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addr6

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About addr6

  • Birthday 12/19/1985

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    Naples, FL
  1. Hey guys, I'm Scotty's detailer that wrote the autopia article. When I washed the roadster I would turn the water half way off so that there was little water pressure. I also did not use a nozzle on the hose at all so the water just easily flowed out of the hose. This let me wash the car with hardly any water getting in the interior. Most of the time I would still get a couple drops on the inside but I would just wipe them up as fast as I could because they will stain the leather if you let the dry. I washed that car a million times and never had any problems, it is much faster and easier to wash it with the top off.
  2. I was just at Evans a couple days ago and saw your car in there. It is in great shape!
  3. Thank you everyone for the kind words and warm welcome. Yes, this is scotty's car and I am his detailer. Paint correction can last a long time (months to years) as long as you properly take care of the car. Improper washing techniques is the main reason for defects in the paint. Even with the proper techniques you will get light defects here and there but those can easily be removed with a light polish. Here is another one of my article on how to properly wash a car without cauing swirls. Murcielago wash process
  4. And of course they now have great reflection. I absloutly loved the seats in this car! The pillars came out great! I put together some side-by-side before and after pictures so you can really see how much clarity we restored on this beautiful car. Thanks for reading!!!
  5. And after many hours of polishing we now have swirl-free paint and really restored the clarity. Before the sun in the paint was just a hazy circle, now we have a defined beaming sun. I topped the car off with Chemical Guys E-zyme to protect the car. Remember how I spent so much time taping the decals??? It was so I could get perfect paint even between them, and most importantly I didn't damage them during the process. The black painted trim pieces looked so much better when done. These usually have thinner paint on them so I was happy with getting them to 90%.
  6. I started this car off like I do every car with a two-bucket wash with two grit guards in each butcket. The next step is decontaminating and claying the paint, then it's on to testing. I first tried a Meguiars Microfiber Cutting Disc and Meguiars D300. This combo did a good job but still left behind some deeper defects. After more testing I decied to use a mix of D300 and M101. The M101 added an extra kick to remove the deeper defects but the D300 also made it finish down really nice. The ratio of the mix was 25% M101 and 75% D300, idea courtesy of Bryan Burnworth. When I moved on to polishing I had just got a bottle of Sonax Perfect Finish from Todd Cooperider so I decided to try it out. It finished down perfectly and was very easy to use with a black finishing pad. I was only compounding the top surfaces so I also used Perfect Finish to polish the lower areas of the car. This car had decals that ran along the whole car, so along with taping off my edges, emblems, and trim I taped off the decals so I wouldn't damage them while buffing very close to them. While I was taping along the rear quarter panel I found the reason why I am so anal about taping off anything and everything, a BURNT EDGE. With high-end cars it is not uncommon to find a burnt edge or two right when they come out of the factory. Sometimes they are very hard to see and most people wouldn't notice them unless they are looking very closely at the paint, like I do when I'm working on a car. To prevent further damage to this area I taped over the burnt edge while working on the rear quarter panel. Along with that burnt edge there was caked-on compound in many areas. This compound had been on there for so long that I had to go back over it and clay it a second time to remove it. Here are some 50/50 pictures of my testing area: Now we are starting to get some clarity and reflection out of the paint. The deck lid of the car also had decals on it. I wanted to make sure I got every inch of the paint perfect. In order to do this I used a razor blade to cut my tape at the same angles as the decals. This would allow me to correct the paint all the way up to the decals even in the small areas in between the decals. It took a while to do but it's all about the "details". The vents on the deck lid are a real pain to work on. I switched down to a three-inch microfiber set up and instead of stopping every couple of vents to apply more compound I simply put drops along for me to pick up as I'm moving down them. The tricky part when doing this is trying to pick up the compound with your pad while iyour machine is running without flinging it everywhere. If you quickly shut your machine off for just a second when you hit a drop of compound it will prevent this from happening. When I was done the car looked awesome. This picture was taken inside, and when you get all the defects and grayish haze out of the paint the contrast between the black and green really pops.
  7. The last time I was in Florida I had the pleasure to work on another brand new Lamborghini Performante. The last one I worked on was in really bad shape. Here is a quick before and after photo to show you what it looked like. As you can see we really turned that car around. This one was in much better shape but still needed a lot of work to make it perfect. The paint on this one was a lot softer than the black one, but I would still consider it hard paint. Swirls were the main problem with this car. The Verde Ithaca color will hide a lot of defects, but just because you can't see the defects does not mean they aren't taking clarity away from the paint. So when you can see a lot of swirls in this color you know it is pretty bad. This first picture is to show that even with a streamlight LED light not a lot of defects show up in this paint. Here we clearly see some defects from the owner rubbing his hand on the door when shutting it.... Since this color hides a lot it's best to use the sun to show the defects. Greg Nichols told me to wear a good pair of polarized sun glasses while looking at this car in the sun. I was amazed at how many more defects show up using this technique. So while I was working on the car I would work a section then pull it out into the sun and inspect it wearing my polarized sun glasses to make sure I got all of the defects out. As you can see this car has a lot of swirls in the paint and they are really taking away from the color and clarity. Also in the black areas we have a lot of holograms. Although you can't see them in the verde ithaca areas I'm sure they are there. And again, just because we can't see them does not mean they are not taking away from the true color of the paint.
  8. So I get a call to go to Florida to work on a Performante for my #1 client that lives here in Ohio. He told me it was black so I figured it was going to be complicated to work on like that past Lambos I have worked on. He then explains that Lamborghini claims they have changed the paint on the black cars and that it would not be as soft as it used to be. So I packed up a small arsenal of what I thought I would need to do this car and head to Florida. I get to Florida and pull the car out into the sun. Saying I was completely blown away by the condition was an understatement. I can’t believe a car can actually leave a dealership in this condition. Below are some before pictures. Problems in the paint: Halograms Swirls Deeper Scratches Sanding Marks Scuffs in paint Overspray Caked compound Look at how many miles were on it!!!!! So as you can see I had some work cut out for me. I started off by doing a test section with D300 and Microfiber. It did not come out good, and I was started to worry I did not bring what I needed to get the job done. From this test I learned that Lamborghini had gone from super soft paint to rock hard paint. It was incredible how hard it was. So then I moved on to M101 and Microfiber. It came out a lot better but was not perfect. I ended up using that combo but had to go over most areas multiple times. Some areas I had to use Surbuf and M101 to correct. Everything was coming along good until I got to the deck lid. The deck lid had tons of DEEP sanding marks in it. Nothing I threw at it even touched them. I called DJ Mayo and Todd Cooperider for some help. They came over with some more supplies. Even they could not get the sanding marks out and get the paint to finish down properly. We used M101 and wool with a rotary but it tore it up so much that even 7 steps of polishing did not make it perfect. We then all determined that I would just have to get the deck lid as good as I could. The only way I would be able to get it perfect would be to do it in an actual shop with lots of products to throw at it. I was using the Girot’s machine on speed 6 and using a ton of pressure to correct. My pad got so hot that it actually melted itself to my backing plate and ended up exploding from the Velcro back. It was pretty scary when it happened. I hit everything with M101 and Microfiber. After that step I moved down to D300 and Microfiber to correct the previous step. Finally I finished down with a Black pad and Sonax Paint cleaner. As you can see from the pictures below it came out great and was a HUGE improvement from when I started. Some sun pics. Altogether I had 35 hours into this one. It was a lot of work but I learned a lot about dealing with a paint I had never dealt with before. In the end the car came out amazing. Thanks for reading!!!!!
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