avimore

Well, spring came and went and so did summer. Here it is fall and I finally worked on my 08 Astra headlights today.  Just Heavy Correcting Polish and microfiber pad didn't touch the hot mess of my headlights.  So I proceeded to I fumble through the wet-sanding. I got progressively better/ halfway acceptable as I went (I think?). I used 600, 800, 1000, 2000, 3000 grit. Then polished with the microfiber and Heavy Correcting, then Correcting w/ orange pad, followed by Finishing polish and pad using a SK Mini. I put sealant down afterward. Will probably put PPF on them. No awards to win here, but 100% better, and pleased!  
Takeaways: 1. I didn't have a blue foam pad, and think that would have been just the ticket after the microfiber pad.  I'm going to use my $5 scratch-off coupon to justify my shipping for getting the pads ordered and delivered before my next larger order. 2. I started polishing using my 3 inch orbital (non Adam's) and I was left a little "wanting," if you will.  I used my Pop's SK Mini (which I gave him for his bday) and I am a little jealous.  It's way better than mine. 3. I have put PS down only by hand before today.  Never again.  It was way better by machine. Was able to get the right amount, so buffing off was super easy. (I have the old PS.) 
 

Turned out great, nice work!
Yep, Skoda Octavia I believe @mc2hill
 

Maybe if you ceramic coated it afterwards it would last longer...lol

Hi Guys, 
Took me a while to get around to doing this but posting some pics for you. Unfortunately, I was not able to take pictures during the process, I don't have a closed garage and the lighting was very poor where I detailed the car. Not exactly poor, but definitely not sufficient. I need to invest in some lights as I kept coming across product residue at various stages. 
All in all, I am extremely happy with the results, I definitely made some mistakes, thankfully nothing major. But for my very first detail it was a fantastic experience and I got a sense of how I can be better next time around. Since the detail I have done a waterless wash as well, it's way too dusty here. 
Enough talking, onto the pics. Below is delivery day condition, car had been sitting in a dusty lot. Despite its condition the pain was in really good condition. No swirls or scratches. Obviously it was difficult to inspect it in this condition but I was willing to risk it as I didn't want the dealer to wash it. 

 
Delivery miles.. actually odd read 6kms when I picked it up. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Let me know what you guys think!! 
 
Cheers,
 
Nikhil 

Tools of the trade for application

Dan@adams stated to clean with ceramic in between the restorer and ceramic coating. 

I love the RW. I can wash all 4 cars in the driveway in less than 45 minutes (suburban, crew cab pickup, 5-series bmw and my beater neon). Im sure I could bang them all out in 30 if they were smaller. 
 
I haven't found a good solution to wheels and tires yet, but I give the cars an actual wash every 4-6 weeks and with GnG on the wheels and TireShine on the tires, they look good for those weeks. 

Wife and I carved Jack-o-lanterns! 

Washed, clayed and sealed. Also did a headlights restoration. This was 2 weekends ago. Also did a light detail on the interior. Vacuum and wipe down.

Great idea! Or even just pick 3 for “X” price or something like that.

I was thinking of purchasing a bunch of different hex applicators, since it appears that a few of mine have wandered off....  
Would it be possible for you guys to put together a hex applicator kit that includes maybe the yellow, red, and black applicators at a discounted price?
Thanks!

Could've saved yourself some time and just posted a link to the Adams website...

Ah, the dread Righty loosey..........Lefty tighty.  

Seems the bottles are in upside-down in the product picture. Carry the case from the handle and you better pray the tops don't leak. 

So to make a long story short, a friend of mine posted on Facebook that she really needed her son’s car seat detailed and wanted to know if anyone could do that. So being the Adam’s fanatic that I am, I said that I could do it. 
 
I did it and and the results were just awesome. Now I have several people in my area asking me to detail their car seat. Who knew that this could be a thing? 

Nice work.  Congrats on your first paint correction.  
A suggestion to help the camera focus on defects when you're shooting before photos is to mark the point on the paint you want to really show with a piece of masking tape.  Most cameras can't pick up the damage as a focal point, but it will pick up a tab of blue masking tape on a red car.  Just food for thought and a pointer on trying to photograph damage.
 

