional quality products with professional techniques"

The first thing to do is to move everything out of the garage and/or away from the walls and sweep up the majority of the dirt and in my case leaves.



The wind blows in such a way that the air swirls around in front of my garage and when the garage door is open the leaves blow in and accumulate all over the floor. Then as they dry-out and are stepped on they turn to scratchy dirt.




After sweeping out the garage, I then hose the garage out with water, this removes a majority of any left over dirt and dust that I don't want to risk getting on the car.




Next up I'm going to pull the car into the garage and use the two-bucket method to wash the car and get it clean.

Wash the car




Dry the car and tape it off, especially the convertible top




Perform 2 Test Spots see what it will take to remove the defects







Cue up a movie... hmm.... let's go with the Fast and the Furious




Time to get polishing!

[kellyinkc]

I'm putting brakes on the car. What fun! Went with dustless so wheels will be easier to clean. That next on the list.

Kelly

[Mosca]

Today, it's work work, the paycheck kind.

Tomorrow, it's Miata Maintenance Madness for the LVMOC, where I'm going to attempt to fix a key scratch for Renie. I don't see how it's going to be all that hard to do. It could be anything from a little bit of ScratchX to touchup paint and wetsanding.

I'm also going to do a "Mike Phillips" with the rest of the gang. This will be instructional day #4 or 5, I can't remember. Pretty far behind you there Mike, but still following your steps.


Tom

[showtime]

I washed my truck for the first time in a month. I've been so busy I haven't had the time. It needs to be polished but when the sun sets it beats down on our driveway. Other than that, just resting up to go to Watkins Glen tomorrow.

[stealth]

Personal vehicle maintenance;oil &filter,tire rotation,top off all fluids,check tire pressure & air filter. Log into maint. folder. Done! Give evaulation & estimate on Viper Coupe, set appointment for Vette. Off to friends wedding & reception soon. Party Time!

[Mike Phillips]

Update

Had a nice relaxing day working on the Camaro, I ended up machine cleaning with M80, followed with machine polishing using M09, and here's some reflection shots after removing a coat of M21 Synthetic Sealant.






Time to hit the shower...

[RamAirV1]

#21 looks great on the Camaro! Of course having #80 applied as a prep contributes to that! Do you consider the paint on the car to be hard, soft, or something in between? That looks like an SS fiberglass hood. What was your impression of the paint on the hood?

I went boating today. So you could say I worked on enjoying the boat, as fall is closing in and boating days are numbered.

RamAirV1

[rusty bumper]

Nice work on the Camaro Joe!....Er, I mean Mike!

[Beercan31]

NICE ! ! !
The Pinstripes Airbrushed? They look sweet. I see no deviation in the reflection showing that they would be hand painted or Vinyl.

Well you had to ask.....
Forgive Me Father Mike it's been 4 weeks since I last detailed....."What are you working on today?" and the day before and so on, and so on. This is how I spent My 2 week vacation. Cant wait to back to work for some needed rest and relaxation.

Bath room floor no longer wanted to be part of the first floor....it wanted to be in the basement.

Before

after replacing a main support beam and adding a few extra floor joists
After

Not what I'd like to do that's for sure but some times we need to do what we need to do.

[Mike Phillips]

Finished...








And going home...

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by RamAirV1
Do you consider the paint on the car to be hard, soft, or something in between? That looks like an SS fiberglass hood. What was your impression of the paint on the hood?

RamAirV1

From my experience, the paint on this Camaro was very hard, just like many of the newer Corvettes I've buffed out.

The finish has never seed a rotary buffer or any machine polishing that I remember the owners telling me about. The pinstripes were hand painted on and the painter did a very good job. I didn't think it wise to get any more aggressive than M80 on the pin striped areas and then then I was very cautions. Over all it came out very nice, the owners said they were happy and are going to bring my a black Harley Davidson Ford F150 with matching pin stripes.

[RamAirV1]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
From my experience, the paint on this Camaro was very hard, just like many of the newer Corvettes I've buffed out.

The finish has never seed a rotary buffer or any machine polishing that I remember the owners telling me about. The pinstripes were hand painted on and the painter did a very good job. I didn't think it wise to get any more aggressive than M80 on the pin striped areas and then then I was very cautions. Over all it came out very nice, the owners said they were happy and are going to bring my a black Harley Davidson Ford F150 with matching pin stripes.

Thanks for the info Mike! That shows what can be done with #80! I wish I would have bought some earlier. Great job on the Camaro as usual. .

I would classify those cobweb (swirls) as at least moderate. I never had many on my TA that were that bad. And there I was attacking them with #83. I could have done the job quicker with #80.

RamAirV1

[Mosca]

Sweet!

We did 6 cars today. We're really starting to take the rotary seriously; we actually had 4 rotaries show up along with 4 PCs. The rotary makes the work go so much faster, and Miatas are small and don't have a lot of trim to worry about working around. I got to demonstrate the power of ScratchX, bringing back to life some faded red and green side mirrors, and I gave a shot to key-scratch touchup with mixed results. Our local Meguiar's distributor Jamie Holschue showed up and really elevated our game another level or two.

Some of the stuff we got done today was genuinely eye-popping. I'm beat, I'll post pictures and commentary tomorrow.


Tom

[Dragpakmach]

Nice job Mike.I like the reuse of the heinz ketchup bottle for #21.

[Dragpakmach]

Also I worked on a cavalier that hasnt been cleaned in 2 years NO JOKE.6 hours later and its beautiful.Best of all I educated the customer on proper maintance on the paint and drivetrain.