Well we had fun yesterday at the detailing class and a lot of that was due to the perfect location we were provided with. The class was held at Ballistic Motorsports/Vehinet. There was plenty of room to work and one bay had a drain in the floor for indoor washing.

The location . . .


I asked the New England guys to provide me with 2 neglected, black S2Ks and here's what I got . . .


We had in total 5 PCs and 4 pad sets at the class. Here's what I brought . . .


We even detailed the two car's engine bays. Here's elmmx5's engine before . . .


It got a visit from these guys . . .


Now it looks like this . . .


Here are some pictures of the class at work . . .




The car Erick (elmmx5) brought was not extremely neglected. The rear plastic window was little foggy, there was moderate cob webbing, and the car was mildly dirty. There only 2 serious appearance problems on the car. First, the trunk had been repainted and the body shop had done a very poor job prepping the panel and painting it. Second, the front end of Erick's car has more stone chips than almost any car I've ever seen. Here is the test spot we did on elmmx5's car . . .


Due to the moderate swirling and heavy chipping, I decided to use Pinnacle XMT #2 polish on a polishing pad followed by Pinnacle XMT Carnauba Glaze on a finishing pad. The #2 did a nice job removing the cob webbing and the glaze blended the chips in with the rest of the paint to some degree. Here's the afters . . .




The car Giles (GilbertG) brought was pretty neglected. The car is about 4-5 years old and has extensive modifications. Like when I did Glenn's (g-s2k) car there was a lot of scratching on the front fenders from leaning on them while working on the engine. Also, I understand the car has only been washed about 3 times. The car had recently received a new freshly painted body kit. The new pieces were black and the rest of the car was as we called it "British Racing Grey." The grey appearance was due to moderate to heavy swirling and scratching across the entire car. Aside from that the only major problem was a poorly done paint job on his aftermarket hood (the paint on his body kit was impeccable!!). One item of note is that the car seemed to have unburned gas & oil all over the car. We tried washing it off but the film wouldn't budge. So, I sprayed the whole car down with Meguiar's Safe D-Greaser . It was not something I was happy about but this stuff wouldn't budge. Here's the test spot . . .


We decided to go with XMT #3 with a polishing pad as that seemed to remove the paint defects present. However, #3 left buffer haze (as seen in test spot) and so we followed that up with XMT #1. Here are the results . . .



Overall, I think it was a fun & educational day. The cars came out pretty well and the owners were very happy.

 

thats an incredible report!!
wish i coulda been there...
but on the other hand guess i will be there as soon as that video is available, huh? !!!

 

+1 on video

 

Scott (Twiztid) is working on uploading the video to his Mac. Once that's done, I'm going to have to find time to go back up to Manchester, NH (1+ hour drive) to help him edit it.

 

Wow. You sir sure have a talent for this stuff. Amazing results. But NFR FTW!

Actually, you might want to hold an NFR class.....different clear coat, and you can actually change the color of the car by taking off too much...

 

the before and after on the ings car is amazing. OT any more info on the ings car(carbon/fiberglass, authentic/style).

 

Actually, I purposely asked for black cars. If you've ever detailed a black car you know they are the hardest to deal with. They show every paint imperfection along with every smudge and fingerprint. Black cars are a serious test of detailing skill.

Anyone who wanted to attend the class could have regardless of car color. Ironically all 7 students who showed up owned black cars.

I don't know much about the car except that it had a really weird oily residue all over it when we started. The car belongs to Giles though. His screen name is GilbertG. Check with him for more details about the car. FWIW, Glenn (g-s2k) mentioned to me that he believes Giles' S2000 is one of the fastest on the east coast.

 

That is true. Black is where the skill lies. However, being S2000 specific, since the clearcoat on the s2k is tinted pink, if someone took off too much clearcoat, they could potentially ruin the look of the car. Hence my red reference. I actually did my friend's 89 wrangler, and got the paint to look brand new. I was amazed. I didnt take photos, but I only did the door, to see if the paint could be saved. Now that I know it can, I will do the rest of the car, and take photos as well.

 

I hear a lot of debate all the time on the detailing forums as to whether certain cars have single stage paint or a tinted clear coat. They're always black or red cars. One weird thing was that when we were detailing the two black cars we pulled black pigment on the buffer pad, but only when buffing the mirrors. It happened on both cars.

 

mikeyc- got a status report on the "film"?
do you have an "expected" post date yet?