Z51L9889

Incredible job! I just keep shaking my head over the fact that you were able to do that in 6 hours. That would take me more like 6 days and even at that I probably wouldn't get as good a result. :bow:

Awesome job! That car looks wonderful.

Looking good! :2thumbs:

LOL! I should look into that. There are places that make shirts like that with whatever name you want to put on them.

:lol: Now that thair's funny, I don't care who yew are! Basically, just don't call me late for dinner. I do take after the Junkman in that respect.

Is that your truck in the video?

Gee, I'm not using nearly enough wax. After watching the video, I'll start using a lot more ......

I also ran into the same exact problem the other day with my orange pad. I just sent Steve an e-mail about it.

This is my neighbor's car. I was talking to him the night I returned from getting tutored in paint correction by the Junkman. I had told him what I had been doing that day, and he asked me to take a look at some scratches his two cats had put in the car. These cats apparently think they own the car, because they are constantly walking all over it and even sleep on it. Because of that, he has to constantly keep it covered, and even that isn't very effective because they have pulled the cover off a couple of times. Since I was fresh from visiting the Junkman, I offered to give him a quick demo of scratch removal. I did a quck pass on the hood and he was amazed. This quickly turned into a paying gig and an agreement for me to detail his car this past week. The car was pretty thrashed. The swirl marks were really bad and there were also cat claw marks all over the car: The culprits: This car was a real challenge. I had to clay bar the car a total of 4 times (!!!) before it would pass the baggie test. I used half a bar of clay on this car. Porsche clear coat must apparently really be "sticky" when it comes to holding dirt. After two full days, the car was complete. After a couple of test panels, the final procedure was as follows: Two passes with 3M Perfect It rubbing compound and orange pad at 6000 OPM One pass with SHR and an orange pad at 5000 OPM One pass with FMP and a white pad at 5000 OPM One coat of MSW and a 16 hour cure followed by a coat of Americana I'm amazed at the results, and the owner of the car was just completely blown away. He had given up hope that the car would ever look good again without repainting. Here are a couple of hood reflection shots. That's me in the first shot. I wasn't aware that my neighbor had taken this picture until I uploaded them. Here's the obligatory product shot using the reflection of the shelf in the hood (note the Porsche emblem). I want to thank the Junkman once again for taking the time to give me a one-on-one paint correction lesson. I would not have been able to get the results I did without his help. As for my neighbor, he's now an Adam's believer. I placed an order today for more supplies for me and the Car Wash trio and some microfiber towels for him. I'll be giving him car wash lessons as soon as the goodies arrive.

Shhhh! Be vewy vewy qwiet -- I'm hunting scwatches!!!! :lol:

I took a 150 mile road trip to Louisville today to meet the famous Junkman and learn paint correction from the master. I've been attempting correction on a 2006 Chrysler Pacifica, and I ran into an issue with what appeared under halogen lights as faint spider scratches that I just could not get out on my own. A.J. was kind enough to offer to take a try at getting rid of them. The original thread and pictures showing my work to date are here: http://adamsforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2838 I arrived at the Junkman's lair, and after an inspection of the car in the sun, it was pulled into the famous Junkcave where all the magic happens. :bow: We set up the lights and I showed him the scratches I've been battling with. I did not have any luck being able to show them with pictures, but A.J. will back me up that they are quite visible under the Halogens and that they are all over the car. The first step the Junkman made was a pass with SHR and an orange pad. This made no difference in the scratches. We tried again and decided that these particular scratches required more aggressiveness than SHR and an orange pad can provide. We discussed options for a bit, including how to determine the severity level at which wetsanding is required, and decided to try a more aggressive (non-Adam's) pad and compound with the PC before using a Flex or wetsanding. It turns out that the very stiff foam pad and a more aggressive compound were able to remove about 90% of the scratches on the two panels we worked on. I got the opportunity to watch the Junkman in action and learn plus I had him critique my technique. I was glad to learn that my basic technique appears to be sound. A.J made my day when he told me that the 3 1/2 year old finish on this daily driver looked much better than he would have expected -- he thought the car was a year or so old. After a couple of hours, the Junkman got hungry so it was off to the Outback so I could make sure he got fed for his trouble (Junkman -- will work for food ). The carnage was considerable, so let me just say that the man can eat and leave it at that. After chow, I got a personal tour of Louisville in the world-famous Junkman Corvette. The top was out of the car, and the weather was 75-80 degrees and sunny. It just doesn't get much better than that ..... We spent an hour or so driving around the city and then I headed for home. I want to thank A.J. for his willingness to help a perfect stranger and for his outstanding hospitality. It is very much appreciated. The man is a prince. If you ever get a chance to meet him, do it! It was definitely worth the 300 mile round trip. :thumbsup:

Hey!! I resemble that ....

