587 Pictures - No Chairs! No Sitting! September 2024 Detailing Class with Mike Phillips

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....

Switching over to Gear-Driven Orbital Polishers
Once all the rotary work is completed, next up is the class needs to remove any and all holograms, primarily from the fibers that make up a wool cutting pad. After some testing, we found we needed the cut offered by the heavy polishing blueberry Lake Country EdgeGuard foam buffing pads together with Dr. Beasley's NSP 150 Primer.

More gloss, clarity and depth-of-color
Each step in this process makes the paint look better and better. In the below pictures you can see the gloss increasing to really bring out the full-richness-of-color for the single stage blue paint on this 1949 Chevy Fleetline Streetrod.

Third Polishing Step - Show Car Detailing
The blueberry pad with the NSP 150 Primer left an amazing finish, but t perfect the paint for a show car finish and to take this car's paint to its maximum potential, the class re-polished using a much softer yellow EdgeGuard foam pad and NSP 95.

Installing a Ceramic Coating
After all the polishing work, it's time to seal the deal, as my friend Matt Steele would say. For this we're using the Dr. Beasley's Nano-Resin MX Ceramic Coating.

Mike

 

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....


Final Results!
I highly recommend taking a moment to scroll up the page and revisit just how bad this paint looked before my class took over. The results you see below are nothing short of striking and dramatic!

See the 1972 Corvette Mirror Reflection?

Nice work everyone!
And now each of you completely understands what it means and what it will take to go from start to finish to buff out not a demo hood, or test panel, but the real-deal.

Mike

 

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....


Perfecting White Paint on Classic Glass
This 1972 Corvette has a custom repaint and while it looked pretty good to the untrained eye, there was plenty of room for improvement to maximize the gloss and clarity of the clearcoat laying over the white basecoat. For this car we went back to Z1 with the FLEX BEAST tools and the Buff and Shine blueberry heavy polishing foam pads.

Machine Scrubbing White Lettering
The tires were dingy looking, and the white letters were stained with old tire dressing. To bring the look of the tires and the wheels up to spec to match the rest of the car, we machine scrubbed the tires and hand cleaned the wire wheels as we didn't wash this car but use Dr. Beasley's Prep Wash to do a waterless wash.

Such a simple process but the before and after results speak for themselves.

Beauty Shots!
I didn't get any after pictures while the car was in the garage, but I snagged a few after Yancy moved the car outside.

Super Glossy White Paint!

At this point, the class has detailed 8 cars over the course of 2 days. Next up, machine polishing flexible plastic windows.


Mike

 

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....


Preserving the Originality of a 1965 Corvette Stingray Roadster
My long-time friend and Corvette aficionado, Pad, purchased this low-mileage survivor car and had her shipped out to Florida. After purchasing the car, Pat brought it to me and I sanded and buffed out the plastic, Plexiglas back window in the original hardtop as it was so filled with swirls and scratches it was difficult to see out of safely.

You can read about that project here,

How to Polish Plexiglass

Don't want to replace - want to preserve
Pat much prefers to keep his classic Corvettes as close to original as possible. The first time he went to use the vinyl convertible top, that's when he noticed the flexible, plastic back window was horribly filled with swirls, scratches, stains and rub marks. Pat asked me if I could fix this? I said I can try, but no promises. Before the class started, I did some testing and dialed-in a process that would remove the majority of the TOPICAL defects. This means the swirls, scratches, stains and rub marks AND of course, some of the plastic material itself, which has turned a brownish cover over the last 60 years.

I'm happy to say, while we couldn't restore perfect clarity to the plastic window because the color change has affect the INNER portion of the plastic, which of course, no one can fix. But Pat was super happy with the results because not only would the window be safer to look through, especially at night, but it also added more beauty to the overall look of this classic Plastic Fantastic.

Here's the original pictures Pat sent me after putting the soft top up for the first time since he purchased this Corvette.

Fast Forward to the Day Before Class Starts
Here's the Corvette in the Stuart, Florida detail training garage. In order to do this job the right way, I'll need to buff both sides of the plastic window and experience has taught me to start with the inside portion of the window. I found I could pull the top over itself so I can get to the plastic via machine polishing.

