First time full detail

[neiln]

After an incident that left my car covered in plaster and cement dust, and blobs of plaster, A full detail was needed.  I am time poor so it had to be quick and hence hasn't been thorough but

1. Presure wash.  First go with my nilfisk compact and my auto finesse citrus power.  presure washer worked great, but a bit disappointed the citrus power didn't shift more.  I let it dwell 5 minutes on a wet car and a lot of road grime and some blobby sticky stuff (no idea what it was - possibly a bird poo it picked up yesterday) remained untouched.  it did shift a lot of the plaster abrasive dust off though, thankfully.

2.hand wash, 2BM, wool mitt.

3. Iron-x (applied to front half of car before the back half washed, so 'half a car wash' dwell time)

4. Agitate with mitt nd shampoo

5. pressure wash rinse

6. auto glym tar remover

7. cuppa while it air dried

8. auto finesse trippl3 polish.  applied by DA using a finishing foam pad..err a black one...hex logic possibly...I'll have to check.  used my Argos extreme DA for the first time and a smaller back plate I'd bought.  Bit nervous doing this for the first time but a light polish and a light pad and needs must...  it went ok.  Polisher cold do with a longer lead, I had to put the extension real in the car on the seat in order to reach the roof.  primed pad with sonax bsd, 4 small blobs of tripl3 on pad, blob on to car over a half a panel, wipe about, then turn on at setting 1 or 2 to spread, up the speed to 4 (of 6) and do a crisscross of overlapping passes.  Then REMEMBER to turn off the DA and let it stop BEFORE pulling it off the panel...or else polish flings everywhere...oops.  work a panel and a half and then go back and wipe/buff by hand microfibre.  work around car.

9. 3 hours 45 after start

 

 

10.  it seems to me that Tripl3 sits in auto finesse's range where SRP sits for autoglym, and both will take a sealnt over.  So a quick wipe of autoglym Extra resin polish and the car was garaged to keep it dust free while it hazed.  I've just had lunch and will now go and buff.  And maybe a wipe of sonax if my little girl naps long enough.

 

I'm happy with the shine for a rushed and first full detail!  I know i've missed bits trying not to hit plastic/rubber, and i know i still hit it so I'll have some white marks to deal with but that can wait.

 

 

[neiln]

11. EGP buffed with a clean black finishing pad (its a dodo juice) and speed 4 of 6, tried 6 but 4 seemed better.  then a wipe with a micro fibre

12. Sonax BSD

 

took 4.30 all in, not counting the lunch break.

 

its much better than it was and it needed its spring detail anyway, now its done.  the rush job shows with some excess polish and 'dust' in a few panel gaps still, some white scuffs on plastic and a few smears elsewhere.  Overall though the Tripl3 has done a good swirl removal/filling job!  I like. I alos have a bit more confidence and in the future might take my cutting pad and my heavier polish to the car to tackle the random deeper scratches that are slowly mounting after almost 3 years.  They seem far more obvious right now, as do the paint chips.  Its not up to you guys standards, but its looking pretty smart for its age I think 

Edited 21 April, 2017 by neiln

[samuir1974]

Nice job Neil...... hopefully you enjoyed it;

and sounds like you learned a lot on the day.

ie. what you could do better next time... or products to change.

 

Great results!

 

Cheers,
Ste.

[neiln]

Thank you Ste, and all the others that have 'liked' my post,

its great to get recognition/compliments from you guys.  I've learnt a lot here from you lot and it meant i felt very confident i knew what to do even though i'd not done it before.  I didn't enjoy it at the time but then i was fuming.  i was livid the plasterer had been so careless to mix up plaster close to my car  and leave it utterly covered in something so potentially damaging to the paint.  However once done I was very pleased with the finish and satisfied to finally get my DA out, perhaps the push of necessity did me some good.  product wise

Used before and happy with:

- wool mitt (although annoyingly i can't remember which it is...its grey if that helps)

- Iron x

- farecla clay mitt

- sainsbury basics tea bags 

- auto glym tar remover, although I'm sure there are better products, and i know where to ask for suggestions as the bottle run low now 

- sonax bsd

- Auto Glym Extra Gloss Protection.  I continue to be happy with this, easy to apply so long as you can garage the car to keep it dust free for the hour MINIMUM it takes to haze.  It seems to have good durability and its pretty cheap. However again, I know where to ask for suggestions on alternatives as the couple of bottles in the detailing cupboard run dry.