I'm going to do "Junkman's Basic Training Course" this coming Sunday. I'll post up with the results and a summary of the post-waxing meal.

It's amazing what's possible with a good tune and a disciplined right foot.

Whenever we can schedule a time that works for both of us. You're a little over 2 hours away from me, so meeting up isn't really a problem. I'll shoot you a PM a bit later with some time proposals.

I re-did the sides of the vehicle and finished with a coat of MSW this morning. I can still see the scratching under the lights, but the thing looks outstanding in natural light. I can't see the scratches from any angle in the sunlight. I'm going to let the MSW cure for several more hours and then I'll put on a coat of Americana for the "pop". AJ -- I may still take you up on your offer. It would be an excellent chance to learn from the maestro. I'll PM you later.

Thanks for the input. I went back out after I posted and I had some pretty good luck getting some of these scratches out of the hood with FMP and a white pad. I can accept what is left. I've got a couple of trouble spots I'm going to hit one more time and then call it done and move on to waxing.

Ok, ladies and gents, I'm trying again tonight and so far am not having luck with the revised technique. Here is a series of pictures to try and illustrate what I'm doing. Here is the damage I am trying to correct. They are light random scratches about a few inches long. I have these in varying lengths and concentrations all over the car. The light has to hit them right to be visible, but they really show if you look at the right angle. For reference, the camera is showing about 1/3 of what I can see. I tried FMP and then SHR on a white pad with no luck, so I moved on to an orange pad. Here is the amount of product I'm using and the area I am working: I worked the panel until it looked like this (the product had mostly disappeared) using a very slow motion (about 20 seconds to go the length of the area): I tried with moderate pressure, still allowing rotary motion, with no success. I then repeated with very heavy pressure. Here is the result: Basically no change after four passes, two using the most aggressive combination. I can't imagine that these scratches are too deep to correct with a PC based on some of the pictures I've seen here on the forum. This is about a 90% elimination of the damage I started with. The car looks 1000% better than when I started. I'm just stuck trying to get that last 10%. For reference, here is the worst scratch on the car: Hopefully these pictures will allow the experts to get a better idea of what I'm working with and allow them to guide me in the right direction. Thanks again for all the advice.

Got my shipment of APC and DS gallons today, along with a tub of APW, so I'm ready to continue honing my technique. I've got to do a down and back run to Knoxville to pick up my son this weekend, so hopefully I will be ready to have another go at the car Sunday evening.

I finally got a chance to inspect my work in the daylight, and it actually looks much better outside than under the halogen lights at night. I would say that about 90% of the swirls, etc are gone based on the daylight inspection as opposed to the 60-70% I stated earlier when I checked it under the lights. I wonder, couldthe pearl in the paint be reflecting the sunlight differently than the halogen light and hiding some of the flaws? Here are some pictures. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the camera to capture exactly what I wanted to show. There are small scratches and light swirls visible to the eye that did not show up in the pictures. I'm not a photographer so please excuse the quality of the pictures. This first shot of the hood shows about 1/2 of what I could see. Keep in mind that this is after 6-7 hours of work on the hood alone, and this paint was in far better condition than a lot of the before pictures I have seen here on the forum. Only one heavy scratch shows here, but there are several small scratches in this area also. This picture is a pretty good representation of what I see under the lights. The whole car has little swirl scratches like this. For some reason, most of this stuff disappeared in the sun. The long horizontal scratch is a left over from an encounter with a storage shelf a few years ago. I was able to wetsand out almost all the damage. Another shot of the same area: In general, I'm pretty pleased with the results. The paint is nice and shiny, even without any wax. I have to apologize for going on a bit of a rant with my first post in the thread. The car looks TONS better in the daylight, as the above shot shows, although I feel like I should be able to get rid of all but a couple of the scratches even in the most unflattering light conditions. I'll try to get after the damage that is left in the next couple of days using less product and a small work area. As far as product goes, I'm thinking I'll start with SHR on a white pad. Suggestions and comments are welcomed.

