two days ago i stripped my car with dawn soap
used a claybar (clay magic + dawn soap as the lube)
washed the residue away with meg's deep crystal car wash soap
dried with waffle weave microfiber towels.

the surface looked kinda junky because it had no fillers to hide the scratches etc
my brother in law bought me a porter cable 7336 (it's the same as the 7424, but it has a slightly larger counterweight and is marketed as a sander/polisher, the 7424 is marketed as a polisher/sander, so you see the priority in description difference)
i bought some sonus pads from autopia's shop

i started with a little scratch X mixed with sonus sfx-2 swirl polish on an orange pad(highest cutting) it took quite a while to get rid of the swirls, but i did get rid of nearly all of them! i hand buffed with a microfiber

then i moved onto meg's next tech wax paste and a green pad. i didn't know how to apply the paste wax to the pad, so i just used an applicator to put it on the paint and ran over it with the green pad. i buffed with a microfiber bonnet, because nxt can be a pain to remove (although with a machine, it goes on so thin and smooth that i could have gotten away with hand buffing to remove it)

then i took out another microfiber bonnet and applied klasse all in one. it didn't need much of a hand buff, because it really doesn't leave much residue.
this is where i made my mistake, the paint felt so good, like oiled glass. i should have stopped and allowed the klasse all in one to cure for at least 8 hours before moving on.

i wanted to finish, so i applied meg's deep crystal pure carnuba wax liquid. i hand buffed with a microfiber
after that i went over the whole car with some meg's nxt quick detailer spray and also clay magic clay lube (a little secret - it works really well as a quick detailer spray and sometimes better than meg's)

the surface felt amazing. the swirls were gone and scrapes etc were less noticible...but the paint just didn't look right. yeah, it shined nicely, but it had no depth and did not look dripping wet (i had gotten better results in depth by hand polishing in the past)

i went to bed. the next morning i got up and looked at my car...it looked amazing. it looked a little darker, dripping wet, and deep, everything that i was looking for on the previous day. i'm guessing that it just needed a cure time for everything to look good. the surface is sex

today quick detailed the car with clay lube. then applied 2 layers of meg's deep crystal pure carnuba liquid wax with the blue pad. i buffed it with a microfiber bonnet.

then i applied turtlewax ice polish liquid, a little goes a long long way when you use it on a blue pad. i used a microfiber bonnet to buff, but had to use 2 different quick detailers and hand buff with a microfiber, ice is a pain to remove sometimes.

i drove the car to the backyard and took some glamour shots for yall


yeah yeah, i forgot to spray the wheel wells with stoner's trim shine


i have to clean my rims


my favorite shot


all the pads were at the speed of 1, i'm new at this, so i'm scared to bump up the speed so soon.

total time was about 5 hours. but it did take me about 8 total, because it was super hot and i needed breaks. it's worth it though

 

that's entirely too many layers of wax lol.


if anything wash/clay/AIO/DC3 is all your going to need.

just to note, your nxt is gone. the aio removed it.

 

i posted what i was going to do at autopia.org and they said it was just right - but those guys are detail freaks, i've read about people with 10+ layers of wax

i had a feeling that the aio would remove the nxt. thats good to know though, it will shorten my detailing time, next time.

 

Submit it to the Click and Brag over there.

 

how long did it take you to do all that?

 

it took about 5 hours total of constant work...but it really turned into about 8 hours, because it was about 92 degrees out with rediculous humidity and i was dripping sweat all over my car. microfiber cloths are awesome for sweat removal.

about 4 hours the first day and about 1 hour yesterday. the swirl removal and hand buffing took a good part of the time. yesterday i did all the glass with invisible glass and a short knap microfiber, it's scary how dirty your interior glass gets.

tons of work, but it paid off...oh and today it rained, go figure

 

If you ever get the chance to try the menzerna polishes, please do so. Out of the numerous polishes that i've tried, it is the best one suited for PC application. I've tried everything from optimum, poorboy's, xmt, and pinnacle all the way to meguiar's, etc etc etc.

but in all seriousness, all those applications didn't really *layer* Liquid waxes, especially carnaubas have a very high solvent content. Carnauba is pretty hard, hence the necessity for all the solvents. When you try to layer these liquid waxes, the solvents from the wax that you're applying will actually dissolve the layer that is already on the car and melt it and the wax your applying together into 1 layer. I'm not trying to bash or anything, i'm just giving you insight on to what is really happening ;)

Neothin- Autopia, DetailCity, AGonline addict :D

 

looks nice! kind of off topic, but how can you repair/add clear coat if its thinner in one area?

 

I don't think that's possible... you'd have to actually get it reapplied, i.e., at a paint shop

expen$ive

 

damn, I was hoping for another answer, well if thats going to be the case, might as well have a total strip down and repaint with a thicker coat of paint and a lot thicker clear coat..... woohoo..... lol

 

thicker clearcoat is also more likely to crack... that's why you don't see those 10 layers of clear show paint jobs being daily driven. The daily driver weather conditions risk cracking it.

 

thats true. i've talked to people who have had 5 + layers of clear applied, but they were only for strictly show cars

neothin, thanks for the tip, i'll keep my eye out for menzerna reviews etc. i'm looking to upgrade my polish anyways, because pretty much everything i use except klasse all in one can be bought from walmart

i had a feeling that all that pressure, motion and heat would cause everything to blend together...you might be able to layer acrylic sealants if you let them cure first...but that could take a couple of days to do a few layers.

my friends dad is a salesman for crest automotive products. he sells a product called "1 step". i swear it's exactly like klasse all in one, being acrylic and a light polisher etc. it applied the same, left barely any residue and gave me similar results. i'm going to see how long it holds up on my friend's car, it's only been a couple of days since we applied it. klasse all in one doesn't hold up really all that long without something on top of it, so i'm anxious to see what this can do. plus it's like $16 for a 1 quart bottle, which will do tons of cars.

equinox, what did you do to wear your clearcoat thin? my friends mitsu lancer was in horrible shape, but i soon figured out that you really had to leave the polisher on speed 6 with an orange pad and rubbing compound in a single area for like 20 mins to burn through the clearcoat. his bumper was nonrepairable, because it was ultrapitted from the highway and previous owners abuse...he's getting it repainted...but he let me test on it, so i used some scratch x and an orange pad and speed 6 for about 4 mins in one area and it didn't break through the clear. maybe mitsu's have thick clear, i dunno