I need this flexible plastic window to be supported in some way that it's as flat as possible in order to safely and also efficiently machine buff.

Soft, Fuzzy Orange Blanket
Over the years, many of you have seen me use this soft, fuzzy orange blanket for all types of detailing projects. Because it's soft, it won't scratch and becuase it's a large, thin blanket, after folding it a few times, I was able to get it under the plastic window and get the plastic window somewhat flat. At least flat enough to buff.

Because I'm going to start with a rotary polisher, which has a tendency to sling splatter dots all over the place, I needed to cover and protect both the outside and the interior using a plastic drop cloth.

Step 1 - Machine polish with a rotary polisher and Dr. Beasley's NSP 250 Primer
You have to be careful not to over buff and get the plastic hot or you're stretch or warp it. So slow and easy, with light pressure.

Step 2 - Re-polish to remove holograms using a Lake Country HDO Orange Foam Polishing Pad and Dr. Beasley's NSP 95 on an old-school Porter Cable 7424XP
Unlike long-stroke polishers, it's MUCH easier to maintain pad rotation and pad oscillation when using a SHORT STROKE free spinning random orbital polisher and I'm all about working fast and making work easy.

Missing Pictures
After the NSP 95, I did re-polish with the NSP 45 to maximize clarity. You can see that step in this other project, where I did the same process to the flexible clear plastic window on a 1964 Amphicar.

1964 Amphicar – Paintwork, Glass & Plastic Correction

Gloss Builder
I've been using a new product called Gloss Builder on clear plastics with great success. This is a ceramic product for use before applying a ceramic coating. It maximizes gloss and clarity before installing the coating. I've found it also maximizes clarity for clear plastics after a thorough machine polishing.

Inside Done
After doing a 3-step machine polishing process and applying Gloss Builder, the passenger side INSIDE portion of the window is completed.

Time to do the outside
I'm only doing one half of the window to both dial-in my process but to also show the class the before and after difference as they arrive for the first day of class. Later, I'll demonstrate the entire process on the driver's side of the window. Like before, I needed to cover over and protect the black vinyl top and the body panels from any accidental splatter dots.

Mike

 

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....

Here's an example of Rub Marks, and there's even rust build-up on the plastic.

Repeating the Process
For the outside, I'll repeat the same process I used on the inside. Rotary to Orbital to Orbital using NSP 150, NSP 95 and NSP 45 followed by Gloss Builder.

If you look carfully, you can see the BROWN plastic material from the window building-up on the face of the pad. We are able to remove any TOPICAL browning, but it's impossible to remove the browning on the INSIDE of the plastic membrane because doing so means buffing away 100% of the plastic.

After the rotary step, I did two more orbital steps followed by Gloss Builder.

The difference is stark and dramatic!

Next up, sharing this process with the class.


Mike

 

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....


How to Machine Polish Flexible Clear Plastic Windows
This actually took place first thing Saturday morning, before the class buffed out the Starsky and Hutch car and the 1962 Chevy Biscayne. If you look carefully, the clock on the walls shows it's 7:30am and it's go time, not sit in a chair time and listen to me talk about detailing.

Starting out doing the complete process to the inside portion of the driver's side of the back window. Note I'm continuing to use the soft, plush orange blanket to support the plastic as I buff.

After tackling the inside, next up we repeat the process to the outside. And of course, overlap a little into the previous side where the painter's tape divided the back window into two parts.

Rotary first with NSP 150

See it?
See the brown plastic material building-up on the face of the buffing pad? This tells us we're removing the browning, but only on the outer and inner surface. The brown fading will always affect the inside of the plastic but that's okay because the owner doesn't want to replace the plastic window, he just wants to see out of it.

Porter Cable 7424XP with NSP 95

Porter Cable 7424XP with NSP 45

Applying Gloss Builder to maximize clarity

BOOM!

Here's a few pictures of the back window outside under normal light - looks MUCHO better!

And of course, we cleaned and treated the vintage, original vinyl top to complete look of the entire car.

Next up, Day 3 - Extreme Boat Detailing


Mike