Have I got a grill? The man wants to know if I have a grill ????? Weber Summit Series -- not sold in many stores. I had to order it directly from Weber. 60,000 BTU, all stainless, side burner, oh YESSSSSSS!! Unfortunately, just like everything else I own, it needs detailing too. Louisville is not that far at all. I'll give it another go and if I can't get it where I want, it will be "Junkman to the Rescue"!

Thanks for the responses! I haven't had a chance to do a close inspection of the car in the sun yet, but I'll do that today and get some pictures. However, I could see swirls, etc fairly easily under the lights in the garage, so I'm sure I'll find more in natural light. Adam -- thank you for your support and generous offer! It is very rare to find a company that has this level of customer service. Also, there is absolutely no need to apologize for my lack of results. As I stated before, I'm sure it's my technique and not the products. I will try again in the next day or two using less product and a smaller panel size per the recommendations and see what that gets me.

I use a wooden storage container my wife got for $10 from IKEA and didn't use. The lid is currently an old beach towel. I'm going to make a lid that I can set on the ground and use to hold my products while I'm working.

I'll get some pictures tomorrow. I didn't get a chance to do it tonight.

I attempted my first paint correction over the weekend on my 2006 Pacifica. We have owned it a bit over 3 years, and I'm ashamed to admit that I have never waxed it. In general, the paint is in decent shape. It does have spider and swirl marks but they are what I would call moderate at worst. Other than the original dealer prep, the car either has been washed by hand or in a touchless wash. I washed, clayed, and dried the car with compressed air Friday night. I then went inside and got ready to work by watching both the Adam's CD and the Junkman series as well as reading a bunch of the threads. After spending two full days on the car, I have gone over every panel at least once with SHR and FMP. I did get a noticeable reduction in swirls etc, but I am by no means swirl free. I tried several different techniques and nothing really seemed to work all that well. I spent literally the entire day on Saturday on the hood. After a full day with mixed results at best, I went ahead and did SHR/FMP on the rest of the car as best I could. Here is a partial list of what I tried on the hood: Worked in small sections, no bigger than 2 ft x 2 ft. For example, I did the hood in six sections, each door was two sections, and so on. For the area described above, I used a thin continuous circle of product applied about 1/2 to 1" in from the edge of the pad. I worked the product until I had a uniform greasy looking haze and did at least two full cycles of criss-cross motion. I was using a very slow steady motion. For grins, I timed myself at 30 seconds to travel the width of the hood. I started with SHR/orange, heavy pressure on the PC (enough to almost stall the pad and really heat up the buffer) at 5K OPM. I did two passes and maybe 1/2 the marks came out. I cranked the PC up to 6K and did two more passes with no change. I then tried FMP/orange with no change in technique with no change in the finish. By that point, my arms were so tired that I tried the Junkman's technique of letting the action of the buffer do the work with moderate pressure. I did two passes of SHR/orange this way and noticed some difference in gloss but no difference in the number of scratches. Since the Junkman indicated in his videos that he got better results with FMP with his technique, I tried that too. Again, I didn't notice much difference. At this point, I had spent almost 7 hours just on the hood and corrected maybe 60-70% of the damage. I was so discouraged I called it a day. On Sunday, I decided to do the rest of the car with SHR/orange and FMP/white and take whatever improvement that got me. At this point, the paint is clean and shiny, but I still have noticeable scratching. I did a coat of MSW on the roof for protection reasons but I left the rest of the car as is because I figure I'll go at it again after I get some advice. I know the problem is with my technique and not the products. Nevertheless, I'm extremely frustrated. I tried both popular methods shown in the videos and repeated them exactly. I know that I applied more than enough pressure using Adam's method -- I was pushing so hard during a couple of passes on the hood that the PC was really laboring and got extremely hot. I also tried lesser amounts of pressure. I washed the pads several times during the course of the ordeal just to make sure I got maximum effectiveness in addition to varying the amount of product I used. Nothing I tried seemed to work. I'm out of ideas. Please help ......