Sorry for such a late response and update on things with my first attempt at paint correction.  I was able to finally get started on this and give this a try, words can't even begin to describe how nervous I was to do this.  I've heard sooo many horror stories of burning through paint.  That alone has had me kinda finding excuses to put this off one more day lol.  Well this morning I woke up and put my big kid pants on and set out to try as well as learn this process.  My goal today was not to do a whole car, it was to focus on the hood, try different techniques, and learn the process in general.  I started this morning by doing a strip wash on the entire vehicle, followed that by visco claying the entire vehicle, and then just to be anal I strip washed the car again.  With the help of my sidekick blaster I got the car completely dry and got started.  I pulled up the video yet again on the paint correction process and watched it one more time to build some confidence lol.  I started small with just the correcting compound and the orange foam pad, it didn't really seem to do much.  I stepped up to the heavy correcting compound and blue foam, this didn't do much.  I was getting a little discouraged and then the light bulb went off, this car had a generic ceramic coating applied at the dealership. 
I moved to the microfiber cutting pad and the heavy correcting compound and worked slow constantly checking my work and progress to see what different sweep speeds did for me.  I used speed setting 5 on the 15mm swirl killer initially and bumped up to 6.  After getting into a groove with things I was starting to get it dialed in and things started progressing nicely.  Once I got done with the microfiber cutting pad I moved to the blue foam and gave it another quicker pass.  From there I moved to the orange foam and correcting compound and was REALLY starting to see some great results!!!  Once I was satisfied with how things looked after the orange pad and correcting compound I decided to go for the gusto and use the finishing polish.  The orange correcting compound and orange pad had the paint looking pretty damn good, especially considering how the paint looked before I started.  After the polishing compound and white foam pad, all I can say is HOLY CRAP!!!!  This hood looks amazing and I couldn't be happier with the results!!!  The paint looks sooo smooth and clear and a foot deep, almost like you could stick your hand into it. 
I want to thank everyone who provided tips and input for my first time at paint correcting, I'm VERY happy with the results even though it's just the hood at this point!!!  Here are some before and after pics to show off the results.  The only bad thing with the pics is they really don't give you a true sense of just how fugly the paint was prior.
Again, thank you all for your help, tips, and input!!!
Tony

Sorry Ed, I don't see a setting to make a click on the thread title take you to the first unread post.
You will have to re-train your clicker finger to hit the small black dot or star next to the thread title to jump to the first unread post.

+1

Hey guys!  So....I went up to the NC/TN mountains this past weekend, to drive on the US129 Tail of the Dragon with a big group of other similar cars.  Pontiac G8's, Chevy SS's, and Pontiac GTO's mostly.  Basically, all cars that were actually built by GM Holden, in Australia.  We had over 50 cars there this weekend.  Many people drove up from FL, GA, the Carolinas, Ohio, and Indiana!  It was an amazing weekend, and I had a ton of fun.
Anyway, once I got home, I was informed that my car was in a picture featured on the "Photos of the Week," and whoever gets the most votes wins a poster of their picture.  I'm currently 19 votes away from 1st place, with 163 votes.  I'd love it if you guys could help me smash that 1st place number.  All you need to do is go to www.129photos.com and find the picture below, and click the "like" button below the picture.  No signing in, or data entry required.
If you help me out, I'll love you forever!  lol.  Thanks!

And now I just found that if you click on the little black dot or star next to the thread title, it takes you to the first unread post. 

Not sure if this is something I can change in my personal settings, but when I click on "unread content" and then click on a topic that has multiple pages, it should go directly to the last page instead of the first page.  I believe this was how it was set up previously.

Not sure if this is something I can change in my personal settings, but when I click on "unread content" and then click on a topic that has multiple pages, it should go directly to the last page instead of the first page.  I believe this was how it was set up previously.

Has anyone ever heard the story of the Wolf who cried wolf? 
 
Sorry about that.  I'm not sure why a few new items did not get released today, since the sale discount code was up all day.  But, at least some of you knew to wait to see what the new products are, rather than place an order after seeing the sale discount code on the website banner.

Here's a couple pics of my Shelby GT500. I loved both pics so you decide !! 

I have two different cars and had a hard choice trying to choose a picture, this month is the TBSS.