-Auto glym micro fibre towels.

 

Not used before and a bit ...mleh

- auto finesse citrus power.  It didn't shift some of the oilier marks that I'd thought it might, depsite a 5 minute dwell and using loads...third of a bottle.  however it did shift off the plaster dust well, and that had set on thanks to a light rain shower, so it wasn't useless.  IIRC I did ask about TFR on here but then ignored the suggestions . I bought citrus power as i was ordering a bottle of dressle and just tagged the citrus on to the order.  In future I think I'd try a different TFR, or maybe a snow foam as the Nilfisk came with a snow foam bottle/attachment

 

not used before and impressed by

- The nilfisk compact, for not much more than £60 it seems fine. small and light and simple to use.  may not be the most powerful but i don't want it to be, I don't want to damage things if i'm careless!  the compact doe the job.

- challenge extreme DA.  light enough and easy to use, gets a good finish in my view.  maybe it doesn't have the oomph to do heavy restoration, but I don't have the experience to do that either.  I liked the nice slow start up feature, the short lead is manageable but not ideal, that's a minor weak point though.

- dodo juice black finishing pad.  not much to say - it worked.

- Auto finesse Trippl3.  I'm impressed!  This was a freeby in my order with the citrus and the dressle but I'd buy this again.  at almost 3 the car had a few swirls building, not loads but they were visible easily enough.  currently they are gone, or reduced and hidden.  it was so easy to use and being such a light polish i'd be confident to use it several times a year if I wanted to.  as you can see from the photos, it left a good shiny coat of canuba wax.  I'll buy this again!

 

Most pleasing with the experience was learning i could do all this in not much more than half a day.  If in a real rush i could have left off the AG EGP and been done in under 4 hours including the time to get tools out and put them away.  This means I'm more likely to do it again.  Although I am happy to break things down when really time poor, and do half or a third of the car for example.

 

Oh and one odd thing that happened that i still don't understand, when clay mitting at one point I got a long (2 inch) black smear appear on the car.  instant thought was I'd rubbed too hard and done damage but then realised the smear was the black rubbery stuff off the mitt had stuck to the paint.  the mitt wouldn't remove it but the tar remover wiped it off instantly so i guess something tar-ry was on the car still?

 

what would i do differently? start with a less filthy car.  take a tiny bit more time with the microfibre towel wipes to clean the panel gaps, and to finish with dressle to clean any plastic and rubber and remove any white marks.  Oh and of course....take more photos as i go to post a more thorough thread 

[KarlvRS1991]

Nice work buddy! 

[BATVANVRS]

9 hours ago, neiln said:

Oh and one odd thing that happened that i still don't understand, when clay mitting at one point I got a long (2 inch) black smear appear on the car.  instant thought was I'd rubbed too hard and done damage but then realised the smear was the black rubbery stuff off the mitt had stuck to the paint.  the mitt wouldn't remove it but the tar remover wiped it off instantly so i guess something tar-ry was on the car still?

 

Always good to keep checking the clay-bar or clay mitt very often & definitely make sure that the clay-mitt is always well lubed up as well as the paintwork, sometimes it's good to even give the clay-mitt a quick dip in a clean wash bucket.

[neiln]

27 minutes ago, BATVANVRS said:

 

Always good to keep checking the clay-bar or clay mitt very often & definitely make sure that the clay-mitt is always well lubed up as well as the paintwork, sometimes it's good to even give the clay-mitt a quick dip in a clean wash bucket.

So could it have been just a lack of lube?  i work with super soapy water in a bucket, wash mitt on one hand and clay mitt on the other. dip both, wipe wipe the wash mitt, wipe wipe the clay and move on.  re dip into the water regularly and occasionally wipe the clay on the mesh side of the wash mitt.  in my rush i might have gone too far with a clay mitt wipe perhaps and hit an inch or 2 of dry paintwork?  possible perhaps. 

[labman1001]

She has come up a treat, it's nice to see the finished result