Hmmm, he's taking his time.

Photoshop must be causing him some problems.

 

lol....I am looking forward to seeing the pics...

Gotta say my ex girlfriend used one of those pads to clean my old fiesta.....wasn't shiny after she got hold of it!

Will his "Special" clean get rid of tar and swirls etc?

 

Moreno5 - yep TM services will remove swirls and tar

 

WHATTTTTT??????????????????

 

Thanks for that Mike, can always rely on you for positive input

First point, Heathers MR2 has a single stage paint on it, i.e. base coat and then pigment. That means there is no protection on these and so if not sealed and waxed regularly they do fade/oxidise. Many modern cars have a cleacoat (laquer) which protects the paint and means less maintenance.

Tony had made several attempts to restore the paint but all he was doing was cleaning and waxing damaged paint, the result was a brighter pink car.



Once the paint is oxidised, that's it, you can either respray or remove the damaged paint. I did the later, what this means though is he has less paint, not a problem as long as its maintained with sealants (antioxidant & suntan lotion for cars) and regular waxing.



The first stage was to wash the car and then remove any contaminants such as old wax, tar, tree sap and brake dust using a claybar.



Once I had got rid of all this then it was time to do a test on a small area to find out how bad the paint was and how hard/soft the Toyota paint was. It was soft, like butter, I'd done a Integra a week before that and that paint was hard, it needed a rotary buffer with lots of care/patience, this stuff was soft so the rotary was not necessary. Of course that meant more care as its not difficult to get carried away.



It took three stages of buffing, a cutting stage to remove the oxide, a polishing stage to remove the swirls from the cutting and finally a glazing stage to make it shine. Above was the result, remember though this is pure paint, no sealants, or waxes, this is the base to play with. Oh and there were plenty of nooks and cranny's on this car so that meant a 6.5" then 4" pad with some hand buffing too to get all the paint looking the same.

Then I sealed and waxed the car, the result;



A little bit of side lighting and a happy Heather , she swore too;



The big warning with old cars is you do not know the history of the car and therefore it could have been hacked about many times, its best to use a paint thickness guage to judge what you can get away with. On the other hand you are only removing damaged paint so if the only other option is a respray then what the heck

Hope this gives an insight into whats involved in paint restoration, currently I am working on an old Ford Mexico with removing defects and wet sanding just to improve my skills a little more.

Lee.

P.S. these photo's have not been photochopped, they were taken in RAW and all adjustments were made the same. If anyone want's to know anymore please PM me.

 

to the polishing guru. A fantastic transformation.

 

Top work, Lee

 

Cheer's guys, and yes Heather makes a very nice cup of tea, Tony. Well.. He asks a lot of questions and falls asleep watching the Turkish GP

 

Looks great

Lee, why are red cars worse for this type of thing?

MB

 

Tango Man.....I mean Tango God!

How much for your gracious services please sir?!