This was the Original Thread

https://ls1tech.com/forums/eastern-m...g-bonnets.html

This was my first time out with my Orbital Buffer and I must say I was very impressed. I am not still sold on the Bonnet vs. Pad thing but the 10" cheapo model was light and did large areas with ease. I think this buffer works perfect for my Buick Century and my Wife's HHR but I think a Porter Cable maybe more applicable to the T/A. We will see.

Let me say that this process took me a while to do, correctly. I am VERY pleased 1st time out with it and I spent most of the time making sure I was buffing correctly and that the polish/glaze/and wax broke down properly. As well as getting it off.

The car is VERY well maintained but is stored in a place that has a bad roof and my "BEFORE" pics could not pick up on the hard water spots on the car, nor some of the transfer from the roof but needless to say, she needed a bath.

Here was my Process.

Wash- Maguire's Gold Class (had extra and other stuff I had. Had wax integrated)
Dry- Beat up Bathroom towels to get the heavy water, Microfiber for the rest
Clay Bar- Mother's and the car had allot on the hood and bumper
Wash- YES, you do need to do this
Dry- Same as the first.
Polish- No real swirls so I used Maguire's Cleaner Wax (paste)
Glaze- Maguire's Professional Glaze Show Car #7 (liquid)
Wax- Mags NXT GENERATION TECH WAX 2.0 PASTE (paste)

I used a applicator to apply to car, buffer to work it, and microfiber to remove except with the wax step, I used terry cloth.

This took from 7:30am to about 1:00pm and I work nearly every minute but the results are nothing short of spectacular. I ended up using Mag's Ultimate Quick Detailer as it acts as a combo of Speed Detailer and another layer of wax/water repellant.


PICS!

 

good job now go do my car

 

Looks good!

 

It's been a while since I have seen your car. I know there is one clear coat bubble that buffing cannot fix. IF you had the same color, I'd say you need a circular buffer but with Red, if I did the same process, I BET I could getting it looking

 

im glad you got that car. its nice to see it in such good hands!! looks good

 

Thanks Brad, and yea I am glad I got this one. She has done fine, very few issues so IMO thats what I wanted all along.

 

yea, it was a good car. the owners just didnt have the love for it you now have for it.

 

looks good! now the fun part is keeping it looking that way. and by 'fun' i mean PITA

 

Well they are Mustang people, I expect no less lol.


Truth there, I expect just regular updates with Ultimate Quick Detailer and a wash. Since the car is mostly garaged, it should not need this job until next year.

 

I used to detail my car for 8+ hours at Slowhawk's house, drive it home to a garage, keep it there and bum rides off my Dad everywhere. Drive the car down to Slowhawk's the following week, strip everything and do it all over again. It's kind of a past time for me, help's me relax and I take something that is perfect and always find a way to make it better.

The car came out nice, really nice. Now it just little touch ups here and there but it gets easier from here on in for the most part.

 

Def Agree, Practice makes perfect. Was kinda scared 1st time out on the good car but now I feel more confident I can do better, if NOT quicker. I got my Wife's car up next which is a Amethyst (purple) Paint job and my Buick is Light Pewter, THEN a Titanium Grey Ford Edge for my mother in law so I got plenty to keep me busy lol.

 

You can go nuts with that polisher, the worst your going to do is cake some much liquid polish on the car that you'll need to handwash that area to remove it. Rotary polishing is where you dont even have 1 full second of mistake room.

The darker the car the more products you’ll need. On a light car it's hard to see the defects so when a fair amount of defects are removed you just don’t see the rest at all. It takes a trained eye.

On darker cars you need to use products that get weaker each time you pick up the next bottle. Sometimes people will go from a medium cut product to a light cut product only to have most of the micro marring removed and a lot of the medium cut blemishes remain. With lighter cars you have a lot of room to make mistakes and you’ll never notice, on dark cars there are no shortcuts and the time/effort you put into the car is exaggerated.

You can have a heavy, medium and light cut liquid correction; that will give you 3 stages. Then you can have different pads and probably break each one of those three products down to a high and low cut which in turn gives you 6 stages of abrasiveness…..really helpful when working on dark cars that need a lot of bite initially followed by a lot of weaker steps.

With your setup I would just get a heavy cut compound, a medium cut polish and a cleaner polish. Don’t buy anymore pads for the buffer because you’ll outgrow it quickly and the money could be better spent on a polisher that will outperform you. The three products you buy can be carried over to any polisher.

I used to have the Porter Cable and it’s a great little machine but if your going to be detailing more often then others and will end up maintaining a few cars I’d look into the Cyclo.

 

^ Yea thanks for the tips. I think the T/A at some point will get a Porter Cable with the Foam cutting pads. The bonnet set up works well for just working the wax in which I suck at and I will be sending PM's dont you worry bout that.

 

wel if you need to practice, you can do my WS6...go nutz

 

Send me a PM I am sure we can figure something out. I'm at work and really cannot talk till after work.

 

Car looks good.

 

Looks good man. I'm getting the detailing urge myself.

 

Me too. It's called pull it out of the garage, and drop it off. Then pick it up and put it back in the garage with the cover back on it LOL!

 

Where is the fun in that?

 

Where did you buys your PC and pads from?